The sound of running water was the last clear memory that stayed with Laura Bennett.
It echoed through the tiled restroom like a song half remembered, blending with her daughter’s laughter — bright, high, and fleeting. For years afterward, that laughter would follow her, clinging to her like the scent of soap she couldn’t wash away.
It was supposed to be an ordinary Saturday. The Pacific breeze pushed the smell of salt and sunscreen all the way into the Santa Monica Plaza, where mothers shopped for sandals and teenagers lined up for frozen yogurt. Laura had promised seven-year-old Ava an ice-cream cone after piano class. They shared a scoop of strawberry swirl, sitting side by side on a bench outside the department store, sun spilling over them like liquid gold. Ava’s hair stuck to her cheeks, and she laughed when Laura tried to brush it away.
“Can we look at dresses next?” Ava asked, her mouth stained pink.
“Birthday dresses,” Laura said, smiling. “That’s the deal.”
Inside the mall restroom, everything smelled of lemon cleaner and chlorine. Laura helped her daughter wash off the stickiness. Ava stood on tiptoe, tiny hands beneath the faucet. Laura turned to grab a paper towel, just a second — maybe two.
When she looked back, the sink was empty.
At first she smiled, assuming Ava was playing one of her silly hiding games. “Okay, funny girl,” she called, checking the stalls. “Where’d you go?” No answer. Her smile faltered. “Ava?” Still nothing.
Then came the hollow echo of her own footsteps, the wet floor sign, the mirror catching her pale reflection — and the rising panic that felt like drowning.
Security footage later showed Ava stepping out of the restroom door at 3:17 p.m. She was holding her small pink purse and turning her head as if someone had called her name. The next camera, positioned by the escalator, malfunctioned at that exact moment. Another caught the corner of a man’s sleeve — navy blue — and a baseball cap pulled low. Then the crowd swallowed everything.
The police arrived within the hour. They sealed exits, questioned clerks, played the footage over and over as if a new frame might appear if they stared long enough. Laura answered every question until her voice cracked. What was Ava wearing? (A yellow sundress with strawberries.) Did she talk to strangers? (Never.) Could she have wandered outside? (She was afraid of parking garages.)
Night fell over the mall like a curtain. The security lights flickered. A detective with kind eyes told Laura to go home, to rest. She refused. She sat on the tiled floor outside the restroom until the janitor’s mop swished past her shoes.
By midnight, David arrived. He smelled of engine oil and fear. “We’ll find her,” he whispered, gripping her shoulders. “They have her picture everywhere.” But when the sun came up and the detectives still had no leads, his confidence crumbled.
Days became weeks. Witnesses contradicted each other; cameras offered ghosts instead of answers. The police drained the decorative fountain near the food court, sifted through trash bins, interviewed vendors from San Diego to Bakersfield. Nothing.
Laura began calling the station every morning at nine and again at three. “Any news?” became her only prayer. The voices on the other end grew softer, more apologetic. Two months later, the lead investigator stopped picking up.
Grief hollowed her from the inside. She slept on Ava’s bed, inhaling the faint scent of shampoo and crayons. The stuffed bear on the pillow smiled with stitched indifference. The pink backpack still hung by the door, straps crooked from the last school morning they’d shared.
David tried to hold the marriage together, but silence was louder than love. He started spending nights at the garage, then stopped coming home altogether. By spring, the divorce papers arrived quietly, like an echo of another loss.
The world kept moving without her. Summer turned the ocean bright again, children laughed on the pier, and every laugh sounded like Ava’s. Laura walked through life half-transparent — a woman haunting her own past. She joined online forums for missing children, memorized the faces of other parents who understood the kind of pain that didn’t heal. Her posts were polite, hopeful, desperate. Have you seen this child? The replies were always kind but useless.
Once a week she returned to Santa Monica Plaza. She’d sit near the restroom door, pretending to scroll her phone, waiting for something impossible: a small hand tugging her sleeve, a familiar voice saying, Mommy, I was here the whole time.
Two years passed that way.
Then, on an August evening heavy with salt air and sunset haze, she decided to walk the beach instead of the mall. Venice Beach was alive with music — street drummers, guitar players, laughter spilling from bars. The sky bled orange into purple. Waves rolled against the sand in lazy rhythm.
Laura walked barefoot, her shoes dangling from one hand. She didn’t know why she came here, only that the sound of the ocean soothed the parts of her that sleep never could.
