Hope stirred, and I instinctively rocked her against my shoulder.
Paul rubbed his jaw. “She called me once.”
For a moment, I couldn’t even speak.
“She… what?!”
He looked angry now—the kind of anger that comes from being cornered.
“A few months after she left. She said she was with Andy. She said she was fine.”
“And you let me believe she was dead? You told me to mourn my child because she wasn’t coming back?”
“She made a choice, Jodi. Don’t punish me for her decision.”
Hope let out a thin cry, and somehow that made everything worse. I swayed gently, rubbing circles on her back.
“You told me for five years we had no answers.”
“I told her if she came home, she came home alone,” he snapped. “She was sixteen—almost seventeen. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wanted to throw her life away for a college dropout with no future. What was I supposed to do? Encourage it?”
“No,” I said quietly. “You’d rather be right than have her home—even if it cost us our daughter.”
Amber appeared in the doorway. “Paul…”
I didn’t even look at her. “You don’t get a word in here.”
Paul stared at Hope, as if she might somehow save him.
Instead, I grabbed the diaper bag and my keys.
“I’m taking Hope to the clinic,” I said. “And when I come back, you need to be gone. I called you here to see if you had any shame.”
“Jodi—”
“I mean it. If you’re still here, I’ll tell the police you withheld contact from a missing child’s mother.”
That got them moving.
At the clinic, Dr. Evans examined Hope and said she seemed healthy—just a little underweight. She asked careful questions. I gave careful answers. I showed her the note, the supplies, the jacket.
She asked if I had family support.
I almost laughed.
“I have coffee and my work colleagues,” I said.
She gave me a sad smile. “Sometimes that’s how it starts.”
By noon, I had temporary emergency paperwork from a social worker named Denise—and three missed calls from Paul, which I deleted without listening.
