Chapter 12
At ten, Sophie asked to read the fake note.
Dr. Greene prepared us.
We sat in her office.
Sophie held Rachel’s locket.
I held the paper.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I handed it to her.
She read slowly.
Her face changed.
Anger.
Hurt.
Confusion.
Then disgust.
“I would never write this.”
“I know.”
“I would never tell you not to look for me.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“Would you have looked?”
My throat closed.
“Until I found you.”
She nodded.
Then folded the note carefully.
“Can we burn it?”
Dr. Greene said, “That can be a healthy ritual if you want.”
We burned it that weekend in a metal bowl in the backyard.
Elaine, Tom, James, and I stood with Sophie.
She watched the paper curl into ash.
Then said, “That was never mine.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
She dropped a chalk drawing of an open door into the bowl after it.
Not to destroy it.
To send it with the lie.
Her words.
May you like
I did not argue with ritual.
Children understand symbols better than adults.
