But I was no longer working alone.
Miriam handled the legal strategy.
Financial specialists traced transactions.
Investigators pursued evidence.
And Vanessa called every evening.
Sometimes we talked about Mark.
More often, we didn’t.
She told me about her childhood dog, Pepper.
About her fear of deep water.
About the disastrous haircut she gave herself at eleven.
About the way her adoptive father always cried during sentimental movies.
I told her about my mother Rose.
My first apartment.
The ridiculous purple coat I’d worn through college.
The music I played while cooking.
We began learning the ordinary details of each other’s lives.
Those conversations mattered more than I could explain.
I’d spent years imagining a daughter who never grew up.
Now there was a real woman.
She had opinions.
Habits.
Memories.
A life that had continued without me.
I wanted to know all of it.
But I also understood that I couldn’t demand twenty-eight years of closeness overnight.
