“Is she…?”
The girl didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to.
My mother kept weeping silently, doing that thing she always did where she made a scene without making a sound. My father, however, stood rigid with his hands clasped behind his back. He looked like he was greeting the congregation on the church steps, not facing the teenage daughter he had thrown out into the street.
I turned my attention back to the girl.
She looked way too much like me for it to be a coincidence. It wasn’t just her facial features. It was the defensive way she kept her sneaker wedged against the door, ready to slam it shut if things went south. It was the subtle tilt of her chin when she felt scrutinized.
It was like looking at my teenage self, just… better fed. Calmer. More loved, I realized with a sudden pang of shame.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
My mother immediately stepped in front of her. “You do not have to speak to her, Maya.”
Maya. Hearing that name fall from my mother’s lips sent a bizarre chill through me. Not just because it was a beautiful name, but because I had picked it out myself, decades ago, for the little girl I thought I was going to have.
The girl narrowed her eyes at me. “Do I know you?” she asked.
“No,” I answered softly. “But it looks like we should have met a very long time ago.”