It started on a Tuesday in late spring, the kind of day where the air feels both restless and still. I’d pulled into my driveway with a bag of groceries, tossed them inside, and left the garage door open while I ran back to grab the rest. Ten minutes, maybe less. When I returned, the space looked exactly the same—except for one thing.

My Cuisinart Ice Cream Machine was gone.

I stood there blinking, wondering if I’d moved it inside and forgotten. I hadn’t. The shelf where it lived was bare, except for the empty mixing bowl still sitting beside it. Whoever had taken it hadn’t bothered with the bowl—just the machine itself.

It wasn’t some fancy heirloom, but it had meant something to me. My sister gave it to me after my divorce, when I was still finding my feet. She’d said, “If you can’t fix everything, at least you can make ice cream.” It had been a small but comforting reminder that sweetness was still possible.

I filed a report out of habit, but I knew it was pointless. I stopped thinking about it after a while. Life moved on.

Fourteen months passed.