Part 2: My husband and our three sons d!ed during a storm on their guys’ trip — five years later, my youngest daughter came to me and said, “Mom, I know what really happened that day. The police officer lied to you.”

“Mom?”

The voice came from behind the basement door.

Soft.

Frightened.

And so familiar that my heart seemed to stop beating.

For five years, I had dreamed of hearing that voice again.

Sometimes, in those dreams, he was calling from the backyard.

Sometimes, he was sitting at our kitchen table, asking for another pancake.

And sometimes, he was crying in the darkness, begging me to find him.

But this wasn’t a dream.

I was standing in the basement of our abandoned family cabin.

My daughters, Hannah and Lucy, were beside me.

Aaron was somewhere upstairs.

And behind a locked wooden door, someone had just called me Mom.

I took a trembling step forward.

“Owen?”

Silence.

Then three soft knocks sounded against the wood.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A pause.

Then two more.

Tap. Tap.

I covered my mouth.

It was our secret signal.

When Owen was little, he hated thunderstorms. Whenever lightning frightened him, he’d knock three times against his bedroom wall.