My 27 y.o. wife died unexpectedly and I’ve been raising our 4 y.o. son alone. I still keep her phone by my bedside. Last night, it chimed—there was a text: ’’Trix, I’ll be home in 20 mins.’’ It felt eerie —Trix was her nickname in college. But then I fully broke down when I saw a reply being typed back. It said, “I miss my daughter. I can’t stop thinking about her. I will not wait any longer. We should finalize our plan on how to bring her from her dad’s house tonight!

I started searching through her phone and froze in shock when I found her chat history. There were hundreds of text messages from the past couple of weeks and conversations with this guy we both knew from our college days.

My world fell apart, and I can’t tell if this is real or if someone is playing a cruel game with me. For now, I will make sure my son sleeps next to me.