“Agreed.”
I looked at Melissa.
“And you.”
She met my eyes.
“No more disappearing.”
Her face crumpled slightly.
“I don’t want to disappear anymore.”
That broke the last hard piece inside me.
I moved beside her.
She took my hand.
For several minutes, none of us spoke.
Then Melissa asked something I had not expected.
“Is the oak tree still there?”
I looked at her.
“What oak tree?”
“The one behind the market.”
My throat tightened.
“That tree is older than I am.”
“You hung a tire swing there.”
“When you were six.”
She smiled.
“I remember.”
Calvin turned toward the window.
I think he was trying not to cry.
Before leaving Havenwood, Dr. Foster cautioned me that recognition did not mean everything was restored.
Melissa would still have difficult days.
She might remember a Sunday breakfast from thirty years ago but forget a conversation from yesterday.
She could not simply walk out and resume the life everyone else remembered.
“I understand,” I said.
But I didn’t.
Not yet.
In the parking lot, Calvin handed me the folder he had been carrying.
“Copies of the expenses,” he said. “And something else.”
Inside were bank statements, insurance letters and Havenwood invoices.
Beneath them was an old photograph.
Dorothy.
My wife stood beside our kitchen window holding baby Melissa.
On the back was Dorothy’s handwriting.
I knew every curve of it.
My hands began shaking before I even read the words.
CALLED AGAIN TODAY. STILL NO CONFIRMATION. IF THERE IS EVEN A CHANCE, I HAVE TO KEEP LOOKING.
The date was four months after Melissa’s funeral.
I looked at Calvin.
“Where did you get this?”
“In a box Melissa’s social worker received with some old records.”
“From whom?”
“That’s what I was trying to figure out.”
I turned the photograph over again.
Four months after we buried our daughter, Dorothy had written that there was still a chance.
My wife had suspected something.
Possibly before she died.
“Did Dorothy know Melissa was alive?” I whispered.
Calvin shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Behind us, the doors opened.
Melissa stood there with Dr. Foster.
She looked at the photograph in my hand.
Then she said something that sent me back through seven years of memories.
“I remember Mom being at a hospital.”
I stared at her.
“What hospital?”
Melissa pressed her fingers to her temple.
“I don’t know.”
