I hadn’t looked at my phone. I couldn’t. It buzzed twice with new texts from Fox while I was still in the sheriff’s office, but I never opened them. Eventually, I turned the phone off entirely. I couldn’t take another word of comfort. Not from him. Not from anyone.
I ended up at a small public park outside town—a place I barely remembered from childhood. The parking lot was cracked with potholes, the swing set had rusted through the years, and a couple of picnic tables sat under a sagging pavilion. It wasn’t much, but it was quiet and empty.
I pulled into a space and turned the engine off, but didn’t move to leave the vehicle. I wrapped both hands tightly around the steering wheel and pressed my forehead against it.
I was so stupid.
I had wanted it to be her.
That bracelet. I had been so sure it had been the one I’d made for my mom.
But I was wrong.
The bracelet in the evidence bag had looked similar in the grainy photo, but in person it was totally different.
How had I been so wrong?
I unclipped my seat belt and curled my knees up onto the seat, wrapping my arms around my middle, as if I could keep myself from unraveling. My ribs ached as I gasped for air. My throat felt tight.
Why did this hurt so much?
She had left me when I was seven. She’d been gone for most of my life.
Why did it feel like I was losing her all over again?
I sucked in a breath, then another. But it didn’t help. It wasn’t a panic attack, not exactly. It was something deeper. Slower. Like grief had been hiding under my skin for years, and it was clawing its way out.
I rested my forehead on my knees, sobs racking my body. Ugly, gasping sobs that I couldn’t stop.
I didn’t know why it mattered so much that Jane Doe wasn’t my mom.
Maybe I’d been holding on to some last shred of hope that I hadn’t been abandoned. Maybe I’d been wanting to believe my mother wasbetter than she was, so that I could have hope that someday, I’d be able to be a good mother, too.
That hope was gone now. And in its place, there was this gaping, open wound I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
I cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. Until my throat was raw and my cheeks were chapped and my ribs hurt from the force of it.
Maybe it wasn’t just about her, either.
Maybe it was everything. My mother. My father. Fox. The baby I lost. The life I could’ve had, the version of myself that never got to exist.
Maybe I thought I was strong enough to come back here and do this. But maybe I was wrong about that too.
Eventually, the tears stopped. I dragged my head up. My hands shook as I wiped my face, trying to pull myself together.
The park was starting to come alive now. A couple of cars had pulled in. A woman was unloading a toddler from a car seat. I couldn’t sit here anymore.
I couldn’t go back to the bed-and-breakfast either. Not yet. I wasn’t ready.
So I turned the key in the ignition and backed out of the space, heading in the only direction I could think of.
Home.
My childhood home.
The last place I ever saw my mother.
Ashdidn’tanswerthedoor right away.
