“It's you.”
Mrs. Wilson covered her face.
“My baby.”
Mom began sobbing.
“You were right next door.”
“I know.”
“All those years…”
“I know, sweetheart.”
Mom moved toward her.
And then, for the first time, she wrapped her arms around the woman who had given birth to her more than sixty years earlier.
Mrs. Wilson held her tightly.
I sat beside them, crying so hard I could barely see.
Because the woman I'd known as my elderly neighbor wasn't simply someone who had helped raise me.
She was my grandmother.
And the love she'd given me throughout my childhood had carried a secret meaning none of us had fully understood.
CHAPTER 8 (FINAL): I THOUGHT I WAS SAVING MY ELDERLY NEIGHBOR—BUT I HAD ACTUALLY BROUGHT THREE GENERATIONS OF A FAMILY BACK TOGETHER
Six months after I found Mrs. Wilson locked in her basement, she stood beneath the oldest oak tree in our neighborhood and introduced me to a crowd of people as her granddaughter.
