“I’m trying.”
“Her name was Evelyn Harper.”
Ruth swallowed.
I stepped closer.
“She disappeared twenty-eight years ago.”
Her eyes shifted from the picture to my face.
“My mother disappeared twenty-eight years ago.”
Silence filled the room.
I could hear water dripping from the faucet.
I pointed to the little girl in the photograph.
“That’s me.”
Ruth’s lips parted.
I pressed my fingers against the scar on her shoulder.
“And that is exactly the scar my mother had.”
She stared at me.
I had imagined finding my mother thousands of times as a child.
In grocery stores.
At airports.
In crowds.
Once, when I was twelve, I followed a woman through an entire shopping mall because she had my mother’s walk.
In every fantasy, Mom recognized me instantly.
She screamed my name.
She ran into my arms.
None of that happened.
