I raised my niece on my own — eight years later, she pointed at a woman in the next beach changing cubicle and whispered, “Aunty, look… she has my mark”

The dog followed us. I told him to stay with her.”

“I saved her.”

My breath caught.

That was the question that had haunted me for eight years.

“That’s how she ended up fifty yards from the house?”

Joan nodded, crying now.

“Then why didn’t you come home?”

She looked toward Ruth.

“Then why didn’t you come home?”

“Because by the time I could come back, she already continue reading …