Forty years ago, my husband Michael left to buy milk and never came back. Our son Benjamin was just four. Days turned to months, then years, filled with unanswered questions and whispers. I held onto hope but felt the weight of silence.
Then one autumn morning, a letter arrived: “Hurry to the railway station.” Heart pounding, I went—and there he was, aged, trembling. Michael told me he’d been kidnapped by a criminal gang, forced into years of labor, then recruited by the FBI to infiltrate and dismantle them. Last week, the cartel was destroyed, and he was free to return.
An FBI agent confirmed his story, praising Michael’s bravery.
Tears streamed as I asked why he never came back sooner. “I couldn’t risk your safety,” he said. “I thought of you every day.”
The pain of forty lost years remained, but so did hope. That evening, we walked home together. We couldn’t change the past, but we could start again—together.
