“I'm sorry," she said, her voice clipped. “She didn't want it. Wouldn't even touch it. She said she doesn’t care to hear from you or your family ever again.”
She didn’t say it cruelly, not exactly. Just flat. Like it was the truth, and it had always been the truth.
"What about Izzy?" I asked, dumbfounded.
"We can't reward her bad behavior," she said. "It wouldn't be healthy for either of them."
And I believed her.
I told myself it made sense—Dani was angry, grieving. Maybe she really didn’t want to hear from the guy who’d taken her sister. I honored her wishes and never wrote to her again, but Izzy continued sending her letters and photos.
Six months later, Meghan called to let me know Dani had ran away. A week after her fifteenth birthday.
“Took off in the middle of the night,” she said. “Didn’t leave a note. Nothing.”
And again, I believed her.
It wasn’t until today, standing on that trail with Tina—her voice still echoing in my head—that I learned the truth.
“That’s just it,Dick Tracy. She never ran away.”
She never ran away.
I walk over to my desk drawer and pull the letter out. Never could bring myself to throw it away.
Some part of me always wondered… what if I’d done more? What if I’d pushed harder?
But back then, I trusted Meghan Fletcher.
So much so that I married her.
That’s the part I can’t forgive.
***
The knock on the door an hour later announces Beth's visit.
She has a special knock:rap-rap. Pause. Rap-rap-rap.The opening line ofYou Are My Sunshine.Her favorite song—because Dani used to sing it to her every night at bedtime.
I pinch the bridge of my nose, a wave of pain and anger battling to see which will rise to the surface first.
I open the door and find Beth grinning ear to ear. Her smile eases some of the pain inside me, but the anger only grows—fueled by the innocence on my sister’s face.
She’s blissfully unaware that all those years without her sister are my fault—because I trusted the wrong person. I gave Meghan my heart and lost all common sense.
If I had asked more questions, done more research, hired someone to find Dani… it would’ve taken five minutes to learn she was in the group home all along.
My family trusted me. And I trusted Meghan.
In the end, two sisters lived apart for ten years.
Yeah, Elle’s right. I am a monster.
"Hi, Bethy," I say, pulling her into a hug. "How did it go?"
"It went incredibly well," she says, unable to contain her happiness.
"What did you two talk about?" I ask, wondering if any of the truth had come out.
