Chapter 3 - The Empty House
James didn’t drive home.
He called the police.
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to tell him we could handle Lauren ourselves.
Then I looked at Emma.
That ended the argument before it began.
We parked two blocks from our house and waited inside the locked car.
Snow drifted across the windshield.
Blue lights appeared ten minutes later.
Two officers approached our property.
Lauren’s car wasn’t outside.
The front door appeared closed.
One officer called James.
“No one is inside.”
“Check the rear entrance,” James said.
“We did.”
The officer paused.
“There’s no sign of forced entry.”
I knew exactly what that meant.
The spare key.
We were allowed inside after they checked every room.
Nothing seemed disturbed at first.
Then I walked into Emma’s nursery.
Her closet door was open.
The drawers beneath the changing table had been pulled out.
Blankets were scattered across the floor.
My breath caught.
“James.”
He appeared behind me.
“What?”
I pointed toward the crib.
Something had been placed directly in the center of the mattress.
A Christmas card.
James put on gloves before touching it.
Inside was one sentence.
Maybe now you’ll understand how it feels when somebody takes what should have been yours.
I felt sick.
One officer photographed the card.
“Any idea what this refers to?”
“No.”
That was the truth.
At least I thought it was.
James searched the nursery carefully.
Nothing else appeared missing.
Then he opened the small wooden box where we stored Emma’s important papers.
Her birth certificate was there.
Medical records were there.
But one envelope was gone.
I knew immediately which one.
James looked at me.
“What was inside?”
“Her hospital bracelet.”
“And?”
I hesitated.
“A letter.”
“What letter?”
I had never told him.
Not because I was hiding anything dangerous.
Because I had thought the letter was meaningless.
Three days after Emma was born, a plain envelope had arrived at the hospital.
There was no return address.
Inside was a handwritten note.
Some children get the life others were supposed to have.
I had assumed it was some bizarre mistake.
I threw the envelope into the memory box and forgot about it.
Until tonight.
James stared at me.
“You never mentioned this?”
“I thought it was nothing.”
He didn’t criticize me.
That somehow made me feel worse.
One officer asked whether Lauren had struggled with pregnancy or children.
I shook my head.
“As far as I know, she never wanted kids.”
My phone rang.
Mom.
I answered.
Before I could speak, she said something that made the room disappear around me.
“Lauren was pregnant last year.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
Mom began crying.
May you like
“And she made us promise never to tell you.”
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