My Ghost Haunted My Husband for 7 Years Chapter 09
Daniel was efficient. The files arrived that afternoon, which included the police accident report, hospital emergency records, and the traffic camera footage.
Tyler started with the video.
In the frame, Louisa walked out of the hospital, clutching a piece of paper in her hand-must have
been the pregnancy-report.
She moved slowly, head down, like she’d been crying.
Halfway across the street, she stopped suddenly. Like she’d lost her mind.
Then a truck barreled in and sent her flying.
The paper in her hand floated up in the air, then drifted down into a pool of blood, soaking red
across half the sheet.
Tyler stared at the screen, his eyes burning red. He watched it over and over, and each time felt like being flayed alive.
Then he turned to the accident report.
The truck driver was operating the vehicle while fatigued, fully at fault.
Louisa Carter failed to watch for traffic while crossing the road, partially at fault.
She failed to watch for traffic.
How could she have watched?
She’d just heard those words, and her heart had already died. How could she possibly have noticed the light?
Tyler flipped to the last page-the hospital emergency record.
It read: [Patient arrived with no vital signs. A fetus of approximately three months was observed in
the abdomen.]
Three months. Not two.
She’d been three months pregnant. And she’d never told him.
Why?
Because she lost the first one and was scared. She wanted to wait until it was safe?
Or… because she’d already sensed his coldness, and wasn’t sure she should keep this child at all?
Tyler couldn’t bring himself to think about it.
He gathered all the documents and locked them back in the safe. Then he got in the car and drove to
the Carter estate.
The restoration was complete. It looked exactly as he remembered.
This was where he’d first seen Louisa Carter.
He was fifteen back then, visiting with his father.
Louisa wore a white sundress, squatting in the garden feeding a cat. Sunlight spilled over her like
gold.
She heard them coming, turned, and smiled at him, showing two small dimples.
That smile had been engraved into his mind for years.
Then the Carters went bankrupt. Her father jumped. Louisa had nowhere else to go, so she came to
him.
Inside, he was overjoyed. But his mouth turned cold as ice. “Marry you? Fine. But don’t interfere
with my business.”
He told himself it was just business and a transaction.
But if it was really just business, why did that memory stick with him for so many years?
If it was just business, why had he never once looked at another woman after marrying her?
If it was just business, why did he keep their anniversary seared into his memory, spending every June eighteenth alone in that chapel?
He was just stubborn and wouldn’t admit it.
He thought the one who fell first lost. Thought saying “I love you” was weakness.
And in the end, he lost everything.
Tyler spent the whole afternoon at the estate, walking through every room.
He stopped at Louisa’s old bedroom. It had been restored the way it looked when she was a girl, and
her teenage photo still on the desk-she was seventeen or eighteen, grinning brightly.
Tyler reached out and gently touched her face in the picture.
“Louisa,” he whispered, “I was wrong.”
“Come back. Please.”
“Punish me however you want. Just don’t leave like this.”
No one answered.
The empty room echoed his own voice.
After he got back from the estate, Tyler fell sick.
A high fever that wouldn’t break, and he was burning and delirious.
His dreams were full of Louisa.
He dreamed of their early marriage. She made him breakfast every morning, different dishes every day, and he always said, “Don’t bother. I’ll grab something at the office.”
He dreamed of the day they celebrated her birthday. She called him, wanting to have dinner together. He said, “Working late, can’t make it”. Then he went to an art exhibit with Edith.
He dreamed of her losing the first child. She lay alone in that hospital bed, crying on the phone, and he said, “I’m busy. Call the nurse if you need.”
He dreamed of the day she died. She stood across the street, looking at him with eyes full of despair
and grief.
“Tyler,” she asked him, “did you ever love me?”
