Page 1 of Stolen Harmony

When the Music Died

Elias

Two Years Ago...

The rain wouldn't quit.

Three days of relentless battering against the windows, turning the world outside into a watercolor mess of grays and blacks. The ocean beyond was nothing but a dark smear, invisible except for white foam crashing against rocks below. I sat staring at that gray wall of weather, my tea growing cold beside me—next to the second cup I'd poured out of habit before remembering there was no one left to drink it.

Six months since Elaine died, and I still couldn't get used to the silence.

The house felt too hollow now. Every footstep echoed. Every breath seemed too loud. I caught my reflection in rain-streaked glass and barely recognized the man looking back—sharper angles, deeper lines, silver creeping through what used to be dark hair. Grief had carved me into someone older, someone who'd forgotten how to smile.

The funeral flashed through my mind without warning, theway it always did. The Methodist church packed with half the town, everyone whispering about the tragedy. But there, standing in the back corner like he didn't belong, was Rowan.

I'd never seen him before that day, but I recognized him instantly. The same dark eyes as his mother, the same stubborn set to his jaw when trying not to cry. Twenty-four years old and already carrying grief that ages you from the inside out.

Elaine had kept our marriage secret from him, said she wanted to wait for the right moment to tell him, to introduce us properly. She was afraid—afraid he'd see it as a betrayal, like she was trying to replace his father. We'd planned to invite him for Christmas, maybe Easter. Always next time, always later. Then there was no more time.

We'd shaken hands after the service—his grip firm but brief, eyes red-rimmed and distant. He'd mumbled condolences like I was a stranger, which I was. He disappeared before the reception started, caught the last train back to New York that same night.

That was it. The only time I'd met my stepson, though I couldn't even call him that. We were both orphaned by the same loss, both choosing to grieve alone rather than together.

I walked to the kitchen, leaving both cups of cold tea behind. Her red coat still hung by the back door, scarf draped over it like she'd just stepped inside. I'd tried to move it once but my hand had frozen halfway there. Some shrines you build on purpose. Others just happen when you're too broken to disturb the evidence that someone you loved was real.

Her handwriting was still on the grocery list stuck to the fridge.Milk, eggs, those crackers you like.Six months old now, but I couldn't throw it away—the last ordinary thing she'd written, back when we both believed tomorrow was guaranteed.

The bedroom door stayed closed. I'd been sleeping on the couch since the accident, telling myself it was temporary. Thesheets in there still smelled like her lavender perfume, and I wasn't strong enough for that kind of pain yet.

In the living room, I stopped before the old upright piano. She'd sit there evenings, picking out melodies, sometimes playing songs Rowan had written. She'd wanted to set up a home studio, invite him to visit, to be part of something bigger than our small family of two.

“Dreams don't have an expiration date,”she'd said one night, eyes bright with possibility.“We could make beautiful things together. All three of us.”

I'd laughed, said I was too old for new beginnings. She'd taken my hand with those calloused fingers, worn from years of music.“Age is just a number, Eli. Music is forever.”

The memory hit like a sucker punch. The spare room upstairs was still just storage—no studio, no music, no dreams. Just dust and silence and the weight of things we'd never get to do.

I picked up my phone, scrolled to Rowan's number saved as “Rowan - Elaine's son.” I'd stared at it dozens of times, thumb hovering over call, but I never pressed it. What would I say?Hi, this is your dead mother's husband you've never met?

The fight we'd had the night she died played on repeat. She'd been upset about the future, about fixing things that were broken.“You never want to talk about anything important. We can't just drift through life, Eli.”

“Can we do this tomorrow?”I'd asked, heading for the living room.“I'm beat.”

“There's always tomorrow with you,”she'd shot back.“Until there isn't.”

She'd grabbed her keys, said she needed air. I'd let her go, figured she'd drive around and come back ready to talk like always.

She never made it home.

The call came at 11:47 PM. Rainy night, slick roads, deer in the headlights. She'd swerved and hit a tree. The last words I ever spoke to my wife were“Can we do this tomorrow?”

I walked upstairs to the spare room, to boxes marked in Elaine's neat handwriting. At the bottom of one labeled “Photos” was a manila envelope—pictures printed from social media accounts she must have been following without him knowing. Rowan at nineteen performing in some dive bar. At twenty-one, older, sharper. At twenty-five, arm around another young man, both of them genuinely happy.

Below the photos, a letter folded and refolded until the creases were wearing thin. Addressed to Rowan but never sent, dated two weeks before our wedding. I didn't open it—couldn't bring myself to read words that weren't meant for me—but I could see her handwriting through the worn paper, urgent and desperate.

The bridge she'd wanted to build, the words she'd been too afraid to send. Words that belonged to him now.

I held the letter against my chest and felt something shift inside me. The rain drummed against windows, and I thought about her voice that last night: