I almost missed her visit. My disbelief in ghosts had fortified a stubborn veil over my perceptions, making me almost immune to the spectral. But tonight was different. The rain was falling in torrents, its ceaseless hiss drowning out all other sounds, and then there it was—her voice.

“James,” it whispered, woven into the tapestry of rainfall, each drop a syllable of her name. “James.”

At first, I dismissed it as an auditory illusion, a byproduct of my loneliness. But she persisted, her voice cascading with the rain, and my eyes, driven by an inexplicable impulse, moved toward the window.

She was there, a fragile wisp of memory made visible, pressed against the glass. Rainwater dribbled down her translucent face, like tears shed by the sky itself. My heart surged with a blend of love and sorrow, a cocktail of emotions I hadn’t tasted since the day she was taken from me.

I rushed to the window, hands trembling, but it wouldn’t budge. An invisible tether held me back, a boundary I couldn’t cross. My fingers barely touched the cold glass, craving the warmth her presence used to offer.

“Rosalyn,” I mouthed, my voice choked with regret and questions. “How? Why now?”

Her spectral eyes met mine, brimming with a serenity that could calm even the fiercest storms. “There are rules, James,” she began, her voice emanating from the fog of her form. “Rules that even love can’t bend.”

“What rules? What are you talking about?”

She floated closer, her form illuminating the darkness of the room. “Our love, pure as it is, must now abide by the laws of my new existence. I can only visit you when it rains, and only on days that are sacred to us—our birthdays, our wedding anniversary, and today, the day my earthly journey ended.”

The weight of her words settled over me, anchoring me to an altered reality. As quickly as she appeared, Rosalyn began to fade, her form dissipating into the mist outside the window, becoming one with the rain.

“I love you,” she said, her voice gradually swallowed by the falling drops, becoming a silent echo that only my heart could hear.

“And I you,” I whispered back, pressing my palm against the cold glass, a poor substitute for her touch. But it was a touch nonetheless, a fleeting connection that would have to sustain me until the heavens wept again on a day we once celebrated. Then, and only then, could our sorrow reunite us, even if just for a moment.