“Claire.”
Matilda closed her eyes.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
At that moment, an old memory returned to me.
Several months after Claire disappeared, I had searched through her desk while organizing legal documents.
Inside one folder, I had found faded foster-care paperwork.
There was a brief reference to a possible biological sibling.
At the time, I had barely been functioning. I was raising six grieving children while trying to survive my own grief.
I had placed the papers in a box and never looked at them again.
Claire had once mentioned searching for her birth family, but she rarely spoke about it. Every failed attempt had left her feeling rejected all over again.
The woman sitting across from us was not Claire.
She was the sister Claire had spent years trying to find.
Noah looked at Matilda with tears in his eyes.
“She had six children,” he said. “They grew up without her.”
