Most importantly, I know where she lives. Right here, in Palm Springs, California.

When it was time to decide where we should start our new lives, Owen had many suggestions, but I only had one.

My real mother lives in Palm Springs and that’s the only place I wanted to go.

He has no idea that that’s why I insisted on coming here. I played up the sunshine and the palm trees and the eternal summer but I downplayed one important reason.

Why did I do that?

I’m not sure if Owen would’ve come with me here otherwise.

It’s not that he isn’t interested in finding my mother, I just have a feeling that he would’ve objected.

And how does that saying go again?

It’s easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission?

I didn’t want to have yet another thing to fight with him about.

I didn’t want him to say no, so I never asked.

What Owen does know is her name and basic things about her.

I would’ve happily kept the folder to myself but I was too distraught to hide it when he came back into my room. I was also too angry and disappointed.

So, he has seen some of the pages but not the one at the end.

Not the one with her address on it. Otherwise, he’d know that she lives exactly 3.4 miles away from us.

I get sick of lounging and decide to finally get some fresh air and go on a hike.

I’m getting bored running up and down the same streets all the time so last night I downloaded the All Trails app that shows all of the hikes around me.

Much to my surprise, there are over five hundred hikes in the Coachella Valley. There are at least five that are within five miles of the house.

I grab my water bottle, a small Ziploc bag of walnuts and sunflower seeds, and my phone. Less than ten minutes later, I’m going on my first hike.

The trail starts off at the visitors’ center where they show me a map of where I’m headed. The desert floor is cloaked with creosote bushes. Some are short but others can be as tall as nine feet in height. When I bend down to look at one’s dark leaves, I notice it smells a bit like rain.

The trail takes me further away from civilization, down the valley below, and higher into the folds of the mountains.

Once I make it around the bend, large boulders that are taller than I am line the trail as if they are the welcoming gate inviting me in.

The trail loops higher and higher and before the city below disappears entirely. I turn around and take a look at it one last time.