“Who is she?”
“I promised I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Then tell me why you were searching for her.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Because of Dad.”
I stared at her.
Daniel had been dead for five years.
“What does your father have to do with Mia?”
“I can’t tell you. Not yet.”
“Then who can?”
Sophie whispered one name.
“Laura.”
I hadn’t heard that name in twenty years.
My entire body went cold.
“Is Mia Laura’s daughter?”
Sophie wouldn’t look at me.
That was answer enough.
The baby suddenly didn’t feel like the biggest secret in the house anymore.
Whatever Sophie had discovered about her father had somehow led her back to the one woman I had spent two decades trying to erase from my memory.
“Where does Laura live?”
“I promised Mia I wouldn’t involve her.”
“Sophie.”
My daughter closed her eyes.
Then she gave me the address.
It was in the same city where Daniel and I had lived during the earliest years of our marriage.
The city we had abruptly left twenty years earlier.
The city I never wanted to return to.
The following morning, I told Sophie I had errands to run.
She obviously didn’t believe me.
But she didn’t stop me.
A few hours later, I stood outside a faded yellow house.
I knocked.
Laura opened the door.
The moment I saw her, twenty years vanished.
Suddenly, I was young again.
Pregnant with Sophie.
Standing in the doorway of my bedroom.
And finding Laura with my husband.
That affair had nearly destroyed my marriage.
Maybe being pregnant was the reason I stayed.
Maybe I was simply terrified of raising a child alone.
Whatever the reason, I had given Daniel one condition.
Laura disappeared.
No phone calls.
No messages.
No secret meetings.
Nothing.
A month later, Daniel and I moved away and started over.
Now Laura was standing in front of me again.
“Karen.”
“Laura.”
Neither of us smiled.
“I’m looking for Mia.”
Laura’s expression instantly changed.
“How do you know my daughter?”
My daughter.
The words struck harder than I expected.
“Sophie went looking for her months ago.”
Understanding slowly spread across Laura’s face.
“You really don’t know.”
