What a stupid, stupid thing to believe. I believed it for fourteen years.

We live in the same town. Did you catch that? The same town. Maybe fifteen minutes apart by car.

I knew she stayed local. I’d hear things through people. She got a job at the dentist’s office. She was doing fine. She seemed fine.

And every time I heard she was fine, I let it be one more reason not to call. See? She doesn’t need me. My job really is done.

I got good at not thinking about it. You’d be surprised what a person can put in a box in their head and keep the lid on.

Birthdays were the worst. Every spring I’d feel it coming like weather. I’d buy a card and never send it. I’ve got a whole drawer of cards I never sent.

Some of them I wrote in. Some I just signed, “Love, Mama.” And then I’d put them in the drawer with the others.

I don’t know who I was saving them for. Myself, I guess.

Okay. So. Last Tuesday. The Kroger.

I was just doing my normal shopping, nothing special. I had my list, I had my little buggy, I was minding my business in the cereal aisle.

And this woman comes up to me. Older than me, maybe seventies, with one of those quilted vests. She had kind eyes. I want to say that part.

She looked at me for a second too long, the way people do when they’re trying to place you.

Then she said, “You’re Michelle’s mother?”

I’ll be honest, my first feeling wasn’t even warm. It was fear. Because nobody had said my daughter’s name to my face in years.

I nodded. I think I said yes. My mouth was dry all of a sudden.

She smiled, real gentle, and said, “I thought so. You’ve got her eyes. Or she’s got yours, I suppose.”

And then she told me she lived two doors down from Michelle. On Birch Street. Said Michelle had been there a long time now, kept a nice yard, always waved.

I just stood there nodding like a fool, gripping the handle of that cart so hard my knuckles hurt.

The woman kept talking, easy and friendly, like this was a normal chat between two people who knew each other. She had no idea. She had no idea what she was doing to me.

Then she said something that I keep replaying. I’ll probably replay it forever.

She said, “You know, I see her through the window sometimes in the evenings. I’m not nosy, the houses are just close.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

She said, “Every night she sets two places at the table. Two plates, two glasses, the whole thing.”

My stomach got tight. I thought, maybe she has someone. Maybe Michelle’s got a husband now, a roommate, somebody. I actually felt relieved for half a second.