My name is Rebecca, though most people call me Becky. I’m thirty years old, and two years ago, my life shattered beyond repair. I lost my little boy, Caleb. He was five. My sunshine. My anchor. My reason for breathing.
It was a senseless accident, the kind you never see coming. One moment he was in the backyard, chasing bubbles, laughter spilling like music into the air. The next… I was on the phone, my voice raw, begging for an ambulance. I can’t finish that memory without collapsing under the weight of it.
That day, something in me died too.
Since then, people say I’m “functioning.” Therapist words, neat and clinical, as if survival can be measured. It means: I get up. I work. I pay the bills. I exist. But inside, I am trapped in a glass box, suffocating silently.
The only thing that kept me tethered to this world was Caleb’s cedar chest. It sat quietly in our bedroom, his whole little life folded carefully inside.
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His green dinosaur hoodie with felt spikes down the back.
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His sneakers, forever untied because he hadn’t learned the knots yet.
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His crayon drawings where we were superheroes, and he gave himself wings.
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His silver bracelet, passed down from my grandmother to him.
When grief swallowed me whole, I’d lift the lid, bury my face in his hoodie, and pretend I could still smell that faint hint of bubblegum shampoo. That chest wasn’t just wood and hinges—it was my lifeline.
My husband Ethan mourned too, but in a quieter way. He tried to hold me together when I broke. But his mother, Lorraine, was different.
Lorraine has always been sharp-edged. Controlling. The kind of woman who delivers her opinions like knives. When Caleb died, she looked me straight in the eye and said,
“God needed another angel. You need to stop clinging. Keeping his things is unhealthy.”
I wanted to scream, but Ethan’s pain was enough—I bit my tongue.
Until last month.
I came home from a long shift at the clinic, bone-tired, only to sense something was off. The house was too clean, too quiet. I walked into our bedroom.
The cedar chest—gone.
My stomach dropped.
“Ethan?” My voice cracked. “Did you move Caleb’s chest?”
He looked up, startled. “What? No. Why would I?”
Panic hit like fire. I tore through closets, cupboards, the basement, the attic. Nothing. Then I heard the garbage truck outside.
I bolted to the garage and froze. A black trash bag sat on top of the bin, tied neatly with a bow. My fingers clawed it open.
Inside—Caleb’s hoodie, stained with coffee grounds. His sneakers tangled with tissues. His crayon drawings crushed like they were nothing.
I screamed until my voice was gone. Ethan ran out and stopped dead at the sight of me clutching that filthy hoodie.
And then Lorraine walked in, cool as ice, purse on her arm.
“Where’s the chest?” I whispered.
She smiled.