She thought we would ask why she hadn’t escaped earlier.
Why she had trusted Caleb.
Why she had stayed.
Why she hadn’t called.
Then too much time passed.
A year.
Then another.
Elaine helped her replace her identification.
Find counseling.
Get a job.
Eventually, Elaine left the shelter and opened the café.
She offered Nora work.
Nora had been there ever since.
I looked at the turquoise cover-up Elaine was wearing.
“What about this?”
Elaine glanced down.
“Nora gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“About two years ago, she was clearing out old things.”
Elaine touched the fabric.
“She said she hated seeing it.”
My eyes went to the yellow sun.
My mother’s stitches.
Elaine’s voice softened.
“Nora said it was what she had been wearing on the day she ruined her life.”
Something inside me cracked.
“She did not ruin her life.”
Elaine nodded.
“I know.”
“She was sixteen.”
“Yes.”
“She made one bad decision.”
“Yes.”
“That didn’t mean she deserved everything that came afterward.”
“No.”
I wiped my face.
“Does she know we looked for her?”
“Yes.”
“Then why…”
I couldn’t finish.
Elaine did.
“Because knowing people love you and believing you still deserve that love are two different things.”
I looked through the café window again.
My daughter was wiping down a table.
She was twenty-four years old now.
I had missed eight birthdays.
Eight Christmases.
Jobs.
Apartments.
Bad days.
Good days.
Entire pieces of her life I could never get back.
“I need to see her.”
“You will.”
Elaine paused.
“But let me speak with her first.”
Michael leaned forward.
“What if she says no?”
Elaine didn’t lie to us.
“Then you let her say no today.”
I hated that answer.
But I understood.
We gave Elaine our hotel information.
Then we walked away.
Leaving that café while knowing Nora was alive inside it was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
Back at the hotel, Michael cried.
I had seen my husband cry before.
Never like that.
“What if she disappears again?”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
So we waited.
At seven that evening, my phone rang.
Elaine.
“She wants to see you.”
Twenty minutes later, Michael and I were sitting in a quiet room behind the café.
Then the door opened.
Nora walked in.
For several seconds, none of us moved.
She looked at me.
