My 5 y.o. son died in 2020. My good friend kept telling me, “You need to move on,” and eventually, I coped. 2 months later, she moved to another state for a new job, it was very sudden. One day, I decided to make a surprise visit. When she saw me, she turned pale. I went in and I almost fainted when I saw my son’s photos covering all her walls. Some of them, I couldn’t even recall sharing with her. Then, to my shock, I found some of his clothes on her sofa, alongside a box containing his shoes and socks. The whole scene felt disturbingly eerie.

When I asked how she had gotten there, she told me that my husband had given them to her. It’s true my husband and I had decided to pack away my son’s belongings as part of moving forward, but I never imagined he had given them to her. I started shaking.

I knew she had loved him deeply—she had always longed for a child of her own—but this felt like an unhealthy obsession. Without another word, I grabbed the box and left. That was the last time I ever saw her.
• On the morning of my mother’s funeral, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to socialize or thank people for coming. As I lay there, I felt the bed compress as if someone had sat on it. I swear she was telling me one last time to get the fuck up before I was late.