The funeral had ended just as the sky turned a shade of gray that seemed to match the mood of everyone standing by the grave. Rain threatened but didn’t fall, as if the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
Thomas Avery stood like a man carved from stone. His wife, Evelyn, was gone. Forty-three years old — beautiful, gentle, always laughing. A heart attack, the doctors had said. Sudden. Nothing could be done.
He had not cried yet. He had watched the coffin lowered into the ground, had shaken hands with people whose names he barely heard, and had stared at the polished wood until the last handful of dirt struck it with a hollow sound.
It wasn’t until everyone had left, until even the priest’s car was gone, that Thomas realized he’d left his phone behind.
He patted his pockets, checked the car. Nowhere. Then it hit him — he had placed it on the coffin earlier that morning while arranging the roses Evelyn had loved. It must have slipped inside when the lid was closed.
For a moment he just stood there, staring at the mound of fresh soil. A faint panic fluttered through his chest. He thought about calling the funeral home, asking if they could open it again — but what would people think? It sounded absurd, disrespectful even. A phone was replaceable. A life wasn’t.
He tried to laugh it off as he drove home, though the unease stayed with him.
That night, the house felt impossibly quiet. The scent of Evelyn’s perfume still lingered in the hallways. Her mug sat beside his on the kitchen counter. Her reading glasses rested on the arm of the couch.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat in the dark.
At midnight, his phone began to ring.
The sound was faint at first — muffled, distorted — but unmistakable. The ringtone, the one Evelyn had chosen for him: You Are My Sunshine.
Thomas froze.
It couldn’t be. The phone was buried six feet underground.
He turned off the TV, held his breath. The sound came again — faint, distant, as though echoing from somewhere beneath the floor.
He told himself it was impossible. Maybe he had left another device somewhere, maybe it was a neighbor’s phone playing the same tune. He forced himself to breathe, but the melody kept going, longer than it ever had before, until it finally faded into silence.
Thomas stood, his heart pounding. He grabbed his coat and keys and drove back to the cemetery.
The rain had started by then, soft but steady. His headlights swept across rows of stones until he found her grave — fresh earth still dark from the afternoon’s burial.
He stood there, rain soaking through his jacket, staring down at the mound. “Evelyn,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “If somehow you can hear me… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave it there.”
He waited. Nothing. Just the patter of rain.
Then — buzz.
A vibration, faint but real, rippled through the ground.
Thomas stumbled back, his breath catching. The sound was unmistakable: a phone vibrating against wood.
He dropped to his knees, pressing his ear to the soil. The sound came again — the ringtone, weaker this time, but there.
“Evelyn?” His voice broke. “Oh, God… Evelyn!”
He clawed at the dirt with his bare hands before realizing how insane he must look — a man digging up his wife’s grave in the middle of the night. Still, he couldn’t stop. He had to know.
By dawn, he had made it halfway through the top layer when the groundskeeper found him.
“Mr. Avery!” the man shouted, grabbing his shoulders. “What are you doing?”
“My phone!” Thomas gasped. “It was in the coffin — it rang — I heard it ring!”
The groundskeeper stared at him, soaked and wild-eyed, then gently shook his head. “Sir… grief does strange things. Please, go home. I’ll have someone look in the morning.”
But Thomas refused. He stayed by the grave until exhaustion finally forced him to leave.
That morning, he sat at his kitchen table, waiting for a call from the cemetery. None came.
At noon, he drove there again. The grave was undisturbed. The groundskeeper swore no sound had been heard. “Phones don’t work underground,” the man insisted. “You must have dreamed it.”
Thomas wanted to believe that. He truly did.
But that night, the ringtone came again.
This time, it didn’t stop.
He could hear it clearly now — You Are My Sunshine — drifting faintly through the vents, through the walls, through the floorboards. And then, beneath the melody, came something else.
A voice.
At first, just a whisper. Then, clearer.
“Tom…”
He froze. It was Evelyn’s voice. Soft. Familiar. Loving.
“Tom, please… it’s dark.”
He dropped the glass he was holding. “Evelyn?”
“Tom… why did you leave me here?”
His knees gave out. “No… no, this isn’t real.”
But the voice came again, trembling, desperate.
“I can’t breathe, Tom…”
He screamed and covered his ears. The sound cut off abruptly. Silence returned.
When he opened his eyes, the house lights flickered once, then steadied. The air felt heavy, charged.
He didn’t sleep that night. Or the next.
The following morning, he went to the funeral home and demanded the coffin be exhumed. They refused, of course — there were laws, procedures. He threatened to sue, to bring the media. Finally, the director agreed to a quiet exhumation under supervision.
Two days later, the coffin was raised.
When the lid was opened, the sight made even the workers step back.
The phone lay shattered near Evelyn’s hand. The battery had exploded, warped by moisture. But the most chilling detail was this — the inside of the coffin was scratched. Deep gouges marked the wood above her face.
And Evelyn’s hands… her fingernails were broken, caked with splinters.
Thomas collapsed.
The coroner later explained that sometimes, people declared dead from cardiac arrest may experience a rare condition — a “suspended animation,” where the heartbeat becomes too faint to detect. “It’s possible,” the coroner said quietly, “that your wife was… still alive, when she was buried.”
Thomas never returned home after that. He sold the house and moved to a small apartment by the sea. He never spoke to anyone about that night again.
But sometimes, neighbors would hear a faint tune drifting from his window — an old phone ringtone, softly replayed over and over.
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…
And every time it played, Thomas would close his eyes, whisper her name, and wonder if somewhere beneath the earth, his wife had ever forgiven him.
