“You found out?”
“I thought she left 30 years ago.”
I searched his face for any sign he was joking.
There wasn’t one.
“My father told me she walked out on us when I was six,” he said quietly.
“Last week the police found an elderly woman wandering outside a grocery store. Something in her purse eventually led them to me.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Gladys was humming softly inside Mia’s room.
“I didn’t recognize her,” Kyle said quietly. “Thirty years changes people. Mia had never seen her before.”
My mind raced.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried.”
He pulled his phone from his pocket.
The cracked screen lit up.
Five calls from him. All missed.
Three failed video calls.
Several unsent messages.
My delayed flights.
My conference schedule.
