I bu:ried my son fifteen years ago.
His name was Howard. He was only four—far too small for a coffin, far too young for a goodbye like that.
They told me it was a sudden infection. Fast. Unpredictable. The kind no one could stop in time.
All I knew was that my child was gone.
I remember signing papers through tears. A nurse gently placed a hand on my shoulder and told me not to look too long—that it was better to remember him as he had been.
So I listened.
I was shattered. The hospital was in chaos that night—a storm had knocked out parts of the system, and everything was being handled manually. People relied on wristbands, charts, and trust.
I didn’t know then how dangerous that was.
Howard had a birthmark just below his left ear.
I never forgot that.
Years later, I moved away and started over in a small town. I worked at a café where no one knew my story. I made coffee, wiped counters, and learned how to keep going—even if I never called it healing.
But some memories never fade.
Especially that birthmark. Small, oval, uneven.
I used to kiss it every night before bed.
I hadn’t let myself think about it in years.
Until one day… I saw it again.
It was a busy shift when a young man stepped up to the counter.
“Black coffee,” he said.
He looked about nineteen or twenty. Nothing unusual—until he tilted his head slightly.
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