Chapter 2: The Photograph on Main Street
Four years passed.
I built a quiet life under the name Nora Ellis.
I waitressed at the diner, sang hymns at the church daycare, and watched my son learn to walk on grass instead of black marble floors.
I named him Eli.
He had Damon's eyes.
Dark, steady, and impossible to look away from.
I told myself that was the only thing he would ever inherit from his father.
Then last Tuesday, a black SUV with Chicago plates pulled slowly down Main Street.
I froze behind the diner counter.
The driver didn't stop.
But the passenger window was down, and I saw a man holding a photograph pressed against the glass.
My photograph.
The one taken at the Gold Coast charity gala three years before everything fell apart.
The one where I was laughing, and Damon had his hand on my waist, and we looked like two people who believed in each other.
I hadn't known that photograph existed.
My hands were shaking when my coworker leaned over and whispered, "Nora…
that man just asked if anyone here recognized the woman in that picture."
I looked down at Eli sitting on the floor behind the counter, stacking wooden blocks, completely unaware.
"What did you tell him?" I asked.
May you like
She hesitated.
And in that silence, I had my answer.
