Greg and Natalie have been divorced for a while, but the couple share a three-year-old, Oliver.
Greg thinks they are co-parenting well until Natalie phones him and delivers devastating news.
My wife, Natalie, and I split after five years together.
We were young when we first met, so when things fizzled out, we didn’t try hard enough to make things work.
Since the divorce, we now live in different states — the quickest way to get to each other is by flight.
But to make things complicated, we share a three-year-old son, Oliver.
Although I get all the holidays with my son, it’s not enough.
But I didn’t want to fight with Natalie.
It was more important for us to be on good terms rather than constantly fighting.
Oliver didn’t deserve to be in a family where the parents constantly fought. I believed that, and Natalie did, too.
Every evening before bed, Natalie would video call me with Oliver so that he could say goodnight. It had become our routine, and it was a comfort to me.
So, everything was going fine, until Natalie called me in tears one day.
“Greg!” she screamed into the phone. “Our son’s gone!”
“What?” I asked, unable to comprehend her words.
“Oliver is dead,” she repeated.
“What? How? What happened?” I asked, sinking to the ground in my living room.
“It all —” she started talking before getting cut off.
