Chapter 1

When the curtain came down, my daughter placed the white daisies I had bought into another woman’s arms and called her Mommy.

My husband stood behind them as if he had been waiting for that moment.

And I was left holding the empty flower wrap in front of every parent in the school auditorium.

When Maisie took her bow at center stage, I nearly cried.

She wore blue tulle and had spent three weeks practicing the song.

The night before, she had climbed onto my bed and made me promise I would sit in the front row.

I had bought white daisies and tucked a card inside: For the bravest girl on stage.

When the show ended, the children rushed out through the side door. I stood, ready to call her name, but Maisie was already running toward me.

Her fingers brushed the bouquet.

Then she didn’t take it.

A woman in a cream-colored coat was hurrying across the auditorium from the other side.

Her heels clicked against the wooden floor, and there was a joy in her face she was trying hard to contain.

The second Maisie saw her, her whole expression lit up.

“Mommy!”

She ran past me and pushed the flowers I had bought into the woman’s arms.

“Mommy, I saved the last song for you. Did you hear it?”

The woman gathered her close. “I heard it, sweetheart. You sang even better than I imagined.”

I knew her.

Vivian Cole. An outside consultant Caleb’s company had hired—and the old friend he always described as recently divorced and having a hard time.

I had met her at Christmas dinner two years earlier.

Caleb called her an old college friend who barely crossed our lives.

That night, she had watched Maisie from our sofa before saying, “She looks so much like you.” I had thought it was a compliment.

Now I saw the thin gold chain around Vivian’s wrist, and something twisted hard inside me.

I had chosen that chain eight years ago.

Before Maisie came to us, the agency asked us to choose a keepsake for the anonymous birth mother.

I chose that delicate gold chain with its moon charm.

Later, the agency told me she had refused it and did not want her name shared.

Yet it was now against Vivian’s skin.

Caleb finally came through the side door of the auditorium.

He didn’t look at me. He bent to lift Maisie into his arms, then rested his other hand against Vivian’s back as though he were afraid she might lose her balance in the crowd.

“You came after all,” he said.

Vivian looked up at him, her eyes bright with tears. “I promised her I would.”

It wasn’t the polite warmth of old friends meeting again.

It was a sentence they had said to each other before.

Around us, parents praised their children and gathered coats. I tightened the empty flower wrap in my hand.

For eight years, I had sewn Maisie’s costumes, sat beside her in emergency rooms, and stayed awake through her fevers.

I had always believed I had simply met my daughter later than other mothers met theirs.

Standing there, I began to wonder whether I had ever been allowed into the part of her life that came before me at all.

Caleb finally noticed me. His expression stalled for half a second.

Then he walked over, his voice as gentle as ever. “Nora, why didn’t you tell me where you were sitting? I was on a client call.”

I looked at him.

His phone was still in his hand, its screen lit up. The last call was not from a client or his office.

There was only one name on the screen.

Vivian.

I pulled the card from the flower wrap, folded it, and slipped it into my bag.

“Were you?” I asked.

Caleb didn’t hear anything in my voice. He smiled and reached for my bag the way he always did.

I stepped back.

His hand stopped in the air.

Maisie was still pressed against Vivian’s shoulder, holding the bouquet that had been meant for me. In a small voice, she asked her:

“Mommy, you’re not going to leave again this time, are you?”