It was a quiet evening, just me in the kitchen doing dishes, when I heard the front door open. I thought it was Penny, just coming back from soccer practice. So, I called out, “Hey Penny! How was practice?” But instead of her voice, I heard footsteps getting closer to the kitchen. I figured she was rushing in, but when I turned around, it wasn’t Penny.
I thought I was looking at a ghost
It was my deceased husband. I hadn’t seen him in five years, not since he died. He was standing there, looking older, like five years had passed for him too. He was looking at me like he was scared, and he just said, “I didn’t know where else to go.” I couldn’t move. I honestly thought I was seeing things.
He completely betrayed me
I reached out, touched his arm, and, yeah, he was real. It felt like nothing had changed. I asked him “How? Why would you do this to us?” I couldn’t believe it. He started telling me his story. Apparently, after he left, he found some woman online. She was everything he thought he wanted. He left us, moved far away to be with her. Turns out, she wasn’t real. He’d been catfished. Lost money, everything.
He thought he could come back to his old life again
He didn’t know what else to do, so he tried to start over. Menial jobs, just scraping by. After all that time, he realized he couldn’t keep running. He wanted to come back, to see me and Penny again, but he never thought I’d even talk to him. I was just speechless. What do I do now?
