“Mom,” she finally asked, “do you want to find them?”
Emily stared at the table.
“I don’t know, sweetheart. I’ve spent my whole life trying not to go back to that time.”
“Then you don’t have to.”
Sophie paused.
“But I think I’d like to know who my other grandmother was.”
Emily looked up.
“We can try to find her. But remember something, Sophie. Finding someone doesn’t mean we have to let them into our lives.”
Sophie nodded.
“I know, Mom.”
Over the following weeks, Sophie focused on preparing for college.
Meanwhile, Emily quietly began searching for the woman in the photograph.
The old address was no longer valid.
But through a few former neighbors and family acquaintances, she eventually learned that Lucas’s mother, Helen Bennett, had moved to a nearby town.
Emily found a phone number.
For almost an hour, she stared at it.
