He looked at Jim.
“That’s when he told me about the suitcase.”
Elena’s hands trembled.
“I grew up two towns away. I’ve always felt like something was missing.”
She looked at me.
“When Jim called, I drove here the next day. I couldn’t keep waiting for answers.”
“But why here?”
“Jim suggested meeting somewhere away from home, somewhere neither of us had memories attached to.” Elena admitted. “He thought it would feel less overwhelming than showing up at your front door.”
I looked at her face. Really looked. And I saw my mother’s jawline. My mother’s eyes.
Not mine.
“Twenty-nine years,” I whispered. “I’ve been someone else for twenty-nine years.”
“You’ve been you,” Bruce said. “You’ve always been you.”
I could not hear him.
I pushed the folder away, stumbled backward into a chair, then out the door. The bell clattered again behind me.
I walked the beach alone, sand cold under my feet, grief and fury wrestling inside me. The sun was bleeding orange across the water when Bruce finally found me.
“Claire, please. Let me explain.”
