“I took the liberty of writing to them to see if they might hire a newly widowed mother as a governess and sent my credentials along with your recommendation.”
“Eliza,” he replied firmly. “I would have seen to it myself, offered to—”
“They wrote back.”
She handed him the letter that had arrived that morning. He read it slowly, then took a long moment before looking up at her again. “You are suggesting a transatlantic move with a newborn and… working for an esteemed family I haven’t had contact with in over a decade?”
“Yes.”
“But—”
“This is my choice,” she said, willing her voice to sound confident.
His expression changed slightly—a mix of shock, sadness, and something that looked like admiration. “My God,” he murmured. “You sound so much like your mother.”
Then he agreed.
Eliza had been so thrilled that the realities of what lay aheadweren’t realized then. Now, aboard a ship somewhere in the Atlantic, she allowed herself a moment’s panic. But just a moment. Then the baby cooed, staring up at her, baby Eliza’s little hand wrapped around her mother’s pale finger. It was the first day it hadn’t rained on their journey, and mother and daughter were finally able to leave their cabin belowdecks. Standing above the ship’s hull of their transatlantic ocean liner, Eliza was able to view the horizon, and the vast sea before her, as she held her newborn. The ship’s passengers were milling about, nodding to her as they passed. She wore all black, and no one gave her pause, as she was clearly a widow with a young baby hoping to make it across the sea to America to meet her respectable relatives at the port in New York.
“It’s an adventure,” she reminded herself.
Yes, but it was nothing like the grand adventures she had read about in any book. This was terrifying and so painfully lonely that she hugged her daughter to her chest a little tighter. When the baby cooed in response, Eliza looked down and smiled.
“But not you,” she whispered. “You will do scary things, too, but you will be brave. So much braver than I. And maybe that means you won’t have to do them alone. And if you find yourself alone, in a place where even I can’t protect you, make sure you have a choice in how your story unfolds. Because you always have a choice.”
There were so many forces keeping her in place that it was almost overwhelming. But maybe this choice, this one decision would be enough to throw that line forward. And maybe her daughter would catch it and bring it forward. Maybe she could find something close to a happily ever after.
ELIZA CARTER
Circa 2025
Eliza Carter came from a long line of Elizas, an unbroken thread of life that spanned all the way to the beginning of time. Of course, Eliza herself was unaware of such a thread or, in any case, had no way to investigate it.
Not that she hadn’t tried. Her parents had never hidden the fact that she was adopted, but it wasn’t a topic that was openly discussed, either. When she was a child, the details were simply glossed over with smiles and assurances of their love. Then, later, everything between her parents began to fall apart before she could find the courage to ask. Fights echoing down the hall late at night. Days of silence that were almost just as painful.
Eliza had tried to save it. Salvage the moments of love and tenderness as if they were broken pieces of a plate scattered on the floor. If she made sure to collect every single one, she was sure she could put them back together herself and her parents wouldn’t notice the cracks. It hadn’t worked, though. By the time she was sixteen, she was Eliza Carter, child of divorce, subject of endless custody hearings. But as far as Eliza had been concerned, she was still just Eliza.
Even now, years later, it seemed strange to think about her name. How it connected her to two people whose lineage didn’t match her own. Her adoptive parents loved her, of course. She had never questioned that. But after the divorce, she could never shake one nagging question—was she the daughter they hopedfor when they made the choice to adopt? Yes, their marriage had failed, but she could still be the silver lining. Perhaps that was why she worked so hard to make them proud, to live up to the potential they so often told her she had. She had learned to measure her life by their lens, so by the time she graduated from college, she couldn’t quite tell where their dreams ended and her own began.
That’s when she began to wonder about her birth mother. She had before then, obviously, but when she was young, it was usually a curiosity about her reflection. Sometimes she would spend too long looking in the mirror, studying her long, straight nose. Her brown curls and her large dark eyes. Where did those eyes come from? she would wonder. Had they been her mother’s? Passed down from the women who came before her? She had no way to be sure. And, really, who was there to ask?
Sometimes, on a particularly sad day, if she was consumed with self-pity, Eliza obsessed over her birth mother’s choice to give her away. Did she even have a choice? She often wondered, if faced with the same situation, would she make the same decision?
After Eliza graduated from college and moved to New York, she tried to get answers. She had reached out to the adoption agency to see if there were any breadcrumbs they could share about her birth parents. She tried not to hope but couldn’t help the crushing disappointment when she received the form letter back stating what she already knew: The adoption was closed, and they were unable to share any details. Eliza had no choice in the matter at all.
She tried to remind herself that it didn’t really matter. Most people didn’t know much about their family history, either, despite knowing exactly who their parents were. This was America—a jumble of people made up of other people who came from every corner of the world. But that hadn’t stoppedher from getting one of those ancestry kits online a few years later, one that asked you to swab the inside of your cheek, then send it back to receive your results. She had done so, waiting patiently for three weeks until the email arrived. She had expected more fanfare, but in the end she had opened it in her pajamas while in bed, staring at the results while waiting to feel something. But instead of elation or joy, there was just mild confusion as she worked out how to read the information: 38 percent Iberian Peninsula; 29 percent Great Britain; 25 percent Eastern Europe; 8 percent South Asia. Numbers listed and explained thoroughly, yes, but there were no names. No pictures. Nothing personal to connect her to any of those statistics that somehow made up her whole being.
In the end, she stopped caring. At least, that’s what she told herself.
Then she met Ben Capshaw.
Eliza had noticed him around the office at work. How could she not? As soon as he stepped off the elevator, every woman on the floor locked eyes with his six-foot-tall frame, lopsided smile, and curly black hair. The casual way he strode to the conference room and the deep laugh when he left.
He joined the company in October, and by February, his visits to the fifth floor for the executive meetings became the highlight of Eliza’s week. But she never talked to him. Even the thought of it sent panic through her chest. What would she even say? For the past three years, she had been working so hard she had barely made any friends there, let alone dated. Which was fine. She was content to watch from afar and let her imagination do the rest.
Except, Ben Capshaw had other plans.
Eliza had stayed late at work, per usual, and hadn’t expected to find anyone in the elevator when she pressed the call button.That’s why she walked in without looking up, and straight into Ben’s broad chest.
