It felt like a rare gift, a small blessing most people would thank fate for. But I don’t believe in blessings anymore. Only signs. And the empty highway was a sign that I was being sent somewhere I needed to be, faster than anyone expected.

When I turned the key and pushed open my front door, a wave of laughter floated down the hall from the second floor. It was a sound that should have been comforting—the familiar timber of my parents’ voices, my brother Liam’s easy chuckle, and hers… my sister-in-law, Sarah. The woman who’d kissed my cheek at countless family dinners, her eyes crinkling as if she genuinely adored me, the successful older brother who always picked up the check.