Chapter 1

Seven years into my marriage with David Turner, the girl he could never forget, Emily Summers, ended up with a broken leg.

Emily sent him a message: [I got into a car accident. Dave, can you come see me?]

When David got the message, he was at the kindergarten gate, picking up Sophie Turner.

Without saying a word, he dropped everything and raced to the hospital, barely thinking about anything else.

Sophie had already visited Emily at the hospital twice, and she kept insisting she wanted to stay there with Emily.

At the family dinner, she even made me go buy a cake.

After picking up the mango cake in the city center, I sat down on the train station square and couldn't help but cry.

A passerby gently placed about 170 dollars in front of me.

The little girl beside him saw me crying and asked sympathetically, "Did someone steal from you too?"

"So, where are you headed?" she asked.

I gave the money back to the little girl and murmured, "Cloudridge."

"What a coincidence. We're heading to Cloudridge too," she said.

"Did you lose all your luggage, Miss? You can come with us. Samuel Foster will treat you to dinner," she added.

I glanced at the man in black, who hadn't said a word, and stayed silent.

But the man looked a bit skeptical.

I was holding a cake in my hand, clearly freshly bought, and I looked nothing like someone about to set off on a trip.

"Are you also taking the 10 PM train?" the man asked.

I nodded, holding out my ticket for him to see.

What a coincidence. We happened to be sitting next to each other.

The rhythmic clatter of the wheels began, and only then did I wonder if I'd been too hasty.

I didn't have anything on me except my phone.

I remembered the family dinner that night.

Sophie wanted some ice cream. She'd suffered from intestinal spasms since she was born, and after years of careful attention, she was finally getting better.

To have some ice cream, she ordered me to go buy a cake. Everyone in the Turner family watched, and no one wanted to be the one to say no to her.

I turned a blind eye and went along with her wishes, leaving the old house behind.

She wanted both blueberry and mango flavors.

The nearby shop only had blueberry, so the only way to get mango was to go downtown.

I tried to calm her down over the phone. "Let's have blueberry today, and tomorrow Mommy will take you to get mango, okay?"

"No. Emily wants mango," she insisted.

"If Emily wants something, she gets it," she declared.

But even the downtown shop didn't have mango flavor.

I gave the blueberry cake to Chloe Foster.

This cake shop was well-known for its great taste, so Chloe grinned from ear to ear as she took a bite.

Then she started telling me about her life.

She'd been switched at birth, and now she was on her way to meet her real parents for the first time. Her uncle was coming along for the trip.

"What about you, Miss? Why are you so sad?" she asked.

She blinked her big, sparkling eyes at me, looking like a tiny adult, almost as if she'd found a kindred spirit, someone else who knew what it felt like to be lost.

"Did someone lose you too?" she asked.

I paused, thinking it over, then shook my head. "No, that's not it."

"I figured some things weren't worth holding onto, so I let them go," I replied.

Honestly, I should've let go a lot earlier.

When Sophie deliberately found ways to get me out of the way so she, David, and Emily could go to the amusement park together, or when the three of them had a feast together on my birthday.

I should've walked away right then.

Three months ago, Emily got into a car accident and broke her leg.

She called David, her voice choked with sobs. "Dave, I really have no one else but you."

David was waiting at the kindergarten gate to pick up Sophie.

After getting her call, he rushed off in such a panic that he completely forgot to tell me to pick up Sophie.

When Sophie got home, she had a meltdown. It wasn't until David promised to spend the next few days with her, and even let her skip school to go to the hospital with him to look after Emily, that she finally calmed down.

Taking care of Emily was practically written into David's DNA. It was something he couldn't help.

When he saw her lying there in that hospital bed, pale as a ghost, David's heart twisted with pain and anger all at once.

"Is this how Michael Hammond takes care of you?" he snapped.

"You get into a car accident, something this serious, and he doesn't even show his face. Has he forgotten all those promises he made to you?" he demanded.

Emily's eyes brimmed with tears, threatening to spill. "Only you, Dave, have always treated me the same, no matter what."

Sophie stuck close to David, calling out to Emily every chance she got.

"Emily, can I have another ice cream?" Sophie asked, her eyes wide with hope.

"Emily, can I have another bag of those extra-spicy chips?" she pleaded, practically bouncing with excitement.

"Emily, you're so smart and awesome, way cooler than my mom," Sophie said, grinning up at her.