She was about to turn back when she saw a child crouched near the waterline. A small girl, legs dusted with sand, hair in a crooked ponytail, humming softly as she pressed shells into a half-built sandcastle.
The melody brushed Laura’s ears and stopped her heart.
A lullaby — simple, tender, one she hadn’t heard since the night before Ava disappeared. Hush, little bird, close your wings…
Her mind rebelled, but her body moved forward anyway. The wind lifted the girl’s hair, revealing a single dimple on her left cheek. Laura’s knees weakened.
“Ava?” she whispered.
The girl looked up. Blue eyes, wide and unguarded. And then — a smile. Small, uncertain, but real.
For a moment, time disobeyed gravity. The world narrowed to surf and heartbeat. Laura took another trembling step. “Ava, sweetheart, it’s me.”
The girl tilted her head. Confusion flickered across her face — recognition tangled with fear.
Then a man’s voice sliced through the air behind her.
“Sarah! Come here!”
The girl flinched, turning toward the sound. A tall man was striding down the beach, sunglasses still on though the sun had nearly vanished. He carried a towel over one arm, a plastic bucket in the other.
The child froze between them. Laura’s mouth went dry. “Lily?” she said again, then caught herself — “Ava?”
The man’s expression tightened. “Is there a problem?” His tone wasn’t friendly; it was defensive, protective.
Laura’s pulse roared in her ears. “Where did you find her?” she demanded. “She’s my daughter — she was taken two years ago from Santa Monica Mall!”
The man stepped closer, putting himself between Laura and the child. “You’re mistaken. This is my daughter, Sarah. You’re scaring her.”
Sarah. The name felt like an accusation. The girl’s eyes darted from one adult to the other, uncertain.
“Sweetheart, it’s Mommy,” Laura pleaded. “You used to hum that song when—”
“Enough,” the man snapped, grabbing the child’s hand. “We’re leaving.”
“No!” Laura lunged forward, shouting, “Don’t touch her!”
Beachgoers turned. A woman dropped her drink. A surfer yelled, “Hey, what’s going on?” The man kept moving, pulling the girl toward the parking lot.
Laura ran after them, screaming for help. A young couple stepped into the man’s path, alarmed but firm. Within minutes, two police officers arrived from the boardwalk patrol.
Her breath came in ragged bursts as she tried to explain, words tumbling over one another. “That’s my daughter — she disappeared — please, check, please!”
The officers separated them, calm but wary. “Ma’am, take a breath,” one said gently. The other spoke to the man, who introduced himself as Daniel Cooper. He showed an ID — California driver’s license. “This is my daughter, Sarah Cooper,” he said. “She’s terrified.”
The child clung to his arm. But when the officer asked her name, she hesitated. Her lips parted; she looked at the man first, then whispered, “Sarah.”
The sound was soft but wrong. Laura saw it in the girl’s eyes — that flash of something she couldn’t unsee. Fear, or memory, or both.
The officers decided to escort everyone to the nearby precinct “to sort things out.” Laura followed in her car, knuckles white on the steering wheel, headlights tracing the road like questions she wasn’t ready to answer.
She had spent two years imagining this reunion — a tearful embrace, a miracle. Instead, she was driving behind a police cruiser carrying a man who might have stolen her life and a child who might not even know her name.
Inside the station, fluorescent lights hummed overhead. The air smelled of coffee and paper. They fingerprinted the girl gently, spoke to Daniel in another room. Hours crawled past.
When the detective finally approached Laura, his expression was unreadable. “Ms. Bennett,” he said softly, “we’re still confirming, but… there’s a strong indication she might be your daughter.”
Laura gripped the edge of the table. “Might be?”
He nodded. “We’ll know by morning.”
So she waited — heart suspended between hope and dread, staring through the glass wall at the child who could be hers, who was humming softly under her breath, building something invisible with her fingers.
And for the first time in two years, Laura let herself imagine what it would feel like if the nightmare finally ended.
But she was wrong.
It hadn’t ended at all.
It was only beginning.
Laura didn’t sleep that night.
She sat in the corner of the police waiting room, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee gone cold hours ago. The clock on the wall ticked so loudly it felt like a pulse. Somewhere down the hall, a printer hummed. The detective had promised answers by morning, but morning came and went and the answers stayed buried in fluorescent silence.
