Chapter 1: The Day I Died

The day I died, the ones who cried the hardest were the women in my husband’s household. Even as I faded, the sharp scent of lemon polish and cold air clung to the Whitaker home. Their cries—blunt, honest, full of that raw, Midwestern ache you only hear at small-town funerals—echoed through the halls, mixing with the winter wind that rattled the windowpanes. It struck me, almost as a bitter joke, that these women—each tangled in her own brand of loss—would be the loudest mourners at my passing.

After twenty years in this world—ever since I woke up in this time and place—I could finally let go. Relief and regret tangled inside me, as if I’d been holding my breath for decades.

Two decades in Maple Heights, and it still sometimes startled me how thoroughly this life had become mine. Every knickknack in the house, every stubborn old oak on our property, felt as though they’d been waiting for me to surrender.