Chapter 3: The Girl Who Already Knew
I read the message three times.
Each time, the words meant the same thing.
Caleb was leaning against the wall now, watching me.
He hadn't moved toward me.
He hadn't tried to take the phone.
He just stood there with his arms at his sides, like a man waiting for a sentence to be read out loud.
"She's been looking for you," I said.
"I know."
I looked up.
"You know?"
"She contacted me.
About two months ago." He pushed off the wall and walked to the kitchen doorway, then stopped with his back to me.
"She found me through one of those ancestry websites.
She sent me a message.
I didn't respond."
"You didn't respond." I said it flat.
Not a question.
"I didn't know what to say.
I didn't know if it was real.
I didn't know—"
"Caleb." My voice came out quieter than I expected.
"You knew it was real.
That's why you didn't respond."
He turned around.
His eyes were red at the edges.
"Her name is Nora," he said.
"She's fourteen."
The kitchen felt very still.
I could hear the refrigerator humming.
"Fourteen," I repeated.
"Yes."
I thought about the math without meaning to.
Fifteen years ago.
The first year of our marriage.
The package had been sent when she was a newborn, which meant she had been conceived before the wedding — or just after.
I didn't know which was worse.
"Who is her mother?" I asked.
"Her name was Claire." He paused.
"Was.
She passed away eight months ago.
Cancer."
I sat down at the kitchen table.
I didn't decide to sit.
My legs just stopped.
"So Nora has no mother," I said.
"No."
"And she's been looking for her father."
"Yes."
I set my phone face-down on the table.
I stared at the wood grain.
Caleb pulled out the chair across from me but didn't sit.
He stood behind it with both hands on the back of it, gripping it.
"I should have told you when she first reached out," he said.
"I know that.
I panicked.
I thought if I ignored it long enough—"
"It would disappear?"
He didn't answer.
"She's not a message, Caleb.
She's a person." I looked up at him.
"She's fourteen years old and her mother just d*ed and she reached out to the only family she has left, and you ignored her for two months."
"I know." His voice cracked on the second word.
"I know what I did."
I picked up my phone and looked at the message again.
The number was local.
She was somewhere nearby — this girl, this child, this stranger who shared my husband's eyes.
I typed back before I had fully decided to.
*"This is his wife.
My name is Diane.
Are you safe?"*
The reply came in less than thirty seconds.
*"Yes.
I'm at a diner on Mercer Street.
I've been sitting here for two hours.
I wasn't sure if I should send that message."*
I stood up.
"She's ten minutes from here," I said.
Caleb's hands tightened on the chair back.
"Diane—"
"She's been sitting alone in a diner for two hours, Caleb." I picked up my keys from the counter.
"Her mother is gone.
You're all she has."
"You don't have to do this tonight."
I looked at him.
"I'm not doing it for you."
I walked to the front door.
May you like
Behind me, I heard the chair scrape back.
He was coming with me.
