The posters faded.
And my little boy became a cold case in a dusty file cabinet.
But to me, Ethan never became a case.
He was my son.
For eighteen years, I avoided Route 9. I could not even hear the name of that road without feeling my chest tighten.
But last Tuesday, my GPS took me there by mistake.
At first, I did not realize where I was.
Then I saw the old trees.
The cracked road.
That same lonely stretch of highway.
And suddenly, I could not breathe.
A few miles later, my rear tire exploded.
I pulled over to the side of the road, stepped out, and broke down.
Not because of the tire.
Because I was back in the place where my life had ended.
I was sitting beside my car, crying like I had cried eighteen years ago, when a man quietly stepped out from between the trees.
