She had run away.
There was a boy.
His name was Nathan.
I remembered him vaguely.
He was eighteen.
My father hated him.
Laura had been furious at home for months before our birthday.
Dad was strict.
Laura was stubborn.
Their arguments had become constant.
I knew some of that.
What I didn’t know was how far things had gone.
On the night we turned sixteen, Laura left with Nathan.
She believed they were going to start a life together.
She believed love would solve everything.
It didn’t.
Within a few years, Nathan was gone.
Laura was left raising Dolly alone.
“She wanted to come home,” Dolly said.
My heart pounded.
“When?”
“When I was about three.”
I calculated automatically.
That meant Laura had returned less than seven years after disappearing.
“She came here?”
Dolly nodded.
“With me.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“And nobody told me?”
Dolly hesitated.
