Vanessa laughed.
“For me?”
“Yes.”
Sophie started toward the stairs.
“We always thought there was a chance you might come back one day.”
Vanessa watched her go.
Then looked at me with something dangerously close to satisfaction.
“Children always wonder about their mother.”
That sentence carried me fifteen years backward.
FIFTEEN YEARS EARLIER
The triplets were six months old when Vanessa arrived at my house in Bellmere with three infant carriers.
A taxi waited at the curb.
For one foolish second, I believed she had come because she needed help.
My son Archie had died only months earlier.
Her husband.
My child.
We were both grieving.
I thought maybe she had finally reached the point where she could admit she couldn’t do everything alone.
Then Vanessa placed the first carrier beside me.
“Take them.”
I barely caught Sophie before the carrier shifted.
“What?”
She put Clara down.
Then Lily.
