When Adam said he was headed to Portland for work, I didn’t think twice. But when plans changed and I brought the kids to our lake house, everything unraveled.

His car was already there. And in the backyard, I found him digging — a deep, grave-shaped hole. Pale and shaken, he shouted, “Don’t come closer!” But I did.

He told me the truth: he’d never left. His father, slipping into senility, had confessed an old family secret — that Adam’s great-grandfather, Samuel,

was secretly buried behind the house after a scandal robbed him of a proper funeral. Adam hadn’t believed it… until the story started haunting him.

What he uncovered was real. Bones, wrapped in cloth. A skull staring up through time.

Samuel had loved a married woman. The affair destroyed him. Cast out by the town, denied burial,

he disappeared. But she laid him to rest by the lake they once cherished.

Adam had wanted to quietly right the wrong — not to deceive me, but to shield me. Instead,

we brought the truth to light. Samuel was finally laid to rest beside her.

Later, our daughter asked why I was crying. I said, “Because even love that’s buried finds a way to rise.”