Chapter 3: What the Door Was Hiding
The woman moved to close the door the rest of the way.
My hand came up and held it open.
"That necklace." My voice didn't sound like mine.
"Where did she get that necklace?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"It's a silver chain with a small crescent moon.
The clasp is bent on the left side because Ava caught it on her coat zipper once and we never got it fixed." I looked directly at her.
"I put it around my daughter's neck before they closed the casket.
So I need you to tell me right now how that child is wearing it."
The woman's hand tightened on the door.
"Lily." Her voice was sharp.
"Go upstairs."
The girl didn't move right away.
She kept looking at me with those eyes — Ava's eyes — and something in her expression was searching, like she was trying to remember a word she'd forgotten.
"Lily.
Now."
The girl turned and went back up the stairs.
I listened to her footsteps until they stopped.
"You need to leave," the woman said again.
"Or I will call the police."
"Call them," I said.
"Please.
Call them right now and we can all stand here together and I will show them a photograph of that necklace taken the morning of my daughter's funeral.
You call them.
I want you to."
Her jaw tightened.
She didn't reach for a phone.
"My name is Carol," she said finally.
The hostility in her voice shifted into something more careful.
"And I think there has been a very painful misunderstanding."
"Then explain it to me."
She looked past me at the street.
A car moved slowly at the far end.
She watched it until it turned the corner.
"Come inside," she said.
The house was dim and smelled of old wood and something baked earlier in the day.
Carol led me to a small sitting room off the hallway.
She didn't offer me a seat.
She stood near the window with her arms crossed and her eyes on the floor.
"Lily is eleven years old," she said.
"She came to live with me eight months ago."
"Where did she come from?"
"She was in the foster system." Carol looked up.
"I fostered her through the county.
Everything was done legally.
I have the paperwork."
"I'm not asking about paperwork.
I'm asking why she looks exactly like my daughter and why she's wearing a necklace I buried."
"I don't have an answer for the resemblance." Carol's voice was steady but her hands weren't.
"Children can look alike.
It happens."
"Not like this."
"As for the necklace —" She stopped.
Started again.
"Lily came to me with almost nothing.
A backpack.
A few clothes.
The necklace was around her neck when she arrived.
I assumed it was hers.
I never questioned it."
"Where was she before you?"
"A group home.
Before that, another foster placement that didn't work out.
Before that —" Carol paused.
"I was told her file was complicated."
"Complicated how?"
Carol looked at me for a long moment.
Then she walked to a small writing desk in the corner, opened the top drawer, and took out a business card.
"Her case worker's name is Dennis Hartley," she said.
"He's the one who placed her with me.
If you want answers about where she came from before the group home, he's the person you need to speak to."
I took the card.
The name and a county office number.
Nothing else.
"Can I see her?" I asked.
"Just for a moment.
I won't upset her.
I just need to —"
"No." Carol said it quietly but without hesitation.
"Not today.
Not until I understand what's happening here.
She's been through enough."
I looked at the card in my hand.
"She asked me if I knew her," I said.
"At the door.
She asked me that."
Carol didn't answer.
"Does she ever talk about a family she remembers?
A mother?
A sister?"
Carol's expression shifted in a way she couldn't quite control.
Her eyes moved to the window and stayed there.
"She has dreams," she said carefully.
"She wakes up sometimes and talks about a woman with dark hair.
She says the woman used to sing to her." Carol's voice dropped slightly.
"She calls her Mama."
The room went very quiet.
I looked down at the business card.
My hands were shaking.
"I have dark hair," I said.
"And I used to sing to Ava every night."
Carol turned back to the window and said nothing.
I walked out of that house and stood on the front step in the cold air.
I looked down at the card.
Then I looked up at the upstairs window.
The curtain moved.
Lily was standing there, watching me leave.
She raised one hand.
Not quite a wave.
Something smaller than that.
Like a question.
May you like
I raised mine back.
Then I walked across the street to call my husband — and figure out how a child who looked exactly like our daughter ended up three hours from where we used to live, wearing a necklace we had buried.
