The two tried to be cordial, especially around Courtney. Melissa had to give Brian credit for that. On the weekends when Courtney would spend the night with her father, and eventually her new stepmother, Azure, Melissa was alone. That was the time when she would pull out the box she kept hidden in her closet, the one with the letters and the pictures of David.

What would have happened if she had kept him? What was he doing now? Did he look more like her as he grew? When and how would she tell Courtney about her brother? That thought sent her reeling.

And did David ever wonder about her or think of her? Was he old enough to even entertain those thoughts?

She’d seen a TV show about a mother who searched for her biological daughter for decades and finally, as the woman was dying of some disease, her daughter found her. Melissa was glad she was alone that weekend because the tears flowed and she couldn’t stop them. And she began to write her own script of what it might be like in the future to meet her grown son and reunite with him.

There was only one problem with her version of that story. It was the old whisper that told her how bad she was, what a terrible person she had been for considering taking the life of her child. In the movie-of-the-week of her life, she would look her son in the eye and see the man he had become. But instead of a warm embrace, he would speak with venom, telling her he hated her and to stop trying to ruin his life.

He would turn and walk away, and Melissa would be left on the ground in tears.

You can’t risk that kind of reaction, the voice inside said. Don’t risk the rejection you’ll receive. Keep the secret. Bury the desire to ever reach out to him.

The voice won. She put the box of letters and pictures away and promised herself never to open them again.

CHAPTER 13

Wilson Elementary was a yellow-brick building constructed during the Depression—and it looked like it, sad and faded. Hallways were made of glazed concrete and patrolled by zealous sixth graders handpicked as safety patrols. They blocked water fountains after the recess bell rang and instilled fear in any child caught in one of the innumerable infractions such as running in the hallway.

The classroom floors were hardwood on top of concrete and the sonic effect was that every noise in the building was amplified. A slamming door, a crying child hurt on the playground, a teacher rolling a projector from the library, a thirsty third grader who made it to the fountain five seconds after the bell—all noises reverberated in a cacophonous roar.