Six months after my oldest son di:ed, Noah climbed into the car after kindergarten and smiled.

“Mom, Ethan came to see me.”

Ethan had been gone half a year.

I kept my face steady. “You mean you were thinking about him?”

“No,” Noah said seriously. “He was at school. He told me you should stop crying.”

The words hit like a bruise. Ethan had been eight when the crash happened. Mark had been driving him to soccer when a truck drifted across the yellow line. Mark survived. Ethan didn’t. I was never allowed to identify the body. They said I was “too fragile.”

That night, I told Mark what Noah had said.

“Kids say things,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s how he’s coping.”

But something in my chest wouldn’t settle.

That weekend, I took Noah to the cemetery with white daisies. He stood stiffly in front of Ethan’s headstone.

“Mom… he isn’t there,” he whispered.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He told me he’s not in there.”