Chapter 16 - The Husband I Buried

Now

The train ride out to Thomson Street to see the beagle pup took longer than expected. Carmen’s property sat behind a long stretch of gravel road, bordered by overgrown hedges and the kind of silence that made your ears ring, and I had to walk it. I should’ve organized an Uber.

Carmen answered the door, wiping her hands on a towel like she’d just been baking – earthy and cheerful. ‘You must be Mackenzie! Come on through, the pups are just having a nap.’

The place smelled faintly of hay and coffee. Through the kitchen window, I could see a garden with neat rows of vegetables and a scarecrow watching over them.

We stepped into a side room where two small beagles slept curled together in a wicker basket. The soft sound of their breathing hit me square in the chest.

‘Oh,’ I whispered. ‘She’s even cuter in person.’

Carmen smiled. ‘We believe in keeping our animals healthy. Her parents are from excellent lines. That one—’ she nodded toward the other pup, who was stirring at the sound of our voices ‘—has a bit of a curious streak, but she’s a sweetheart.’

As if on cue, the pup toddled toward me, sniffed my hand and went back to napping, while the first pup clumsily climbed onto my knee. Her fur was warm, her heartbeat quick.

‘She likes you,’ Carmen said. ‘You can take her today if you want. She had her shots last week. She’s all paid up and ready.’

I barely heard her, distracted by the puppy licking my hand.

‘I caught the train out,’ I said. The pup was looking at me as if saying hello. ‘But I can pay now and organize pickup later.’

Carmen hesitated. Just a flicker of something in her expression – annoyance? Or curiosity? ‘Train, huh? Not many people do that around here.’

‘I work in the city,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t want to miss out, so I came straight from work.’

Her smile returned, polite but distant. ‘Well, she’ll be waiting. But I do have a policy on when you need to collect her.’

I nodded, reaching down to stroke the puppy’s head. She looked up at me with those trusting eyes, and for a heartbeat, I forgot to feel sad.

‘I’ll be in touch later this evening,’ I said softly.

As I turned to leave, Carmen followed me out. ‘Oh – and Mackenzie?’

I paused at the door.

‘I was hoping to meet your husband, Luis?’

My breath caught. I hadn’t said anything about Luis. ‘How— Why?’

Carmen’s smile didn’t waver. ‘He put in the application.’ She absently redirected one of the pups who was about to leave the room. ‘I spoke to him over the phone. Lovely guy.’

How long ago had they spoken? Carmen probably wouldn’t remember. She had no reason to, and she had probably spoken to a bunch of people, organizing homes for all the pups.

I forced a laugh I didn’t feel. ‘Right. Of course.’

But the back of my neck prickled. ‘He couldn’t make it today,’ I said, leaving it there.

I left the pup behind reluctantly, promising her I’d come back soon, and Carmen insisted on dropping me at the station.

Usually, Luis and I would’ve made the trip back together by car, one of us driving while the other fiddled with the radio or rolled the windows down to let the air whip through the car. I could almost picture it. Luis’s hand reaching across to squeeze my knee, the lazy brush of his thumb over my skin. The memory struck me like a blunt blade, still sharp enough to sting.

Now it was just me and a stranger.

‘I could have walked,’ I told Carmen. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘No problem,’ she said with a smile.

It was true, though. I would rather have walked. Walking was my therapy these days. Ten thousand steps per day, my app proudly reminded me, as if steps could measure the distance between who I’d been and who I was now. Since Luis died, I’d even started jogging – pounding the pavement until my lungs burned, punishing myself into exhaustion until I was too tired to even think.

Carmen dropped me off, and now here I was, standing on the platform, hugging my coat tighter against the chill, waiting for the next outbound train.

I’d have to find another way to get my steps in.

The station was quiet. A teenage boy sat slouched against a bench, headphones clamped over his ears. A woman in a camel-colored trench coat tapped at her phone, her nails clicking against the screen.

And then I saw him.

Further down the platform, a man standing tall, shoulders squared as he shifted his weight in that familiar way Luis always did after a long day. His dark hair caught the light. Hair I’d run my fingers through a hundred times.

My heart stuttered.

It couldn’t be.

From this distance, it could have been a trick of the light. But as I edged closer, the resemblance sharpened. Same lean frame, same height, even the same jut of the bottom lip that Luis did when he was thinking.

I’d clung to those details like a drowning woman grasping at driftwood. The things that made Luis Luis. I’d tried so hard to hold on to them after he died, terrified they’d fade. And now they were standing in front of me, outlined in perfect detail.

