“Rosalie,” she breathed.
I actually flinched. “Who are you?”
“Caroline.” She kept staring, like she couldn’t quite believe I was real. “Frank called me last month. He could barely get the words out. He said you might come one day.”
“Might?”
“He was hoping he’d finally find the courage to send you.” She stepped back from the door. “I think you’d better come in.”
Every instinct told me to turn around and drive straight back to the hospital. I went inside anyway.
“Tell me what he lied about,” I said.
Caroline didn’t answer right away. She opened a drawer beside the stove and set it in front of me — a small collection of metal cookie cutters. A heart. A flower. A little rabbit. An apple. And one small, battered star.
I stopped breathing. It was identical to the one Frank had used every Sunday of my life.
