“Okay.”
“You disappear for ten years and your opening line is hi?”
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Neither do I.”
She took one step toward me.
I immediately stepped back.
That hurt her.
Good.
I hated myself for thinking that.
Then I needed proof.
Not medical records.
Not DNA yet.
Something no stranger could have researched.
I asked:
“What did we call the dent in my bedroom wall?”
She stared.
Then her eyes filled.
“The moon.”
My lungs stopped.
When we were eleven, Lily threw a tennis ball inside the house after Dad told us not to.
The ball knocked a crescent-shaped dent into my bedroom wall.
We hid it behind a poster and called it the moon.
Nobody else knew.
I asked another.
“Who broke Mom’s ceramic bowl during the snowstorm?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“You told them you did because I was already grounded.”
“What were you grounded for?”
“Taking your bike after you said no.”
I swallowed.
She whispered:
“Claire.”
I looked at her face.
That small line between her eyebrows when she was frightened.
