Every Night, Gifts Appeared at My Door—When I Finally Saw Who Was Behind Them, My World Stopped

He gestured toward the package. “Open it first.”

I unwrapped it slowly. Inside was a small notebook.

My breath caught. I knew it before I even opened it. It was Noah’s.

“Where did you get this?”

“Noah left it in my luggage before his last mission,” Doug said.

I swallowed hard. “Why are you here?”

Doug’s jaw tightened. “Because Noah asked me to be.”

Then he said it: “Your husband told me, ‘If anything ever happens to me… check on them. Not once. Not as a duty. But properly.’”

I clutched the notebook, emotions rising. “Then why now? Why not come to us? Why all of this?”

Doug looked down. “When we lost Noah… I didn’t handle it well. I thought you’d be okay. I told myself you had family, support… that stepping in might make things worse.”

He shook his head. “Weeks passed, then months. And then I found that.”

“The notebook,” I murmured.

He nodded. “That’s when I realized his request wasn’t optional. He wrote things in there that made me act.”