Why Was His Dead Wife Living Under Another Name

CHAPTER 1 - THE WOMAN AT THE COUNTER

"Oh, thank you so much, sweetie."

Daniel Harper took the leather wallet from the little girl with an absent smile. He had just paid for lunch and was halfway out of the restaurant when it slipped from his jacket pocket onto the bright tile floor.

He reached for a bill to give her.

Then she stared into the open fold of the wallet and froze.

"Mister... why do you have a picture of my mommy?"

Daniel's hand stopped.

The old black-and-white photo inside that wallet had been there for twelve years. His favorite picture of his wife, Emily. Wind in her hair. Eyes laughing at something outside the frame.

He slowly crouched until he was level with the child.

"Sweetie, what did you just say?"

The girl, about six, in pink sneakers and a yellow shirt, pointed at the photo again. "That's my mommy in your photo."

A chill climbed up Daniel's back.

"No... that's impossible." His fingers tightened around the leather wallet. "That's my wife. She passed away years ago..."

The little girl's face didn't change. She only lifted one small hand and pointed toward the ordering counter.

"She's not dead. Look, my mom is right over there ordering our food."

Daniel turned.

A woman stood at the pickup counter in jeans and a soft blue sweater, her back to him, one hand reaching for a tray. Even from behind, his body knew her before his mind did. The line of her shoulders. The turn of her neck.

As if she felt him looking, she turned around.

The tray slipped from her hands.

Plates shattered across the floor.

Emily's face went white.

Not Emily, his mind insisted. It couldn't be.

But her eyes filled with the exact same frightened tenderness he had once woken beside for fifteen years.

She whispered one word he couldn't hear.

Then the little girl tugged his sleeve and said, "Mommy?"

And the woman answered, without taking her eyes off Daniel, "Sophie, come here. Now."