Her older brother lived in Tennessee.
He had reported her missing, but the report had never been connected to the motel victim.
Twelve years.
Two families had been grieving the wrong absence.
Mom wasn’t alive to learn the truth.
That became the deepest wound between Rebecca and me.
Our mother had died four years before the hospital call after a short battle with pancreatic cancer.
Rebecca knew.
She’d found the obituary.
She hadn’t attended the funeral.
When I asked why, she didn’t try to justify it.
“I was a coward.”
“Yes.”
“I drove there.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I drove to the cemetery.”
“Don’t.”
“I stayed across the road.”
“Stop talking.”
“I saw you.”
I stood.
We were in a therapist’s office by then.
That had been one of my conditions for continuing contact.
The therapist, Dr. Patel, didn’t intervene.
She knew I needed to hear it.
