Unhinged Widower Begging to Die Online

I read Daniel's post at 2:13 a.m. in a rented room above a laundromat, with the phone pressed so hard into my palm that the case creaked. The forum was called After the Wake. I had joined under a name no one could connect to mine, because I wanted to know whether other people still heard their dead loved ones in the ordinary sounds of a house. I had never posted. I only read. Daniel's username was HarborLight. "I look fine," he had written. "I go to work. I eat when people put food in front of me. I pay the bills. Everyone says I'm handling it. I don't want to wake up tomorrow, but I don't know how to say that without making the people around me responsible for keeping me alive." The post had been made six hours earlier. Replies sat below it. One person had asked if he was in immediate danger. Another had urged him to call a crisis line and tell someone nearby. Daniel hadn't answered either one. I typed his name into the search bar. Three more posts appeared. "I still set out two cups." "I keep thinking if I make it to the one-year mark, I'll feel something different." "People say I have to let her go. I don't know what that means when she's the only person I ever wanted to come home to." I stopped breathing for a moment. A year ago, I had walked away from the life I had built with Daniel Mercer. I'd let the coast guard search Bellwether Bay for me. I'd left my coat on the rocks below the north bluff and taken a bus inland under my middle name. There had been no body, no official death certificate, no insurance payout. Only a missing-person report, an empty house, and the knowledge that if I stayed, Daniel would keep deciding what I could afford to lose. The next morning, I called the one person who knew where I had gone. "Maisie," I said when she answered. She made a small, broken sound. "You saw it." "You knew?" "I saw his posts last night. I didn't know what else to do." My sister's voice was tight with anger. "I wasn't going to tell him where you are. I wasn't going to decide for you. But I didn't want him alone with that." I stared at the phone. "Is he in danger?" "I don't know. He's still going to work. He's still running the inn. That's all I can tell you." "How does he look?" "Like Daniel." That answer made my chest hurt. I had expected him to look ruined. I had expected to feel relief when he didn't. Instead, I had to imagine him making coffee, opening the inn's front doors, and carrying on as if my absence had become one more thing to manage. "I can't just show up," I said. "I know." "If he sees me, it could make everything worse." "I know." I had to decide whether my fear was more important than the words he had written. By noon, I had bought a bus ticket to Bellwether Bay. ***** The ride took five hours. I watched the land flatten toward the coast and tried to tell myself I was going back for a short visit. I would see Daniel from a distance. I would make sure he wasn't alone. Then I would leave before my presence reopened the wound. The Salt House Inn stood on a bluff above the harbor, white paint weathered silver at the corners. My mother had bought it when I was twelve. After she died, it became mine. Daniel had repaired the roof, patched the pipes, and helped me turn it into a place where people came for quiet weekends and bad weather. He had also forged my signature on a loan that put the inn at risk. I stepped through the front door at four in the afternoon. A bell rang above me. The lobby smelled like lemon oil and wet wool. Daniel stood behind the front desk, sleeves rolled to his elbows. His hair was shorter than I remembered. He wore the same silver watch I'd given him on our fifth anniversary. For a second, I couldn't move. He looked up. His eyes passed over my face. Then his hand stopped above the guest ledger. I had planned to say nothing. I had planned to leave without being seen. "Can I help you?" he asked. His voice was steady. His expression was almost polite. I swallowed. "I need a room." He held my gaze. His skin had gone pale. "Of course," he said. "How many nights?" "I don't know yet." He looked down at the screen, and the movement broke whatever fragile thing had held us still. "Name?" I could have lied. I had come back under the name I was born with, but I could have used another. "Nora Bell," I said. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. The silence stretched. Then he typed it in. "One room, Nora Bell."