Twelve days after my husband Daniel died, I caught our neighbor, Monica, climbing over my fence with bags full of his apples. Daniel had always treasured our apple trees, carefully tending them every autumn. Our eight-year-old son, Ben, loved helping him. Before his death, Daniel had looked at the trees and told us they would keep feeding the family long after he was gone.
When I returned from the funeral, I found Monica stealing the harvest. She claimed she needed the fruit to sell, but her cruel words about Daniel being gone broke my heart. As she climbed back over the fence, she looked at me and said, “Funny how much your life depended on one red light twenty-seven years ago.” I froze because only Daniel and I knew the real story of the accident that brought us together.
The next morning, I discovered that every apple had been taken. Broken branches and Daniel’s fallen ladder covered the garden. I knew Monica had returned after I confronted her. This was no longer about fruit. I searched online and found an old photograph of Monica and Daniel from twenty-seven years earlier. Suddenly, I realized my husband had kept something from me.
