Eventually Rebecca looked past Catherine.
At me.
Then Emily.
She knew immediately.
Her face changed.
“Oh.”
Emily stood frozen.
Rebecca's hand shook.
“Hi.”
Emily's voice was tiny.
“Hi.”
No music.
No running embrace.
Just two women with the same eyes looking at each other.
Rebecca pointed toward a chair.
“Would you sit?”
Emily did.
I stayed near the door.
Rebecca noticed.
“You're Claire.”
“Yes.”
“I'm sorry.”
The words startled me.
“For what?”
Her eyes filled.
“For what Zane did to you.”
Not:
for giving you my child.
Not:
for existing.
For the lie.
“I made a choice at nineteen.”
Rebecca said.
“You didn't get to make one.”
That mattered.
Emily looked between us.
“Why did you give me to them?”
Rebecca breathed slowly.
Then told us.
Owen had controlled her from sixteen to nineteen.
After she escaped, she learned she was pregnant.
She entered a protected shelter.
She planned to keep the baby.