The girl — Sarah, or Ava, or both — had been taken into protective care for the night. Daniel Cooper was held for questioning. Laura watched every door that opened, hoping to see her daughter step through it, to hear her say Mommy just once. Each time, it wasn’t her.
When the detective finally returned, Laura stood so fast her chair scraped the tile. His expression softened.
“It’s her,” he said quietly. “The DNA matches. The child is your daughter.”
For a heartbeat, Laura couldn’t move. The words didn’t fit inside her. Then they did — and broke her open. A sob tore loose, ugly and unrestrained. She pressed a hand to her mouth as the detective looked away, giving her the dignity of a private miracle.
But he wasn’t finished.
“There’s more,” he said gently. “Mr. Cooper insists he didn’t abduct her. He says he adopted her through unofficial means. He believed it was legal.”
Laura stared at him. “Legal?” Her voice cracked. “He stole my daughter.”
“He says he met a woman two years ago — claimed to be the child’s mother. Said she was homeless and couldn’t care for her. He paid her several thousand dollars and took custody. We’re working to verify the story.”
Laura’s stomach twisted. “And you believe him?”
The detective sighed. “Whether we believe him or not, he has documentation — forged, probably, but convincing. We’ll need to prove otherwise.”
She sank into the chair. Her hands were shaking so violently she had to hide them in her lap. The thought of another woman selling her child made her dizzy with fury. “I want to see her,” she whispered.
The detective hesitated. “She’s confused. The social worker suggests we take it slow. But… maybe a few minutes.”
They led Laura down a narrow hallway to a small observation room with a two-way mirror. Inside sat a little girl on a sofa, clutching a stuffed dolphin the officers had given her. Her hair was slightly darker now, sun-streaked. She wore a faded T-shirt that said Fresno Zoo in peeling letters.
Laura’s knees wobbled. She pressed a trembling hand to the glass.
The social worker knelt beside the child, murmuring softly. Then she gestured toward the mirror. “Do you remember your mom?” she asked.
The girl turned. Her gaze met Laura’s through the glass, and for a heartbeat — just a heartbeat — something lit up behind her eyes. Recognition, faint but real.
Then her mouth formed words that shattered the air.
“They said my mommy died.”
Laura’s hand dropped. She couldn’t breathe. She wanted to run into the room, to scoop the child up and tell her she was wrong, but the detective stopped her gently.
“She’s been told a lot of things,” he said. “We’ll help her unlearn them.”
Hours later, Laura left the station in a fog of disbelief. The sky was pale, the morning thick with salt air and gulls. She drove home with the radio off, gripping the wheel until her palms ached. In the passenger seat sat Ava’s old backpack — recovered from evidence storage, the one she’d carried the day she disappeared. Inside it were crayons, a broken bracelet, and a folded note that said Love you, Mommy! in uneven handwriting.
She cried until the road blurred.
The days that followed blurred too — a mix of legal meetings, therapy appointments, and paperwork that seemed endless. The court ordered temporary reunification with supervision. Daniel Cooper was charged with unlawful custody and obstruction but released on bail pending trial.
The first time Laura saw him outside the courthouse, he didn’t look like a villain. He looked tired — a man unraveling in slow motion. He approached her cautiously, flanked by his lawyer.
“I didn’t hurt her,” he said, voice low, desperate. “I loved her. I swear to God, I thought she was abandoned.”
Laura’s hands clenched into fists. “You don’t get to say her name,” she whispered.
“I didn’t take her from you. I took her from someone who said she was giving her up.”
“Then you should’ve called the police.”
He looked down. “I was told there’d be paperwork later. I just… wanted a family.”
The words should have softened her, but they didn’t. Love built on lies wasn’t love at all.
The first supervised visit with Ava happened in a neutral family center — pastel walls, a table stacked with coloring books, a camera blinking red in the corner. Laura waited by the door, heart hammering like it was the first day of school.
When Ava entered, she froze in the doorway. The social worker smiled gently. “Ava, this is your mom.”
Laura knelt, tears threatening. “Hi, sweetheart.”
Ava tilted her head, cautious. “They said my name is Sarah.”
“It used to be Ava,” Laura said softly. “That was your name when you were little. Do you remember?”
The girl hesitated. “Maybe.”
Laura held up a worn photo — the two of them at the park, ice cream melting down Ava’s wrist, both laughing. “That’s us.”
