Sarah had convinced herself that the past was behind her. She had built a new life, a family, a home that, while modest, was safe. The world outside their walls still looked at them with suspicion, but inside they had found something close to peace. But peace was fragile, and the past had a way of creeping back when you least expected it.
The first letter arrived on an ordinary afternoon. It was slipped under the door while she was out shopping, a thin, white envelope resting on the wooden floor like a ghost from another life. She stared at it for a long time before picking it up. There was no return address, just her name. The handwriting was unmistakable. Her father’s.
Her stomach twisted as she tore it open. The words inside were short, cold. “You do not understand what you have done.” She felt sick. It had been years since she had last heard from him. After she had run away, he had sent letters demanding that she come home. Then letters threatening her. Then nothing. She had thought that meant he had given up.
She had been wrong. For weeks she waited for another letter, but none came. She tried to push it from her mind, but the weight of it settled in her chest like a stone. What did he mean? Was it just another attempt to control her? Or was it something worse? She told herself not to worry. But then she saw the man.
It was early evening. She had taken the children to the market, letting them chase each other between the stalls as she bartered for potatoes and fresh milk. And then she saw him. A white man in a suit, standing at the corner of the street. He wasn’t buying anything. He wasn’t talking to anyone. He was watching her. A chill ran through her.
She told herself she was imagining things. But the next day she saw him again. And the day after that. Always at a distance. Always watching. She didn’t tell Oliver. She knew what he would say. “You’re seeing things.” “You’re worrying over nothing.” Or worse: “If it is your father, we need to face him.”
But she didn’t want to face him. She just wanted him to stay in the past, where he belonged. And then the second letter came. This one was different. It was not from her father. It was from someone she had never expected to hear from again. “I know who you are.”
Her heart stopped. She read it again. The handwriting was unfamiliar. The message was vague. But she knew. Someone had found out. About her first child. About the son she had abandoned all those years ago. A secret she had buried so deep it had nearly been forgotten. And now someone knew. She felt the walls of her world begin to crack.
For days she said nothing. She barely slept. She barely ate. Oliver noticed. He asked her what was wrong. She told him it was nothing. But he knew better. And when he found the letter, crumpled and hidden at the bottom of her dresser drawer, she could see the shift in his eyes. A realization. That there were things about her he had never known. And maybe, after all these years, he didn’t know his wife at all.
Sarah had always known that the past would catch up to her one day. She had spent years convincing herself that the life she had built was separate from the one she had left behind. That the woman she had been—the privileged daughter of Charles Whitmore, the girl who had been too afraid to fight for her first child, the young bride who had run into Oliver’s arms not out of love but out of desperation—had disappeared. But the truth was that woman had always been inside her, hiding in the corners of her mind, waiting for the moment when she would be forced to face everything she had buried.
And now, as her body betrayed her and the weight of time pressed down on her bones, she knew that moment had come. The sickness had started slowly. A cough here, a dizzy spell there. Nothing she had taken seriously. But then the pain began. A sharp, relentless ache in her chest that stole her breath, that made the simplest movements unbearable…
