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Nobody knew that name.
Not my friends.
Not her teachers.
Not even most family members.
Only my husband and I had ever called Eliza “Lizzy.”
Yet somehow my daughter had spoken it.
I felt a chill crawl down my spine.
“What does she look like?”
Junie shrugged.
“Like me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly like me.”
I stared.
“Exactly?”
She nodded.
“The same. Except her hair parts on the other side.”
That night I barely slept.
My mind raced endlessly.
Coincidence.
That’s all it had to be.
A coincidence.
The next morning things became even stranger.
Junie proudly showed me a photograph she had taken with her little camera during recess.
When I looked at the image, my hands started shaking.
Standing beside Junie was another girl.
Same height.
Same eyes.
Same smile.
Same tiny freckle beneath her eye.
They looked nearly identical.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
The resemblance was impossible.
The entire day I could think about nothing else.
When school ended, I decided to pick Junie up personally.
I needed answers.
As children streamed out of the building, Junie suddenly pointed excitedly.
“There she is!”
I followed her finger.
At first I saw only the little girl.
Then I noticed the adult holding her hand.
And that’s when my entire world came crashing down.
Because I knew that person.
Not vaguely.
Not from a distance.
I knew them.
Very well.
Someone I trusted.
Someone who had been part of my life during the most painful period I had ever experienced.
Someone who knew everything about what happened six years earlier.
The sight of them standing there sent a shock through my entire body.
Memories flooded back.
Conversations.
Hospital visits.
Questions I had never thought to ask.
Details I had never examined closely.
Suddenly, things that never made sense before started fitting together.
I walked toward them slowly.
My heart pounded.
The person saw me approaching and immediately froze.
Their expression changed.
They knew.
Before I even spoke, they knew exactly why I was there.
The little girl squeezed their hand.
Junie smiled beside me, completely unaware of the storm unfolding around her.