Somewhere outside, a lawn mower started.
Ordinary sounds.
Ordinary evening.
But nothing felt ordinary anymore.
“What woman?”
Stephen looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Someone who disappeared twenty-seven years ago.”
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes the brain refuses reality by producing the wrong reaction entirely.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I know.”
“My daughter looks like millions of children.”
“Not like this.”
“Kids resemble people. That’s what faces do.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Stephen looked almost ashamed.
“I worked on an archival project when I first joined Harlow.”
Harlow Industries was the corporation where he worked.
Half the town simply called it Harlow.
My father had worked there briefly.
My ex-husband, Daniel, had worked there during college.
Even I had done six months in Harlow’s accounts department after graduating.
The company had been part of our town for generations.
“What kind of archival project?”
