Georgia was on the beach with her grandchildren when they suddenly pointed her to a nearby café. Her heart raced as they shouted the words that shattered her world. The couple at the cafe looked a lot like their parents, who had died two years earlier.
Grief changes you in ways you never expected. Some days it’s a dull ache in your chest. Other days it blindsides you like a stab to the heart.
That summer morning in the kitchen, looking at the anonymous letter, I felt something very different. I think it was hope mixed with a slight dread.
My hands trembled as I read those five words again, ‘They’re not quite gone.’
The crisp white paper felt like it was burning my fingers. I thought I was coping with my grief by trying to create a stable life for my grandchildren, Andy and Peter, after losing my daughter, Monica, and her husband, Stephen. But this note made me realise how wrong I was.
Two years ago, they were in a car accident. I still remember Andy and Peter constantly asking me where their parents were and when they would be back.
It took me many months to let them know that their mum and dad were never coming back. It broke my heart to tell them that they would now have to cope on their own and that I would be there for them when they needed their parents.
After all the hard work, I received an anonymous letter claiming that Monica and Stefan were still alive.
‘They’re…not completely gone?’ I whispered to myself, sinking down into a kitchen chair. ‘What kind of sick game is this?’
I crumpled up the paper and was about to throw it away when my phone buzzed.
It was my credit card company, alerting me to a charge on Monica’s old card. The one I kept active to keep a piece of her memory alive.
‘How is that even possible?’ I whispered. ‘I’ve had that card for two years. How can someone use it if it’s sitting in a drawer?’
I immediately called the bank’s customer service line.
‘Hello, this is Billy speaking. How can I help you?’ – A customer service representative answered.
‘Hello. I’d like to verify a recent transaction on my daughter’s card,’ I said.
‘Sure. May I know the first six and last four digits of the card number and your relationship to the account holder?’ asked Billy.
I gave him the details, explaining, ‘I’m her mother. She…passed away two years ago, and I managed her remaining accounts.’
A pause hung on the line, and then Billy spoke carefully. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Ma’am. I don’t see any transactions on that card. The one you’re referring to was made using a virtual card linked to the account.’
‘A virtual card?’ I asked, frowning. ‘But I never linked it to this account. How can a virtual card be active if I have a physical card?’
‘Virtual cards are separate from the physical card, so they can continue to function independently unless they are deactivated. Would you like me to cancel the virtual card for you?’ asked Billy softly.
‘No, no,’ I managed to utter. I didn’t want to cancel the card, thinking that Monica must have activated it when she was alive. ‘Please leave it active. Can you tell me when the virtual card was created?’
There was a pause while he checked. ‘It was activated a week before the date you mentioned that your daughter died.’
I felt a chill run down my spine. ‘Thank you, Billy. That’s all for now.’
I then called my closest friend Ella. I told her about the strange letter and the transaction on Monica’s card.
‘That’s impossible,’ Ella sighed. ‘Maybe it’s a mistake?’
‘It’s like someone wants me to believe that Monica and Stefan are out there somewhere, just hiding. But why would they… why would anyone do that?’
The fee wasn’t much. Just $23.50 at the local coffee shop. Part of me wanted to go into the shop and find out more about the transaction, but part of me was afraid I’d find out something I wasn’t supposed to know.
I figured I’d look into the matter over the weekend, but what happened on Saturday turned my world upside down.
On Saturday Andy and Peter wanted to go to the beach, so I drove them there. Ella agreed to meet us there to help me look after the kids.
The ocean breeze blew the salty spray, and the children splashed in the small waves, their laughter echoing across the sand. It was the first time I’d heard them laugh so carefree in years.
Ella was lying on the beach towel next to me, and we were both watching the children play.
I was showing her an anonymous letter when I heard Andy shout.
‘Grandma, look!’ He grabbed Peter’s hand, pointing to a café on the beach. ‘That’s our mum and dad!’
My heart sank. Thirty feet away sat a woman with Monica’s dyed hair and graceful posture, leaning toward a man who could very well have been Stefan’s twin.
They were sharing a plate of fresh fruit.
‘Please watch them for a bit,’ I said to Ella, and my voice trailed off with excitement. She agreed without question, though I could read the worry in her eyes.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ I told the boys. ‘You can sunbathe here. Stay close to Ella, okay?’
The kids nodded, and I turned to the couple in the café.