Ava stared at it. Her fingers reached out, then stopped halfway. “He said you died,” she whispered.
Laura’s heart cracked. “No, baby. I was looking for you every single day.”
Ava blinked. “Every day?”
“Every one,” Laura said. “Even when it hurt too much to wake up.”
The social worker’s eyes glistened. For the rest of the hour, they colored together in silence, the distance between them closing one small gesture at a time.
As the investigation continued, the story grew stranger. Detectives traced the woman who had given Ava to Daniel — but she didn’t exist. The motel address was fake, the name on the receipt belonged to a missing woman from Oregon. It was a web of shadows, impossible to untangle.
Daniel’s lawyer argued that he’d been deceived — that he was as much a victim as anyone. The prosecution disagreed. “Ignorance doesn’t excuse possession,” the district attorney said sharply.
Through it all, Laura’s world revolved around therapy sessions and cautious reunions. Ava was bright, polite, but guarded. She called Laura Miss Bennett for weeks before daring to say Mom. She spoke of pancakes, of “Daddy Daniel,” of a yellow dog named Rusty. Each detail cut Laura and healed her at once.
One night, after a long session, the therapist pulled Laura aside. “She trusts you,” the woman said gently. “But she’s scared to lose what she’s learned to love.”
Laura nodded, tears in her eyes. “So am I.”
When the trial began, the courtroom felt like a stage she never wanted to stand on again. Cameras lined the steps outside; reporters whispered her name. Inside, Daniel sat at the defense table, his jaw tight. Ava wasn’t allowed in the room, thank God. The judge’s gavel struck, and the air turned to glass.
The prosecutor presented photos, forged documents, timelines. Laura testified for three hours, her voice trembling but clear. “He didn’t just take my daughter,” she said. “He took two years of her life and gave her a story where I didn’t exist.”
When it was Daniel’s turn, he looked at her across the courtroom. “I never wanted to hurt anyone,” he said. “I was told she’d been abandoned. I gave her a home. A family.”
Laura’s lawyer stood. “You paid cash to a stranger for a child. You never verified a single detail. You didn’t give her a family — you took her from one.”
The gavel struck again. The trial stretched over weeks. Outside, strangers debated whether Daniel Cooper was a criminal or a man caught in tragedy. Laura stopped reading the headlines.
One afternoon, during a recess, she stepped outside for air. Daniel was being led out by deputies, wrists cuffed, reporters shouting. For a moment, his eyes met hers. There was no hatred there — only ruin.
She turned away.
When the verdict finally came, it wasn’t simple. Daniel was found guilty of unlawful custody and obstruction but not kidnapping. The court recognized his cooperation, his care for the child, his lack of malicious intent. He was sentenced to two years in state prison, with credit for time served.
Laura didn’t know what to feel. Relief, anger, grief — all of it tangled. Justice, when it came, was quieter than she’d imagined.
The next day, she and Ava walked out of the courthouse together. The media swarmed, cameras flashing. Laura shielded her daughter’s face as they hurried to the car. Inside, silence settled between them like dust.
Then Ava spoke. “Mommy?”
Laura’s throat tightened. “Yeah, baby?”
“Are we going home now?”
The word home hit her like sunlight. She smiled through tears. “Yes, sweetheart. We’re going home.”
Rebuilding was slow. The house felt different, smaller but warmer. Ava had nightmares sometimes — of crowds, of voices calling her name. Laura learned to sleep with the door open, the hallway light on. Therapy helped. Time helped more.
One evening, a few months later, they stood together on Venice Beach, the same stretch of sand where the nightmare had restarted. The sky was the color of honey. Ava’s hand fit perfectly in hers again.
“Do you still sing the song?” Ava asked suddenly.
Laura looked down at her. “Which one?”
“The bird song. The lullaby.”
Laura smiled. “Every night. But it’s better when we sing it together.”
They sat on the sand as the waves curled and broke, and Laura began softly:
Hush, little bird, close your wings,
The night will pass, the morning sings…
Ava’s small voice joined hers, hesitant at first, then certain. The sound drifted into the wind, carried over the water.
For the first time in two years, it didn’t feel like grief.
It felt like return.
Behind them, the city lights flickered awake. Ahead, the ocean stretched wide, endless, forgiving.
Laura closed her eyes and let the sound of her daughter’s laughter — that impossible, precious sound — carry her home.
