I thought the worst day of my life was coming home to find my daughter gone. I had no idea that her return a year later would force me to question every lie I’d been living with.
The seatbelt sign dinged above me, but I barely heard it. My thumb kept pressing replay on the voicemail Sarah had left a night ago. The one that cut off mid-sentence with a soft, startled “Mom, I need to tell you some -” and then nothing.
Three days in Chicago balancing spreadsheets for a client, and all I could think about was that half-swallowed word.
“You’ve listened to that thing 10 times,” my co-worker, Lola, who also worked as a paralegal, said from the seat beside me, closing her paperback. “Everything okay at home, Maureen?”
