I had missed eight birthdays.
Eight Christmases.
Jobs.
Apartments.
Bad days.
Good days.
Entire pieces of her life I could never get back.
“I need to see her.”
“You will.”
Elaine paused.
“But let me speak with her first.”
Michael leaned forward.
“What if she says no?”
Elaine didn’t lie to us.
“Then you let her say no today.”
I hated that answer.
But I understood.
We gave Elaine our hotel information.
Then we walked away.
Leaving that café while knowing Nora was alive inside it was one of the hardest things I had ever done.
Back at the hotel, Michael cried.
I had seen my husband cry before.
Never like that.
“What if she disappears again?”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.”
So we waited.
At seven that evening, my phone rang.
Elaine.
“She wants to see you.”
Twenty minutes later, Michael and I were sitting in a quiet room behind the café.
Then the door opened.
Nora walked in.
For several seconds, none of us moved.
She looked at me.
Then at Michael.
Her face crumpled.
“I’m sorry.”
I crossed the room before I even realized I had moved.
I wrapped my arms around her.
For half a second, she went stiff.
Then she collapsed against me.
She was crying so hard I could barely understand the words.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I held her face.
“Stop.”
“I left.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I went with him.”
“You were a child trying to make a decision you didn’t understand.”
“I should have come home.”
“You’re safe now.”
She stared at me as if she didn’t know what to do with those words.
Michael wrapped both arms around us.
“We believe you,” he said.
Nora looked at him.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
“You don’t think I was stupid?”
Michael’s voice broke.
“I think you were sixteen.”
That was when she completely fell apart.
We talked for hours.
Not enough to cover eight years.
Not even close.
But it was a beginning.
At one point, we asked Nora if she wanted to come home with us.
She shook her head.
At first, that hurt.
Then she explained.
She already had an apartment.
A job.
Friends.
A therapist.
