The police arrested her, and the next day I began the long drive west toward Santa Fe, carrying more questions than answers.
When I arrived at the clinic, I asked for the name in the letter, and after a long wait, a woman appeared who looked older but unmistakably like Isabelle.
She whispered my name, and I stood there unable to move because seeing someone you buried standing alive in front of you feels like reality breaking in half.
“You’re alive,” I said, and she nodded while crying, and I stepped back because I could not allow myself to close that distance so easily.
“There is a child,” I said, and she confirmed it, and moments later a young girl appeared in the hallway calling her “Mama,” which made everything undeniably real.
We spoke privately, and I told her, “You let me bury you and mourn you,” and she answered, “I know,” again and again without defending herself.
She explained everything about the investigation, the danger, the affair with the investigator, and the decision to disappear, and none of it made the pain smaller.
When I asked about the child’s father, she said he had died months after they relocated, and she had been left alone with fear and responsibility.