.
The girl was standing near a tree.
Same posture. Same face.
Like looking at Junie through a mirror that wasn’t quite right.
But that wasn’t what broke me.
It was the woman standing behind her.
And the one beside her.
One of them…
I recognized instantly.
Marla.
The nurse.
The one who had been there the night I gave birth.
The one who told me my baby didn’t make it.
My heart started pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears.
Junie ran ahead, already smiling, already calling out to Lizzy.
The two girls met like they had always known each other.
Like there had never been a gap. Never been six years.
I walked toward them slowly.
Each step heavier than the last.
“Marla?” I said.
She froze.
Her face drained of color.
And in that moment…
I knew.
Before anyone said a word, I knew.
“You,” I whispered.
My voice didn’t sound like mine anymore.
“I never expected this from you.”
The woman next to her stepped forward, her hands shaking.
“I’m Suzanne,” she said quietly. “We need to talk.”
But I wasn’t listening anymore.
Because everything I had lived with for six years…
every night I cried over a child I thought I lost…
every moment I felt something missing and couldn’t explain why…
suddenly had an answer.
And it wasn’t grief.
It was a lie.
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