“Why didn’t you try again?”
“I did.” She turned toward the diaper bag and pulled out another envelope, this one stamped and returned. “Twice. The second time, a woman called me.
She said she was from your office. She said you were engaged already and that my calls were upsetting you. She said if I cared about you, I would stop.”
My mouth went dry. “What woman?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t give a name.”
“Rachel, I wasn’t engaged. I wasn’t even dating anyone seriously for almost two years.”
“I know that now,” she said. “Or I’m beginning to.”
The fountain splashed behind us. A breeze lifted the corner of the letter in my hand. It looked so ordinary, this small piece of paper. Cheap stationery.
Black ink. A lie that had somehow carried enough force to separate four lives before three of them had even taken their first breath.
