Chapter 8 - The Woman Who Called Me Ellie
Marianne lived outside Asheville, North Carolina.
Mom begged me not to go.
“You don’t know what she’s like.”
“That’s because you made sure I couldn’t.”
Two days later, Nathan drove me there.
We left Gigi with his parents.
I didn’t call ahead.
The address led us to a modest duplex outside Hendersonville.
A woman in her early fifties opened the door.
Silver-brown hair.
Thin face.
Slightly crooked left eyebrow.
The same eyebrow I saw every morning in my own mirror.
She stared at me.
Her hand rose slowly to her mouth.
“Ellie?”
Nobody had called me that since I could remember.
“I go by Clara.”
She immediately nodded.
“Of course.”
She didn’t try to hug me.
That restraint somehow hurt more.
I showed her the bracelet.
Marianne began crying.
“You kept it.”
“No. Arthur did.”
Her expression changed.
Not surprise.
Resignation.
Then she whispered, “So he never gave you my letter.”
I looked at Nathan.
Marianne already knew.
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This hadn’t been one lost package.
She had been trying to reach me for years.
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