Michael handled it differently.
He stopped talking about Nora constantly because, as he once admitted, saying her name sometimes made him feel like he couldn’t breathe.
I did the opposite.
I said her name whenever I could.
I kept her bedroom mostly unchanged.
I renewed the missing-person posters online.
Every year on her birthday, I bought the chocolate cake she loved.
Michael never told me to stop.
But eventually, he started asking me to leave the house more.
Go somewhere.
See something.
Do anything that wasn’t connected to waiting.
That summer he suggested a four-day trip to a small coastal town almost six hundred miles from home.
I immediately said no.
“I’m not going to a beach.”
“We don’t have to go to the beach.”
“It’s a coastal town.”
“There are restaurants. Shops. A boardwalk.”
“No.”
He waited several weeks and asked again.
Eventually, I agreed.
I told myself four days couldn’t hurt me.
We arrived on a Thursday afternoon.
I avoided the shoreline.
When we walked the boardwalk, I stayed on the side farthest from the water.
The sound of waves still made my chest tighten.
On the second afternoon, Michael suggested lunch at a small café several streets from our hotel.
We were walking toward it when I saw the woman.
She was standing beside one of the outdoor tables.
Maybe fifty.
Possibly older.
Short brown hair.
Large sunglasses.
And a faded turquoise cover-up.
My body stopped before my mind understood why.
Michael took another two steps before noticing I wasn’t beside him.
“What is it?”
I couldn’t answer.
The woman turned slightly.
The fabric moved in the wind.
I saw the lower edge.
And there it was.
A crooked yellow sun.
Suddenly, I couldn’t hear the traffic.
Couldn’t hear Michael.
Couldn’t hear anything except my own heartbeat.
“No.”
Michael followed my gaze.
“What?”
“That dress.”
“It’s a cover-up.”
“That’s Nora’s.”
He looked at me with an expression I had seen hundreds of times over eight years.
Concern mixed with fear.
Fear that I was about to attach meaning to another coincidence.
“Claire…”
“I know my mother’s stitching.”
I crossed the terrace before he could stop me.
“Excuse me.”
The woman turned.
“Where did you get that?”
She looked confused.
“This?”
“Yes.”
She touched the fabric.
“I’ve had it for years.”
My hands were already shaking.
