“She didn’t know what to do.”
“So she made me bury her.”
Her aunt said nothing.
Audrey looked toward the window.
The lavender outside moved gently in the wind.
Then she asked, “Where is she?”
Caroline hesitated.
Audrey looked back.
“Where?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“You’re lying.”
“Audrey.”
“You’ve been lying for eleven years. Don’t suddenly expect me to believe you’re bad at it.”
Caroline flinched.
Audrey stood.
“Tell me.”
Her aunt opened a drawer.
She took out an old envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
A woman stood on a porch beside a man and two children.
She wore jeans and a white cardigan.
Her hair was shorter than Audrey remembered.
She was smiling.
Audrey recognised her immediately.
Not from memory.
From the photographs on her father’s mantelpiece.
Marianne Whitlock.
Her mother.
Alive.
Standing in front of a white house with blue shutters.
A little boy hugged her waist.
A younger girl sat on the porch steps holding a stuffed rabbit.
Audrey turned the photograph over.
On the back, someone had written:
Summer 2024. The Halsteads.
Audrey stared at the date.
Nine years after the funeral.
Her voice came out flat.
“She has children.”
Caroline closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
Audrey looked at the photograph.
The boy couldn’t have been older than seven.
The girl, perhaps four.
“Does she know I’m alive?”
Caroline stared at her.
“Of course she does.”
Audrey swallowed.
“Does she know anything about me?”
Her aunt didn’t answer.
And somehow, that silence hurt more than the photograph.
Audrey drove home with the picture on the passenger seat.
She stopped twice because her vision blurred.
At a gas station outside Reading, she sat in her car for forty minutes while families moved around her, buying snacks and filling their tanks.
A little girl in pink sneakers ran toward a minivan.
“Mommy!”
A woman turned and caught her before she reached the parking lot.
Audrey watched them.
Then she bent forward over the steering wheel and cried until she couldn’t catch her breath.
For eleven years, she had believed that the woman she missed was beyond reach. Death was cruel, but at least death had never been a choice.
Now every birthday carried a different meaning.
Her tenth birthday, when she sat beside an empty chair at the kitchen table.
Her first school dance, when she borrowed makeup from Sophie, her father’s girlfriend at the time, because she didn’t know how to apply eyeliner.
Her first period, when she locked herself in the bathroom and cried because her father looked terrified and neither knew what to do.
Her high-school graduation, when she carried a photograph of her mother inside her handbag.
All those moments.
Every time she had whispered, I wish you were here.
Her mother could have been.
She simply hadn’t come.
Graham was repairing the kitchen faucet when Audrey arrived.
He looked up from beneath the sink.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
She stood in the doorway.
He smiled.
“You’re early.”
Audrey didn’t answer.
Her father crawled out and wiped his hands on a towel.
His smile faded.
“What’s wrong?”
She held out the photograph.
Graham looked at it.
At first, his face showed only confusion.
“Who’s this?”
Audrey said nothing.
He moved closer.
Then stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
He took the photograph.
For a long moment, he didn’t move.
Audrey watched the recognition travel across his face.
His mouth opened.
Then closed.
“Where did you get this?”
“Aunt Caroline.”
Graham stared at the woman in the photograph.
His hands began shaking.
“No.”
Audrey swallowed.
“Dad.”
“No.”
He turned the photograph over.
Read the handwriting.
Turned it back.
The kitchen clock ticked.
He looked up at Audrey.
“What is this?”
Her voice broke.
“She’s alive.”
Graham stared.
Then he shook his head.
“No.”
“Dad.”
“No, that’s not possible.”
Audrey stepped closer.
“Caroline told me.”
He looked at her.
“Caroline?”
She nodded.
Graham stared at the photograph again.
His face changed.
Not all at once.
First confusion.
Then disbelief.
Then something Audrey had never seen in him before.
Pure terror.