The double doors at the back of the gym hit the wall with a bang that made half the room jump.
My son was in the middle of the second verse. He was standing alone on that little stage with his father’s old guitar, his voice thin and shaking but holding, and every parent in the room was either crying or trying very hard not to.
Then the doors opened, and two police officers walked in.
Full uniform. Dark blue. Belts, radios, badges catching the light from the high gym windows.
I knew that walk. I’d know it anywhere. Slow, heavy, careful. It’s the walk of someone coming to tell you something you don’t want to hear.
My whole body went cold.
I’d spent eleven years of my marriage waiting for that walk. Every night David worked a late shift, I’d lie awake listening for a car in the driveway that wasn’t his. Two officers at the door. Hats in their hands. That was the picture I carried around in my head for over a decade.
