Mom takes a seat on one side of me, Ruth on the other, and Tate kneeling in front of me. “Not yet,” he says. “I w . . . w-anted to . . .” His mouth forms an O and I wait. Finally, he says, “I hoped to find the right time.” He smiles. “But Maree got to you first.”

I flip through the albums again and again, over and over, wishing I could burn the images into my mind, knowing it’s a futile wish. My heart grows, pushes against my chest until it fills me with a paralyzing longing for what I can never get back. I stare at a picture of Maree and me by the reindeer. She tilts her head into mine, big grin on her face. My smile is wide and real, and I can see the happy moment reflected in our eyes. “You were everything I wanted,” I whisper to the girl in the photo. “Why would I have ever given you up?”

Mom brings my face up with her finger until our eyes lock. Her gaze is steady. “You did it because you love her, Claire. But you’re ready to be her mother. It’s time. Your father knew it, I know it; Tate, Ruth, even sweet Maree knows it on some level. Now you have to believe it.”

“How?” I cry. “How can I be a good mother like this? How can I be anything more than I am now?”

“That’s the thing, honey,” Mom says. “You don’t need to be more. You just need to be you.”

I notice Tate has pulled out a tablet and is typing away, Ruth is writing on note cards—Maree is your daughter. Maree is your daughter. She scatters them around the apartment like a flower girl.

Their efforts start a tingling in my body and my heart thumps faster. “But how will I remember her, Mom?”

Her face softens and she takes my hands into her own. They are soft and warm, and I am six years old and she is the mom I always wanted. “You’ll remember with our help, Claire. We can all be your memory.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Claire, July, one year later

Summer arrives quietly to Whittier, in bits and pieces—a budding leaf here, a wildflower there—until it’s an explosion of new life. The harbor is bustling with activity today. Cruise ships and fishing boats crowd the water while people mill around town, overrun the parking lots. The port is busy with tourists who come to stare at our odd little town and wonder how anyone would ever want to live in one building in the middle of nowhere.

I smile and turn from the window, allowing my attention to drift to the buzzing phone. Time to wake up your daughter, Maree.