Home Entertainment Game Technology Advertisement Part 2: For eight years, my parents made me leave the house every time my brother brought his fiance over; Mom said, “She comes from a good family, don’t embarrass us”; Dad added, “Just disappear for the weekend”; I did; then one weekend, I never came back; it took them four years to find out where I went.

“The dogwood.”

I went still.

“You wrote the tag.”

“Yes.”

“I still have it.”

She pulled a folded laminated card from her purse.

My handwriting.

Graft is good. Water deep the first summer. She'll bloom. — Stacey

I stared.

“You kept that?”

“Mitch's sister was named Stacey.”

she said.

“The woman at the nursery looked like Mitch.”

“I remember thinking that.”

“My parents said grief makes people see faces everywhere.”

“But after I found the deed…”

She swallowed.

“I drove to the garden center.”

“It was gone.”

My old employer had closed.

Then Avery searched state nursery licenses for my first name.

Found Stacey's Field & Root Nursery LLC.

No photo.

She drove out.

And there I was.

Alive.

Selling hydrangeas.

Avery whispered:

“I sat in my car for twenty minutes before coming in.”

“Why?”

“Because I realized that if you were alive…”

Her voice broke.

“…then almost my entire marriage began inside a lie.”