I couldn’t let that happen.
Emily had loved Nora like a sister.
I wasn’t about to lose both girls.
So I became Nora’s guardian.
Eventually, I adopted her.
The town called me crazy.
They said I was replacing Emily.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
Nora never slept in Emily’s bedroom.
She refused to move anything.
Every year she placed a single white daisy on Emily’s pillow before quietly crying alone.
Life slowly moved forward.
Nora graduated high school.
Then college.
She called me Dad for the first time after the adoption papers were signed.
Yet Emily never left our lives.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every anniversary.
Her room stayed exactly as she’d left it.
Ten years after Emily disappeared, everything changed.
Nora received a message from an unknown account.
It simply asked,
“Did your dad stop looking for me after he adopted you?”
My heart nearly stopped.
Another message followed.
“I need to know if he replaced me.”
Then a photograph appeared.
Emily.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably Emily.
Neither of us could breathe.
Nora immediately replied.
“He never stopped searching.”
