Then a sob escaped her.
“It’s really you… I never thought I’d see you again.”
Time seemed to stop.
“Do I know you?” Isabelle asked carefully.
Kara shook her head. “You wouldn’t remember me. But I’ve never forgotten you. Not in twenty years.”
I looked between them, confused.
“Let’s go inside,” I said. “We’ll talk.”
We sat at the kitchen table in silence.
Finally, I said, “Kara… what’s going on?”
She clenched her hands.
“I know this house. I knew it the moment we arrived.”
Isabelle frowned. “How?”
Kara’s voice broke.
“Because twenty years ago, I stood on that porch… and left a baby in a basket. I left you, Isabelle.”
The words hung heavy in the air.
“I was nineteen,” Kara continued. “My parents said keeping you would ruin everything. They forced me to give you up. But I was the one who walked away.”
I remembered the old woman across the street—her aunt.
“She told me a kind doctor lived here,” Kara said. “I thought… you’d be safe.”
Isabelle’s voice trembled.
“You left me… and let that be my whole life.”
“I told myself it was for your good,” Kara whispered. “Then I ran. I changed my name and buried everything.”
I stared at her, anger rising.
“You left her here… and then came back into my life?”
“I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “Not until tonight.”
Isabelle stood abruptly.
“All this time… I was the baby you abandoned. Do you know how many times I imagined my mother?”
“I’m sorry,” Kara cried. “I was a coward.”
Silence filled the room.
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