I hadn’t slept properly for four nights. The conference in Chicago had been endless presentations, endless jargon, and endless coffee that stopped working by day two. By Friday, my brain was running on autopilot.
Three years into my marriage, and it felt like my husband, Julian, and I had quietly drifted into a professional partnership rather than a romantic one. He managed his finance firm; I consulted for tech startups. We texted more than we talked and hadn’t shared a real dinner in weeks.
So when my final meeting wrapped up two hours earlier than expected, I didn’t even pretend to consider staying for the VP’s keynote. “You’re skipping the big speech?” my colleague Tessa asked, raising an eyebrow as I stuffed my laptop into my bag. “For once, yes,” I said with a tired grin.
“I want to go home and remind myself what my husband looks like.”
She smirked. “Nora Benson choosing love over career? This is historic.”
“It’s overdue,” I said, already checking flight times on my phone.
“If I move fast, I can make the 6:20 back to Denver and surprise him.”
Tessa sipped her coffee with a knowing look. “Surprise visits can go either way, you know. Sometimes people aren’t doing what you think they are.”
I laughed, brushing off the comment.
“Julian’s biggest secret is probably forgetting to water the basil plant.”
I didn’t realize until much later just how eerily accurate she’d been. The sky was fading into gold as my car rolled up the familiar street toward our house. The Rockies glowed orange in the distance, and everything looked quiet and perfect.
I turned into the driveway, expecting to see Julian’s car and maybe even him inside, reading on the couch like always. But the house felt wrong the moment I stepped out. Too still.
Too quiet. I unlocked the front door, and the silence that greeted me wasn’t comforting; it felt staged, like a scene waiting for actors. “Julian?” I called, setting my bag by the stairs.
No answer. The living room was cluttered, which was strange because Julian was meticulous about order. Mail scattered across the table, a couple of envelopes marked URGENT.
A mug of coffee sat abandoned on the counter, the liquid dried into a thin brown ring. I frowned. “That’s not like you,” I muttered under my breath.
Maybe he was out running or in his home office, but something in the air pulled me toward the back door. A faint breeze moved through the curtains, carrying a sharp scent of turned soil. I stepped outside.
And froze. Julian was in the garden, drenched in sweat, digging between the tomato plants like a man possessed. The shovel struck the earth in frantic, uneven strokes.
Beside him was a mound of dirt — and resting in the middle of it was something black, glossy, and huge. It looked like a giant egg. Two feet tall at least, smooth and glimmering like polished stone.
Under the porch light, its surface gleamed an oily, dark sheen, reflecting faintly like glass. Julian muttered something to himself, almost too quiet to hear. “Just a little deeper… just need to get it deep enough.”
My heartbeat quickened.
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