you.”
“I never got anything.”
“I wrote again on their first birthday.”
My heart began pounding.
“Then Christmas. Then again.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“No, Vanessa.”
“I did.”
“If I had received one letter—one—I would have answered.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
“I know that now.”
Claire handed me photocopies.
The second I saw the address, something inside me tightened.
Aunt Carol’s house.
The place Vanessa and I had lived after our parents disappeared.
For years, that address had remained on old records.
School files.
Medical paperwork.
Emergency-contact forms.
“You mailed these to Carol?”
Vanessa nodded.
“I thought you still received mail there.”
I looked down.
One envelope had large black words written across the front.
RETURN TO SENDER.
June lifted another copy.
“We thought the handwriting looked familiar.”
Ava watched me carefully.
“Dad?”
I already knew.
I had seen that handwriting on grocery lists.
Birthday cards.
Permission slips.
