The morning of my husband’s funeral started with steady gray rain sliding down the bedroom window of the house we bought together in the American Midwest. I helped my ten-year-old daughter into her black dress, watched my seven-year-old son clutch the stuffed bear his dad had won him at a county fair, and somehow found the strength to tell them we were going to say goodbye to Daddy. At the church and cemetery, people from our town hugged us and said how sorry they were. My husband had been a goo

“When I got home, my neighbor confronted me: “Your house gets so loud during the day!” “That’s not possible,” I replied. The next morning, I f3ked leaving for work and hid under my bed—hours later, a voice entered my bedroom, and I froze. As soon as I got home, my neighbor, Mrs. Halvorsen, was standing on her porch with her arms crossed, looking more irritated than usual. “There’s so much noise coming from your house during the day, Marcus,” she complained. “I swear I heard someone shouting insi