My mother came back from the beach laughing without my six-year-old daughter, saying she had “forgotten” her like a towel.

I could barely breathe.

“What man, baby?”

Mia swallowed, her eyes locked on mine.

“The man from the picture in Grandma’s drawer. The one you said could never come near us.”

I knew exactly who she meant. Victor Hale. My mother’s brother. The man my family claimed had left California years ago after a police investigation quietly disappeared. Mother’sDay gifts