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I was supposed to come home on Saturday.
The Friday flight had opened only because another passenger canceled, and I changed my reservation while standing beside a Nashville airport coffee kiosk with a paper cup cooling in my hand.
At 6:41 p.m., I unlocked my front door outside Raleigh and rolled my suitcase across the tile.
That timestamp stayed on my phone because the changed-flight confirmation was still open.
Later, it would become one of the cleanest facts in a night full of people trying to soften ugly things with softer words.
I had spent five days helping open a distribution center for the medical supply company I managed.
It was the kind of trip that left the smell of burnt coffee in your jacket and a vibration in your bones from warehouse equipment, rental cars, and too many hours under fluorescent lights.
All week, I had pictured home as the reward.
Ella would usually hear my key and come running.
My eight-year-old daughter had never learned how to enter a room quietly when she was happy, and I loved that about her.
Caroline would usually call from the kitchen that dinner was almost ready, even when “almost” meant the pasta water had not started boiling.
There would be a backpack on the floor, a shoe under the couch, and a school paper on the counter that needed my signature by morning.
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