Rachel had been my first real love.
Not my first girlfriend.
My first love.
We began dating at 17 and remained together through most of college.
I believed we would marry.
She believed so as well, at least for a time.
Then life grew complicated.
I accepted a job in Chicago.
She stayed behind to care for her mother.
We attempted long distance.
We failed at it.
There was no betrayal. No shouting breakup.
Just two people growing exhausted by the distance until every phone call began to feel like a duty.
The last time I spoke with Rachel, nine years earlier, she said she could not keep waiting for a life that might never arrive.
I told her I understood.
I did not.
Greg rubbed his jaw.
“Nobody really sees her anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
He hesitated.
“I heard she died.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“I don’t know if it’s true.”
“Who told you?”
“Someone told someone. You know this town.”
“How long ago?”
“A year, maybe.”
I stared at him.
Rachel was 37.
People like Rachel were not supposed to become rumors.
I left the diner an hour later, yet both stories stayed with me.
Rachel, and the little girl in Colfax.
I barely slept that night.
The next morning, I drove to Colfax.
I did not call ahead.
That was my first error.
The care center was a modest building attached to a larger pediatric services campus.
A woman at the front desk explained that I could not simply walk in.
I could not just meet a child because someone had mentioned her over breakfast.
That was reasonable enough.
I gave her Greg’s name.
I explained what he had told me.
She made several calls.
Then she requested my driver’s license and had me wait.
Forty minutes later, a case aide named Nora returned carrying a little girl in a yellow sleeper.
“You’re Pete?”
“Yes.”
“This is Maisie.”
Maisie wore one sock.
Her dark hair stuck up slightly on one side.
She regarded me with wide brown eyes.
Nora said, “Would you like to hold her?”
I was not certain why I agreed.
Perhaps because I had driven 30 minutes.
