“I didn’t live at that address yet,” I said slowly. “The company changed my apartment the week before I moved. I told you that in the last voicemail I left.”
“I never got a voicemail.”
“I left three.”
She looked at me then, and the years between us opened like a cracked floor.
“I thought you knew,” she said. “I thought you chose not to come.”
“I thought you left me.”
The children ate their pretzels, unaware of the quiet earthquake beside them. Lily hummed to herself and swung her boots. Noah was trying to balance a crumb on his knee. Sophie leaned her rabbit against the stroller bar and whispered something into its ear.
I looked at them and could barely breathe.
“Are they mine?” I asked, though the answer had already begun living in my bones.
Rachel’s face softened with pain. “I believed they were. I still do.”