The seasons turned quietly after the trial.
The world had moved on, but inside the Bennett house, time seemed to stretch — not backward, not forward, just long enough for two people to learn each other again.
Ava’s laughter came back slowly, like a language relearned after forgetting its sounds. At first, she giggled only at cartoons or the neighbor’s dog chasing its tail. Then, one morning, Laura heard her laughing in her sleep — a soft, genuine laugh — and the sound broke her heart in the gentlest way.
Every evening, they ate dinner at the same small table, the one David had built years ago. Sometimes Ava talked about school, sometimes she didn’t. She missed Daniel, though she didn’t say it often. When she did, Laura listened, even when it hurt. The therapist had told her to let Ava speak her truth — to understand that love, even misplaced, could coexist with healing.
“I liked pancakes on Sundays,” Ava said one night, tracing circles on her plate.
Laura nodded. “We can make pancakes too.”
“But he always made them smiley,” Ava added, her eyes lowering.
Laura’s voice softened. “Then we’ll make them even bigger smiles.”
That Saturday, they did. The kitchen smelled of syrup and burnt edges, but Ava laughed so hard when one pancake came out shaped like a dinosaur that Laura almost forgot what sorrow felt like.
Daniel Cooper wrote from prison twice. The letters were plain, typed, and unsigned at the bottom — as if he wasn’t sure he had the right anymore. The first one came on Ava’s eighth birthday.
Dear Ava,
I know I can’t ask for forgiveness, but I hope you’ll remember the good parts. You made me believe the world could be kind again. Take care of your mom. She never stopped looking for you.
Laura read it first, hands trembling. She showed it to the therapist before giving it to Ava. When Ava read the words, her brow furrowed.
“Why did he think you stopped looking for me?” she asked.
Laura took a breath. “Because people who do wrong things often tell themselves stories to survive. Maybe he needed to believe that.”
Ava folded the letter and slipped it into a drawer. “Can I write him back?”
“If you want to,” Laura said carefully.
That night, Ava wrote her first letter. Just three lines.
Dear Daniel,
Thank you for pancakes.
I’m home now.
She didn’t send it. She tucked it beneath her pillow instead.
The months that followed were marked by tiny victories. Ava went back to school, made friends, learned to ride a bike again. Laura returned to part-time work at the library, surrounded by the quiet comfort of books and order. Every Friday, they walked along the pier and shared one ice cream cone — strawberry, always.
It wasn’t the same as before, but it was theirs.
Then, one afternoon in March, a detective called with news Laura didn’t expect. The woman who had sold Ava — the ghost at the center of everything — had been found.
“She’s alive?” Laura asked.
“Barely,” the detective said. “She was picked up in Reno. Homeless, in rough shape. Her name’s not what she told Cooper. Turns out she used a string of aliases. She’s connected to multiple illegal adoptions.”
Laura’s heart sank. “Is she the one who took my daughter?”
“We can’t prove that directly,” the detective said. “But she fits every timeline. She had IDs with Ava’s photo. She was probably the one who lured her away in the mall.”
Laura sat down, her knees weak. “Will she be charged?”
“Yes,” the detective said. “But she’s sick. Cancer. She may not live long enough for trial.”
That night, Laura stood by the window long after Ava had gone to bed. The city lights blinked like faraway memories. She wanted to feel triumph, but all she felt was emptiness. Revenge didn’t bring her child back. It never could.
In the end, all she wanted was peace.
One afternoon in spring, Ava brought home a school project — a poster about “What Home Means.” It was covered in glitter glue and crooked handwriting. Beneath the title, Ava had drawn a small house, a beach, and two stick figures holding hands.
Her teacher had written, Beautiful work, Ava. You captured it perfectly.
Laura felt tears sting her eyes. “What’s the beach for?” she asked.
Ava smiled shyly. “That’s where I found you again.”
Laura hugged her, breathing in the smell of crayons and sunshine. “That’s where we both found each other.”
By summer, Venice Beach became their ritual. Every Sunday, they’d return to the same spot where it all began — where the tide had carried both pain and deliverance. Ava would run along the water, collecting shells, while Laura sat on the sand watching the horizon.
One evening, as the sky bled orange and violet, Ava came running toward her, holding something small and white in her palm.
“It’s a seashell shaped like a heart,” she said proudly.
Laura smiled. “Maybe it’s a sign.”
