Without wasting a second, I called Cole.
“Cole, Emma said her first word today!” I squealed the moment he answered. “She saidMama!Can you believe it? Her first word. I’m over the moon.”
“It’s the best sound, isn’t it?” he said.
I played the recording for him, and he listened patiently, chuckling softly as Emma’s tiny voice repeated the word. I pictured him standing there with that smile of his, head tilted slightly as he listened—like this moment mattered to him just as much as it did to me. Something soft stirred in my chest.
“I’ll be over there in the evening,” he said. “Hang in there.” Then he laughed lightly. “Drive safely and enjoy training!”
After I hung up, I kissed Emma’s soft cheek and held her close before handing her over to Geeta.
As I did, an unwanted image flashed through my mind.
My birth mother.
The memory of our meeting slipped back into my thoughts like a shadow I couldn’t outrun.
Just because she had built a new family for herself, how could she completely disregard her first child? Her flesh and blood? She was a grandmother now, yet she had looked at my children as if they were something shameful when I introduced them to her. As if their very presence reminded her of something she wanted erased from her past.
Shaking my head firmly, I pushed the thought away and grabbed my car keys.
I drove toward the convention centre where the training sessions were being held. When I arrived, I parked my car and checked the time on my watch.
I was early.
I stepped out of the car and walked toward the conference room.
A small board outside the door read, “Welcome!”
I scanned the list of names until I found mine.
Jiya Flores, Cowichan Bay.
I moved toward the window and stood there for a moment, watching the rain fall heavily outside. It was a cloudy December afternoon, the kind that made everything feel muted and reflective.
The rain pulled me back to the moment I had chosen Cowichan Bay.
After Alex dropped me at my apartment that night, I printed a map of British Columbia and sat on the couch with Oreo curled beside me. Closing my eyes, I traced my finger blindly across the map, letting fate decide where I would go. When I opened them, my finger rested on Vancouver Island.
Later, after researching different towns, I found Cowichan Bay. With a population of fewer than 2,500 people and Vancouver only a three-hour drive away, it felt safe—far enough to start over, yet close enough if I ever needed to return. Though secretly, I hoped I never would.
Leaving my home had terrified me. I worried about uprooting Lucas’s life and explaining why everything had to change. But I knew there was no other choice. I couldn’t stay in the same city as Caleb and raise his child while risking running into him. I needed distance. I needed space to breathe.
Cowichan Bay became that place.
Now, standing in the conference centre, I opened my eyes and looked out at the rain. My past was behind me, and ahead, my future stretched out—bright and full of possibility.
A mother. A businesswoman. An entrepreneur.
Let the training begin.
While browsingthe internet one evening, about a week before the Christmas holidays, I found myself doing something I had promised myself I wouldn’t do again.
I typed Caleb’s name into the search bar on my laptop.
Multiple headlines appeared, along with photographs of him standing beside a woman.
Tatiana Meyers.
