Because she had lived an entire life without me.
And I had lived one without her.
Dolly told me Laura had married again eventually.
That she worked for years at a florist.
That she still loved sunflowers.
That she asked about me more often than she admitted.
“Why didn’t she contact me herself?” I asked.
Dolly hesitated.
“She thought Grandpa told you she had come back.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Another lie created by silence.
Laura believed I had known and chosen not to see her.
I believed Laura had vanished.
For decades, both of us had been hurt by something that wasn’t true.
“Does she know you found Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She cried.”
I smiled sadly.
“That sounds familiar.”
Months passed before I received the first letter.
No return address.
My hands shook when I recognized the handwriting.
It had changed.
Of course it had.
But some shapes were still the same.
Especially the L.
I opened it slowly.
Laura didn’t ask for forgiveness.
She didn’t offer excuses.
She told me she had been sixteen, angry, frightened, and certain she knew more about life than everyone around her.
She said leaving had been her decision.
Staying away had not always been.
She wrote that when Dad turned her away, she believed I had agreed.
That hurt most of all.
She had spent decades thinking her twin sister didn’t want her.
I wrote back.
I told her the truth.
I had never known.
I had never stopped wondering.
I had never stopped loving her.
We began exchanging letters.
Then phone calls.
The first time I heard Laura’s voice after nearly forty years, neither of us spoke for almost a minute.
Finally, she whispered, “You still breathe loudly when you cry.”
I laughed.
Then cried harder.
