Page 19 of Scars and Crowns

A girl with hair the same shade she used to have.

Every single time, my heart had leapt before reality quietly corrected it.

I'd stopped trusting my own hope a long time ago.

But today . . . Today felt different.

There had been nothing imagined about the way she'd looked at me.

Nothing imagined about the way she'd frozen when I said her nickname. Nothing imagined about the ache that had torn straight through eight years of carefully built distance.

Eventually, I'd reached for the office phone.

Asked Human Resources for the details of the newest kitchen recruits under the pretext of reviewing employee accommodation.

A lie.

A terrible one.

The file had arrived within minutes.

My eyes had found her name before I'd even realised I was searching for it.

Anamika Srivastava.

I don't know how long I stared at those two words. Long enough for the rest of the page to blur. Then my eyes moved lower.

Marital Status: Single.

Below that—

Dependent: One. Age: Five.

The words refused to make sense together. I read them once. Then again. Then a third time.

Single mother.

Somewhere during the years we spent apart . . . She had become someone's mother.

The thought settled heavily inside my chest. Not because she had a child. But because there were suddenly years of her life I knew absolutely nothing about. Years that belonged to someone else. Someone who had been there when I hadn't.

Who had stood beside her?

Who had held her hand through that chapter of her life?

If she was raising a child alone now . . . Where was the man who should have been standing beside her?

I’d shut the file before the thought could go any further. Those answers aren't mine to demand.

Not today. Maybe not ever.

I lift my gaze to the door in front of me.

It's slightly open. Just enough for voices to spill softly into the corridor.

I should leave.

Instead . . . I find myself listening. "Sara!" Anamika's voice reaches me and my heart clenches. "I told you to stop jumping on the bed! You'll break the springs. Then tell me, are you planning to sleep on the floor tonight?"