“From who?”
“From the ocean. Or from the universe. Or maybe from Grandpa. He loved the beach too.”
Ava thought for a moment, then placed the shell in Laura’s hand. “You keep it. It’s your sign.”
Laura closed her fingers around it. “Thank you, baby.”
They sat together, watching the sun slip below the edge of the world. It was one of those moments that didn’t need words — the kind that told her the nightmare had finally turned into something else. Not a dream, but a life. A fragile, beautiful, imperfect life.
A few weeks later, David showed up at the door.
He looked older, thinner, as if the years had worn him down to his regrets. Laura hadn’t seen him since the court proceedings. He stood on the porch holding a small box.
“I heard about everything,” he said quietly. “About her coming home.”
Laura nodded, unsure what to say.
“I thought maybe…” He hesitated, then handed her the box. Inside was a photo of the three of them — taken on Ava’s fifth birthday at the zoo. David had been holding Ava on his shoulders, both of them wearing paper crowns. Laura’s younger self was laughing behind the camera.
“I didn’t handle it well,” he said. “I should’ve stayed.”
“You were grieving too,” Laura said. “We both were.”
He looked down. “I’m happy she’s back. You did what I couldn’t.”
Laura exhaled slowly. “She asks about you sometimes.”
“Yeah?” His eyes softened. “What do you tell her?”
“That you loved her. That you were hurting, not gone.”
He nodded, a faint smile ghosting across his face. “Maybe one day I can tell her that myself.”
When he left, Laura stood at the door for a long time, staring at the photo. The past wasn’t fixed, but maybe forgiveness didn’t need perfection. Maybe it only needed time.
That fall, the court finalized Ava’s full reinstatement under her birth name — Ava Bennett. They held a small ceremony at the county office, just the two of them and a judge who smiled like he’d seen too much heartbreak to pretend it was routine.
Afterward, they went for ice cream, like they used to. The same flavor, the same shared spoon. As they walked along the boardwalk, Ava looked up and said, “I like being Ava again.”
Laura squeezed her hand. “I like it too.”
“Can I keep Sarah as my middle name?” she asked suddenly.
Laura blinked, surprised. “Why?”
“Because she was part of me,” Ava said simply. “Even if it was the wrong story, it’s still mine.”
Laura felt something shift inside her — an understanding that healing wasn’t about erasing the past, but about owning every version of yourself that survived it. She nodded. “That’s beautiful, sweetheart.”
On the second anniversary of Ava’s return, they visited a small memorial garden the city had built for missing children. It was quiet there, filled with names carved into marble — some found, some still lost. Laura placed a single white flower beside the plaque engraved with Ava’s name.
Ava frowned. “Why is my name still here?”
“Because you were gone once,” Laura said gently. “And this reminds people that sometimes, the lost do come back.”
Ava touched the cold stone. “Can we leave it? For the others?”
“Yes,” Laura whispered. “For the others.”
They stood in silence, the wind stirring their hair. The sun warmed their backs, and Laura closed her eyes, imagining every parent who still waited, still prayed. She hoped, fiercely, that somewhere out there, another reunion was beginning.
That night, as they prepared for bed, Ava asked, “Mom, will you sing again?”
Laura smiled. “Always.”
She dimmed the lights, sat beside her daughter, and began the lullaby — the same one that had once been a thread through time, binding them across years of silence.
Hush, little bird, close your wings,
The night will pass, the morning sings.
No storm can break what love has made,
No dark can hide what won’t fade.
Ava’s eyes fluttered closed halfway through. Her small hand found Laura’s and didn’t let go.
When the song ended, Laura stayed there a while, watching her daughter sleep. The moonlight fell across the blankets in silver patterns. Outside, the city breathed — cars, waves, the hum of a world that had somehow kept spinning even when hers had stopped.
For two years, she had lived inside a nightmare she thought would never end. But now, sitting there, listening to the rhythm of Ava’s breathing, she understood something simple and sacred:
The nightmare had ended the moment her daughter smiled at her again on that beach.
It had ended because love, once found, was impossible to lose completely.
And it would never, ever be taken again.
Laura leaned down and kissed Ava’s forehead. “Goodnight, baby,” she whispered. “You’re home.”
Outside, the ocean murmured its approval. The tide rose and fell, steady and eternal — carrying away the last traces of fear, leaving behind only the sound of peace.
