He removed an old photograph.
The edges were soft from years of handling.
A much younger Daniel stood outside a county fair.
Beside him was a little girl with blonde curls holding a stuffed rabbit.
Madeline.
Five years old.
Missing one front tooth.
Wearing a yellow dress.
A tiny silver bracelet circled her wrist.
Daniel slid the photograph across the table.
Evelyn looked down.
The color drained completely from her face.
Her hand trembled.
Daniel saw it.
“What?”
She did not answer.
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
The lie was obvious.
Daniel stood.
Megan turned.
Half the diner looked toward them.
Evelyn whispered, “Please sit down.”
Daniel did not.
“You know my daughter.”
“I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
She pressed both hands against the table.
Her breathing became uneven.
Daniel suddenly feared she might faint.
“Evelyn.”
She looked up.
Tears stood in her eyes.
“My adoptive parents told me I was six when they got me.”
Daniel stopped.
The diner noise seemed to disappear.
Evelyn continued.
“They said my birth records were incomplete.”
Daniel’s hand tightened around the seat back.
“My name was already Evelyn when I remember them.”
He stared.
She looked again at the photograph.
“But I used to have dreams.”
Daniel could barely speak.
“What dreams?”
“A diner.”
His pulse hammered.
“Not this one.”
She shook her head.
“A different place. Red booths. A man cutting pancakes because I couldn’t do it myself.”
Daniel’s eyes burned.
Maddy loved pancakes.
He used to cut them into tiny triangles.
Evelyn touched the photograph carefully.
“And someone called me…”
Her voice failed.
Daniel waited.
“Maddy.”
The word broke him.
He sat because his legs stopped cooperating.
Evelyn reached under the collar of her cream top.
A delicate chain emerged.
At the end hung a small silver bracelet.
Too small for an adult wrist.
A moon charm dangled from the clasp.
Daniel stared.
He had bought that bracelet from a pharmacy gift counter three days before Maddy’s fourth birthday.
Seven dollars and forty-nine cents.
He knew because he had been almost broke.
Maddy had treated it like royal jewelry.
His hands began shaking uncontrollably.
“Where did you get that?”
Evelyn held it.
“I’ve had it as long as I can remember.”
Daniel reached toward it.
Stopped.
“May I?”
She nodded.
He touched the moon charm.
A tiny scratch crossed the back.
Daniel remembered making it accidentally while trying to repair the clasp with pliers.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
Evelyn looked at him.
“No what?”
Daniel laughed and cried at once.
“This can’t…”
He pulled the photograph closer.
The bracelet was visible.
Same moon.
Same chain.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
Daniel remembered another detail.
“Your shoulder.”
She froze.
“What?”