I was sitting on my late son’s bed with his blue camp shirt pressed to my face when the phone rang. It still smelled faintly like him. That was what grief had turned me into—a mother sitting in a room full of sneakers, schoolbooks, baseball cards, and silence, trying to breathe in whatever was left of her child. Owen had been gone for weeks, but his room still looked like he might come back any second. His hoodie was thrown over the chair. His math notebook sat open on the desk. One of his wooden shop-class projects hung crookedly near...
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