Tears ran down my face.
“But you don't have to decide tonight.”
She sank into the chair.
Catherine said:
“Rebecca is alive.”
Emily's head snapped up.
“What?”
“She wants to meet you.”
“No.”
Immediate.
Catherine nodded.
“Okay.”
Emily stared.
“You're not going to convince me?”
“No.”
Catherine's tears fell.
“I lost thirty-two years because other people decided what I was ready to know.”
“I will not do that to you.”
Emily looked at me.
“What about you?”
I knew what she meant.
Would I want her to meet Rebecca?
Every selfish instinct screamed no.
Then I thought of Grace.
Of Zane.
Of the bronze plaque.
“I want the choice to be yours.”
Emily cried.
“Do you want me to?”
I answered the hardest truth.
“Part of me doesn't.”
She stared.
I continued.
“And part of me knows that isn't the part that gets to decide.”
She reached for me then.
