CHAPTER 2: THE WOMAN WHO SHOULD NOT KNOW ME
For a few seconds, none of us moved.
The street noise kept going—cars, footsteps, distant laughter—but everything between me and her had gone completely silent, like the world had been muted just to make space for what was happening.
Her eyes stayed on mine.
Not confused.
Not curious.
Alert.
Like she was deciding something.
My throat tightened.
“Elena…” I said, before I could stop myself.
The name came out broken.
Too familiar to be spoken in a place like this.
At the sound of it, something flickered across her face.
Not recognition.
Not relief.
Something closer to warning.
She looked away first.
A small, controlled movement—like someone shutting a door inside themselves.
“I think you have the wrong person,” she said.
Her voice was hoarse.
Quiet.
But steady.
It didn’t match the woman sitting on the ground in front of me.
And that mismatch made my chest tighten harder.
Miles tugged at my sleeve behind me.
“Dad,” he whispered, “that’s her. That’s Mom.”
I didn’t answer him.
I couldn’t.
Because I was still staring at her hands.
Hands I remembered holding mine in hospital rooms.
Hands that used to warm my son when he was a newborn.
And now—
they were trembling around a paper cup.
I crouched slightly.
“Look at me,” I said gently.
She didn’t.
Instead, she pulled her coat tighter around herself.
A defensive motion.
Automatic.
Like she had done it too many times before.
“I don’t know who you think I am,” she said again, firmer now.
Then she added, almost too quickly:
“Please leave me alone.”
That sentence hit harder than I expected.
Not because of rejection.
But because of fear.
There was fear in it.
Real fear.
Miles stepped closer anyway.
Small voice.
“Mom… why are you mad at us?”
That did it.
Her head snapped toward him.
Fast.
Too fast.
For a second, her mask cracked.
Just a fraction.
Her eyes softened.
Pain flashed through them.
And then it was gone again.
She stood abruptly.
Too quickly for someone who had been sitting on the ground.
“Don’t,” she said sharply.
The word wasn’t directed at me.
It was directed at him.
Miles flinched.
I stepped forward immediately.
“Hey—hey, it’s okay,” I said. “He’s just a kid.”
But she was already backing away.
“No,” she said under her breath. “No, this isn’t—”
She stopped herself.
Like she had almost said something she wasn’t allowed to say.
Then she turned.
And started walking.
Fast.
Not running.
But escaping.
Miles reached out.
“Mom!”
The word echoed down the sidewalk.
She froze for half a second.
Just one.
Then kept walking.
Faster.
Until the crowd swallowed her.
And she was gone.
I stood there for a long time.
Long enough that Miles stopped talking.
Long enough that the world started moving normally again around us.
But nothing inside me moved.
Because I had just seen something impossible—
and it had looked at me like it knew me.
Miles pulled my hand again.
“Dad,” he said quietly, “why didn’t she come back?”
I didn’t answer right away.
Because I didn’t know.
But one thought had already taken root in my mind.
If Elena was alive…
Then everything I believed about the past three years—
May you like
was wrong.
And someone had made sure I believed it.
