Chapter 1

The rejection letter for Danny' s after-school program felt like a physical blow, the cheap paper crinkling in my trembling hand. It said the dependent spot was already filled by another child of Sergeant First Class Tom Barnes. My Tom.

"Another child?" I whispered, the words catching in my throat.

Danny, my sweet five-year-old, looked up from his worn-out dinosaur book, his big eyes questioning.

When I confronted Tom that night, he was all smooth reassurances, his "model soldier" mask firmly in place.

"Sarah, honey, it's just a temporary thing," he said, his arm around my shoulder, a gesture that once felt comforting now felt like a restraint.

"It's for Kyle, Crystal' s boy. You remember Crystal? From my old unit? Her husband died a hero, a Gold Star widow, Sarah. She needs help, and listing Kyle helps her with benefits, helps me look good for my promotion. It's nothing."

"But Danny needs that program, Tom," I pleaded, my voice small. "I can't afford anything else. I need to work."

"Don't make a scene, Sarah," he said, his voice hardening slightly. "It' s temporary. And I have a solution for Danny. He can come live with me near my duty station for a while. Unofficially. Keep him out of Crystal' s hair, you know?"

My heart sank, but he painted it as the only way, for his career, for "helping a hero's family." I was a trusting wife then, a fool. I believed him, or I wanted to.

A week later, I was putting Danny on a Greyhound bus, his small backpack filled with his favorite snacks and that faded blue t-shirt with the cartoon rocket ship he adored.

"Be a good boy for Daddy, okay, sweetie?" I said, my voice thick with unshed tears as I hugged him tight.

He nodded, brave but his lower lip trembled. "I love you, Mommy."

"I love you more, baby."

That was the last time I saw him whole.

Three days later, the call came. Not from Tom, but from a cold-voiced state trooper. An incident on the bus route. An abduction. Danny was gone.

Tom arrived a day after that, not with comfort, but with blame.

"If you hadn't made such a fuss about the program," he seethed, his face a mask of fury, "if you were just stronger, this wouldn't have happened."

He told me Danny was probably gone for good, that I needed to "move on." He didn't grieve, he just... erased.

The only thing they ever found was a small, tattered piece of that blue rocket ship t-shirt, snagged on a barbed-wire fence miles from the bus route.

Tom left me alone in our empty house, with the silence and the shred of blue fabric. He went back to his "duties," back to Crystal and Kyle.

The weight of it all, the crushing guilt Tom piled on me, the unbearable emptiness where Danny' s laughter used to be, it was too much.

The pills looked like a peaceful escape.

I swallowed them, one after another, praying for oblivion.

The darkness took me.