My son-in-law forgot his phone on my coffee table last Sunday night. When it rang, the screen lit up with a face I had not seen in five years. It was my wife. My dead wife. But the real horror didn’t begin until I pressed play on the voicemail and heard her voice begging me to sell our home from beyond the grave.I stood in the center of my living room, the silence of the house pressing against my ears. The Sunday roast I had cooked for my daughter Sarah and her husband Jason was still sitting heavy in my stomach. The air smelled faintly of rosemary and the expensive cologne Jason always wore, a scent that lingered long after he left, like he was marking territory. Outside, the streetlights of our quiet New England cul-de-sac bled through the sheer curtains, turning the windows into pale squares.

I was just about to clear the table when I saw it: Jason’s phone. It was sitting on the edge of the leather sofa, half-hidden by a throw pillow. The latest model, sleek and black, the kind that costs more than my first car. He must have slipped it out of his pocket when he sat down to complain about the economy again, which had become his favorite topic of conversation lately.

I reached out to grab it, thinking I could jog out to the driveway and catch him before he pulled away. But before my fingers even touched the cold glass, the screen lit up. The room was dim, illuminated only by the streetlights outside, so the sudden brightness was almost blinding.

And then I saw the photo.