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“Who gave you this sweater?”

“My mother.”

“What’s her name?”

She hesitated.

I stepped closer.

“Please don’t make me drag every answer out of you.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“Laura.”

I studied her face.

She didn’t look exactly like my sister.

But now that I knew, I could see something familiar.

“Laura is your mother?”

“Yes.”

My heart seemed to stop.

“She’s alive?”

“Yes.”

I sat down.

For forty years, I had imagined every possible ending to Laura’s story.

Not one of them looked like this.

“And Thomas?” I asked. “Is he your father?”

“Yes. They stayed together for a few years.”

I looked down at the sweater.

“And Laura still never came home?”

Dolly inhaled slowly.

“She did.”

My head snapped up.

“When?”

“1992.”

Six years after she disappeared.

Laura had been twenty-two.

“How do you know?”

“Because she brought me with her.”

I stared at Dolly.

“What?”

“I was two. I don’t remember the visit myself.”

“Then tell me only what Laura told you. Don’t fill in anything you don’t know.”

Dolly nodded.

“She said my father, Thomas, came to your house on your sixteenth birthday. His family was moving away, and he asked her to leave with them.”

“She just walked away?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Your father caught them outside.”

My fingers tightened around the sweater.

“What happened?”

“Mom said they argued. Your father told her that if she walked away with Thomas, she shouldn’t expect to come home again.”

I could hear Dad saying those words in my imagination.

Not because I had heard them before.

Because they sounded exactly like something he would have said.

“What did Laura do?”

“She thought he was bluffing.”

“And?”

“She left.”

I looked away.

For decades, I had convinced myself someone must have taken my sister.

I had never seriously considered that she had left willingly after an argument, believing she could fix everything later.

“How long did she stay with Thomas?”

“A few years. I was born when Mom was twenty.”

“What happened between them?”

“They grew up. Mom eventually wanted to stop running. Thomas didn’t.”

“And that’s when she came back?”

“Not right away. By then, going home meant admitting she had made a terrible mistake.”

I understood that more than I wanted to.

“So what changed in 1992?”

“Me.”

Dolly’s voice became softer.

“Becoming a mother made her understand what your mother must have gone through.”

My throat tightened.

“So she brought you home.”

“Yes. I was two.”

“What did she expect?”

“She thought your mother would answer the door.”

“Was Mom there?”

“No. Neither were you.”

I leaned closer.

“Then who answered?”

“Your father.”

A chill moved through me.

Dad had always claimed he never saw Laura again after the night she disappeared.

Dolly didn’t need to say anything else.

“What did he do?”

“He told her she couldn’t come back.”

I stood immediately.

“No.”

“Emelia…”

“He wouldn’t have done that without telling Mom.”

Dolly’s expression told me otherwise.

“Did Laura try again?”

“Not at the house.”

“Why?”

“Because she believed him.”

“Believed what?”

“That all of you had finally moved on. That coming back would only hurt the family again.”

I stared at her.

“Did Dad tell her I said that?”

“Mom never told me his exact words.”

“Then don’t guess.”

Dolly nodded.

I picked up the sweater.

“Where is Laura now?”

“Nearby.”

My heartbeat grew louder.

“Does she know you gave Sophie this sweater?”

Dolly looked at the floor.

That was my answer.

“No,” she admitted.

I laughed once, although nothing was funny.

“You thought that after forty years you could hand my granddaughter an old sweater and let me solve the mystery myself?”

“I’ve been asking Mom to contact you for years. Sophie’s class had family trees hanging on the wall. I saw hers while I was cleaning and realized who she was.”

“That still wasn’t your decision to make.”

“I know.”

“One more thing. Did Laura ever tell you where this charm came from?”

Dolly nodded.

“She said your father gave it back to her when she came home.”

I froze.

Dad had held that charm the night Laura disappeared.

If Laura had possessed it afterward, then Dad had absolutely seen her again.

There was no doubt anymore.

Dolly watched me pick up my bag.

“Where are you going?”

“To ask my father why he allowed my mother to die believing her daughter never came home.”

Dad was watching television when I entered his room at the nursing facility.

“Emelia. You’re early this week.”

Without answering, I placed the wooden sunflower on his tray.

His expression changed immediately.

“Where did you get that?”

“Did you see Laura after 1986?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

I spread the sunflower sweater across his lap.

“She came back.”

Dad turned his face away.

That was all the confirmation I needed.

“When?”

His shoulders sagged.

“1992.”

The room suddenly felt smaller.

“Was she alone?”

“No.”

“She had a little girl.”

Dad shut his eyes.

“Dolly.”

His eyes opened again.

“You met her?”

“Yes.”

Something almost like relief crossed his face.

It made me furious.

“What happened?”

“Emelia, this was decades ago.”

“For you.”

I pulled a chair directly in front of him.

“I learned about it today. Tell me.”

Dad stared at the wooden sunflower.

“Your mother was away. Laura knocked on the door. She said she wanted to come home.”

My throat closed.

“And what did you tell her?”

“Your mother had finally started sleeping again. You had moved out. Things were beginning to settle.”

“Settle?”

“People had stopped talking.”

“About Thomas?”

Dad looked down.

“About everything. Laura leaving. The embarrassment. Me not being able to control my own daughter.”

I stared at him.

“Control?”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

“That is exactly what you said.”

His gaze stayed lowered.

“Laura had made her choice.”

“At sixteen.”

“She understood what she was doing.”

“No sixteen-year-old understands what forty years feels like.”

He flinched.