My pulse hammered in my ears. It wasn’t possible. Luis was dead. A few months ago, I’d opened the door to two uniformed officers delivering the news with mechanical sympathy. I’d grieved. I’d thrown dirt onto his coffin with my own trembling hand.

I’d traced the letters of his name on his headstone, getting as close to him as I could, whispering to him. In those first few weeks, I’d visited regularly, unsure how to let go.

And now, I couldn’t look away.

It was him. It had to be. No two people could be that alike. Even identical twins had differences, a feature that gave away which twin they were.

If I kept staring like this, I would draw attention to myself. I was already at risk of being labelled a weirdo, but I didn’t care. Because the closer I got, the more certain I became. It was him.

He must have sensed me staring.

He looked up.

Our eyes met. Just for a second. Or maybe I only wanted to believe they did. Because his expression was flat, unbothered. No flicker of recognition. No warmth. Nothing that said I know you. It was like he was looking at something beyond me. Like he hadn’t seen me.

As if I was a stranger, our life together before the accident erased.

I took another step forward, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. I was so close. The train’s brakes screamed, metal on metal, drowning out the sound of my own breath. I opened my mouth to call his name—

A gust of air swallowed the word whole, the sound dying on my lips. He stepped onto the train, slipping inside without a backward glance.

Why was he here, and where was he going?

Where had he been all this time?

I had to know.

Before I could think, I was moving. Pushing through the thinning crowd as the doors ahead swallowed him.

I jumped into another carriage, just as the doors sealed shut. My heart was a drumbeat of panic and disbelief. I dropped into a seat by the window, breath ragged, trying to steady my shaking hands. The train lurched forward, wheels clanging over the tracks, gaining speed.

It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t. I’d buried him.

Yet my skin prickled, every nerve alive with certainty. He was the only person who had ever made me react like that.

I leaned my elbow against the window, and propped my head in my hand, wondering if what I thought I’d seen was even real. But here I was. On the train to wherever he was going.

If I could’ve touched him, maybe I’d know for sure. Maybe my hand would’ve passed through him like smoke, a ghost conjured by grief. Phantasm. My aching heart tricking me into believing Luis was still here.

I should have shouted louder. Screamed. I should have made a scene. What did pride matter if it meant he answered? If he’d just said my name, even once, I’d have known. I’d know his voice anywhere.

And now, all I had was doubt.

Up until now, I’d been pretending. Pretending I was healing, that time was softening the edges of my grief. But just one glimpse, one impossible moment, and everything was ripped open again, raw and howling.

That’s the thing about grief. You can bury it, busy yourself until there’s no room left for feeling. But it always waits. Patient. Ruthless. Calling the shots.

Jessica warned me that I needed to deal with my feelings, and I thought I had been, in my own way.

Still, grief didn’t explain this.

I closed my eyes and saw him again, standing on the platform. I hadn’t imagined it. I’d seen him. He was real.

Logic clawed at the edges of my mind, desperate for control. I believed in rationality. In facts. It was easy to think I’d seen exactly the thing I wanted most, but doppelgängers existed. Cities are full of lookalikes. Statistically, it wasn’t even that rare. That’s what I told myself. Over and over. But my heart wasn’t listening.

Deep down, beneath all the rationalizations, I knew. I’d seen my husband. Or a very convincing ghost. Either way, I wouldn’t be able to let it go. Not until I knew for certain.

The train slowed for the next stop. My eyes scanned the windows, desperate, searching for him among the faces. I thought about following, moving through carriages, stepping off at each station to get on the next carriage, until I found him.

But before I could decide, the doors were sliding shut. I put my hand in the gap between them as they closed, but I was too late. I sat back down, lucky to find a seat, ignoring the looks I was getting from the other passengers for almost slowing their journey as the train lurched forward.

I pressed my hand against my forehead, scanning the platform as it slipped away.

There was no sign of him.

My hands trembled in my lap. Maybe he’d gotten off the train without me noticing.

Maybe I’d lost him.

No. I couldn’t accept that.

I pulled out my phone, thumb hovering over the screen though I didn’t know who I’d call or what I’d say. My reflection stared back at me in the glass – wide-eyed, pale, trembling.

I wasn’t crazy.

I had seen something.

For now, it was a man. A man who looked just like my husband.

And if it really was Luis, then everything I thought I knew about life, death, and the man I’d loved was a lie.

The law teaches you to look for evidence, but sometimes it’s what’s missing that matters most.

Once you start looking, piecing together events, you can’t stop.

It’s why I chose the job I did, searching for answers, for the reasons people do the things they do.

If Luis really is alive, why did he let me think he was dead?