The pain of losing my son a year ago was a wound that never truly healed. Each day was a struggle, but with time, I learned to cope, to find some semblance of normalcy in a world that had been shattered by grief.

My closest friend, Anna, had been my rock through it all. She was there to lend a shoulder to cry on, to offer words of comfort when the weight of my loss felt too heavy to bear. And when she got a job in another city and moved away, I was happy for her, grateful that she had found a new opportunity to start fresh.

But despite the distance between us, Anna and I remained close. We talked on the phone regularly, sharing updates about our lives and reminiscing about old times. So when I decided to surprise her with a visit, I didn’t think twice about hopping on a plane and making the journey to her new home.

As I approached her house, my heart raced with excitement. I couldn’t wait to see Anna again, to catch up and share a laugh like we used to. But when I stepped through the front door, the sight that greeted me stopped me dead in my tracks.

There, standing in the living room, was my son. Alive and well, with a smile on his face as he looked up at me in surprise. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My mind reeled with confusion and disbelief as I struggled to comprehend what I was seeing.

Anna rushed forward, her expression filled with concern as she tried to explain. She told me that my son was an adopted boy, that she and her husband had decided to give him a home after learning about my loss. But her words fell on deaf ears, drowned out by the overwhelming shock of the moment.

Unable to process the situation on my own, I turned to the authorities for help. I filed a report with the police, desperate for answers, for some explanation that would make sense of the impossible truth that had been laid bare before me.

And as the investigation unfolded, the pieces of the puzzle slowly began to fall into place. It turned out that…