He opened his mouth twice before anything came out. “The girl’s…” He stopped. Wiped his face with his whole hand. And then he said it. “The girl’s yours, Jenny. She’s yours.”

It didn’t take. That’s what they’d told me. But it had. Beth had carried her for us, back when we were all still friends, before any of this got ugly.

The baby was ours, mine and David’s, and she lived. And somewhere between the delivery room and the phone call I got, a choice got made that I was never in the room for. Beth wanted to keep her. David was scared and weak and already too tangled up with Beth to fight it, and I was already half gone from grief, so he let me believe she died so I wouldn’t fall apart worse. He told himself he was protecting me. He’d been driving across town to see her every Tuesday for twelve years. He’d named her after me. A little gold apology he kept in a glove box.

“She asks about you,” David said. His voice cracked all the way through. “She doesn’t know it’s you. But she asks who J.L.M is.” I looked at that little girl’s face in the photo, the one with my chin, I see it now, my exact chin, and I couldn’t get a single word out.

I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. People keep telling me to call a lawyer, call Beth, call that little girl and tell her everything. I haven’t called anyone. The locket’s still sitting on the kitchen table where I put it. David sleeps in the spare room now and I lie awake doing the math I refused to do in the car. She’s twelve. I missed twelve years of Tuesdays. And the worst part, the part I can’t say out loud to anybody, is that some sick piece of me is glad he kept that locket. Because at least now I know her face.