My heart raced as they stood up and walked down the narrow path strewn with sea oats and wild roses. My feet moved on their own, following at a distance.
They walked close together, whispering and occasionally laughing. The woman tucked her hair behind her ear, as Monica always did. The man limped slightly, like Stefan after a college football injury.
Then I heard them talking.
‘It’s risky, but we had no choice, Emily,’ the man said.
Emily?’ I thought to myself. Why is he calling her Emily?
They turned down a shell-lined path to a cottage lined with flowering vines.
‘I know,’ the woman sighed. ‘But I miss them…especially the boys.’
I grasped the wooden fence surrounding the cottage and my knuckles turned white.
It’s you, I thought. But why… why did you do it?
As soon as they entered the cottage, I pulled out my phone and dialled 911. The dispatcher listened patiently while I explained the desperate situation.
I stayed at the fence and listened for more evidence. I could not believe what was happening.
Finally, gathering all my courage, I went to the door of the cottage and rang the doorbell.
There was silence for a moment, then I heard footsteps approaching.
The door swung open and my daughter appeared on the threshold. Her face lost colour as she recognised me.
‘Mum?’ – She gasped. ‘What…how did you find us?’
Before I could answer, Stefan appeared behind her back. Then the air was filled with the sound of approaching sirens.
‘How could you?’ My voice shook with rage and grief. ‘How could you leave your children behind? Do you have any idea what you put us through?’
Police cars pulled up and two officers approached us quickly but cautiously.
‘I think we need to ask some questions,’ one of them said, looking between us. ‘This… this is the kind of thing we don’t see every day.’
Monica and Stefan, who had changed their names to Emily and Anthony, told their story piece by piece.
‘It wasn’t supposed to be like this,’ Monica said, her voice trembling. ‘We… we were drowning, you know? The debts, the loan sharks… they kept coming, demanding more. We tried everything, but it just kept getting worse.’
Stefan sighed. ‘It wasn’t just money they wanted. They threatened us, and we didn’t want to drag the kids into that mess.’
Monica continued, tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘We thought that if we left, we would give the children a better, more stable life. We thought they would be better off without us. Leaving them was the hardest thing we ever did.’
They admitted that they staged the accident as if they had fallen off a cliff into a river, hoping that the police would soon stop searching and they would be presumed dead.
They said they had moved to another city to start their lives anew and even changed their names.
‘But I couldn’t stop thinking about my babies,’ Monica admitted. ‘I needed to see them, so we rented this cottage for a week to be near them.’
My heart was breaking as I listened to their story, but beneath the sympathy, anger boiled over. I couldn’t escape the thought that there had to be a better way to deal with the loan sharks.
As soon as they confessed to everything, I sent Ella a text message about our whereabouts, and soon her car pulled up with Andy and Peter. The kids jumped out into the street and their faces lit up with joy as they recognised their parents.
‘Mummy! Daddy!’ – they shouted, running up to their parents. ‘You’re here! We knew you’d come back!’
Monica looked at them and tears came to her eyes. She was seeing her children two years later.
‘Oh, my sweet boys… I missed you so much. I’m so sorry,’ she said as she hugged them.
I watched the scene, whispering to myself, ‘But at what cost, Monica? What have you done?’
The police officers allowed Monica and Stephen to reunite, then took them aside. The senior officer turned to me with sympathy in his eyes.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but they could face serious charges. They’ve broken a lot of laws.’
‘And my grandchildren?’ I asked, watching Andy and Peter’s confused faces as their parents were separated from them again. ‘How am I going to explain all this to them? They’re still kids.’
‘That’s for you to decide,’ he said softly. ‘But the truth will come out sooner or later.’
Later that evening, after putting the children to bed, I sat alone in the living room. The anonymous letter lay on the coffee table in front of me, and now its message had a very different weight.
I picked it up and reread those five words one more time, ‘They didn’t really leave.’
I still didn’t know who had sent it, but they were right.
Monica and Stefan hadn’t left. They had decided to leave. And somehow that was worse than realising they weren’t alive.
‘I don’t know if I can protect my children from grief,’ I whispered into the silence of the room, ’but I will do whatever it takes to keep them safe.
Now I sometimes feel like I shouldn’t have called the police. Part of me thinks I could have let my daughter live the life she wants, but part of me wants her to realise what she did was wrong.
Do you think I did the right thing by calling the police? What would you do if you were me?
