I bu:ried my son fifteen years ago.

His name was Howard. He was only four—far too small for a coffin, far too young for a goodbye like that.

They told me it was a sudden infection. Fast. Unpredictable. The kind no one could stop in time.

All I knew was that my child was gone.

I remember signing papers through tears. A nurse gently placed a hand on my shoulder and told me not to look too long—that it was better to remember him as he had been.

So I listened.

I was shattered. The hospital was in chaos that night—a storm had knocked out parts of the system, and everything was being handled manually. People relied on wristbands, charts, and trust.

I didn’t know then how dangerous that was.

Howard had a birthmark just below his left ear.

I never forgot that.

Years later, I moved away and started over in a small town. I worked at a café where no one knew my story. I made coffee, wiped counters, and learned how to keep going—even if I never called it healing.

But some memories never fade.

Especially that birthmark. Small, oval, uneven.

I used to kiss it every night before bed.

I hadn’t let myself think about it in years.

Until one day… I saw it again.

It was a busy shift when a young man stepped up to the counter.

“Black coffee,” he said.

He looked about nineteen or twenty. Nothing unusual—until he tilted his head slightly.

And I saw it.

The same mark.

Same place. Same shape.