The reality and what it meant was slowly dawning: the betrayal, deception, and omission. Clandestine meetings. Evasion under questioning. In hindsight, Dana and Evan picked out the clues they’d missed, reevaluated the moments they’d been led astray, and tiptoed over possible theories as to how they’d been duped.

Rage and despair shook her for minutes or hours. She was unaware of the passage of time. Finally spent, she retreated inward and collapsed onto the floor in a fetal position, the letter in shreds around her. The room had grown dark. Like a gentle snowfall, the cold mantle of an unbearable silence descended.

Distance and time and a whitewashed mind hadn’t kept a child from growing, from existing, from demanding a place on this earth.

Her immediate impulse was one of self-preservation. She was tied up in this somehow, she didn’t know why or how, but there was something waiting for her on the other side of this crowd.