“You must be Emelia.”
I didn’t like that she knew my name.
“You gave this to Sophie. My granddaughter.”
“You must be Emelia.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dolly glanced toward the office staff.
“Could we sit somewhere quieter?”
“No.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“I’ve spent 40 years waiting for people to tell me things. Start talking
here.”
“Could we sit somewhere quieter?”
She swallowed.
I held up the charm.
“Who gave you this sweater?”
“My mother.”
“What’s her name?”
Dolly hesitated.
“Who gave you this sweater?”
I stepped closer.
“Please don’t make me pull every word out of you.”
Her eyes filled.
“Laura.”
I studied her face.
She didn’t look exactly like Laura.
“Please don’t make me pull every word out of you.”
“Laura is your mother?”
“Yes.”
“She’s alive?”
“Yes.”
I sat down.
For 40 years, I’d imagined every ending to Laura’s story. None included this.
“She’s alive?”
“And Thomas? Is he your father?”
“Yes. They stayed together for a few years.”
I looked down at the sweater.
“And Laura still never came home?”
Dolly took a breath.
“She did.”
“Is he your father?”
I looked up.
“When?”
“1992.”
Six years after she vanished.
Laura was 22.
“How do you know?”
Six years after she
vanished.
“Because she brought me.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I was two. I don’t remember the visit itself.”
“Then tell me what Laura told you, not what you’ve filled in later.”
“Because she brought me.”
Dolly nodded.
“She said my father, Thomas, came to your house on your birthday. His family was leaving town, and he asked her to go with them.”
“She just left?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She just left?”
“Your father caught them outside.”
My hand tightened around the sweater.
“What happened?”
“Mom said they argued. He told her if she walked out with Thomas, she shouldn’t expect to come back.”
I heard Dad’s voice in my head immediately, not because I’d heard that sentence before, but because it sounded exactly like him.
“What happened?”
“What did Laura say?”
“She thought he was bluffing.”
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