“Blueberry?” she asked.
It was the breakfast we used to make every weekend before everything changed.
“Blueberry,” I answered.
After breakfast, I brought the old adoption box to the table.
This time, I didn’t lock it away.
Mallory opened Corinne’s letter and read it slowly.
She cried.
So did I.
There were still police reports to handle, counseling appointments to arrange, apologies that wouldn’t be accepted right away, and trust that could take years to rebuild.
Nothing about our lives suddenly became easy.
But that morning, my daughter was sitting across from me instead of existing only in a missing-person photograph.
And for the first time in a year, I didn’t need hope to tell me she might come home.
She already had.
