I Found My Missing Daughter’s Bracelet at a Flea Market — The Next Morning, Police Stormed My Yard and Said, ‘We Need to Talk’

“It’s her bracelet!”

“You don’t know that.”

“Felix, it’s hers. I know it. Look!”

“Yes, I do, Felix. I do know.” I felt my voice rise. “We had this made for her graduation. It’s not a knockoff. It’s not some coincidence. This — this was on her wrist the day she left.”

He set the coffee down harder than he meant to. It sloshed over the rim.

“You’re doing this again? I can’t keep going down this road, Natalie.”

“Doing what?”

“Chasing ghosts! You don’t know where that bracelet’s been. People steal things. And they pawn them. Heck, someone probably dug it out of a donation bin.”

I can’t keep going down this road, Natalie.”

“It has the engraving,” I said, staring at him.

“You think that means something? You think that proves she’s alive?”

“It means she touched it. Recently. Isn’t that worth something to you?”

He raked a hand through his hair. “She’s gone. You need to let her be gone.”

“But what if she’s not?”

He didn’t answer. He just stormed out of the room, leaving the coffee steaming and the air buzzing with something I couldn’t name.

“You think that proves she’s alive?”

***

That night, I didn’t eat dinner. I curled up on the couch and pressed the bracelet to my chest — then checked my phone, even though I knew there’d be nothing.

My mind replayed the last time I saw her — Nana barefoot, laughing while trying to toast a waffle and tie her hair up at the same time.

She couldn’t pronounce her full name growing up. Savannah — she called herself Nana instead.

It stuck. It was sweet, and it was hers. And she was mine. Still. Somewhere…

I fell asleep like that, with the bracelet pressed against the ache I’d never healed.

I curled up on the couch and pressed the bracelet to my chest.

***

I woke to pounding.

It was early. Too early for someone to be at my door. I was still in my robe when I opened it. Two officers stood there — one older, gray at the temples, and the other younger and nervously stiff.