Imposter

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Helen

February 2016

Outside the window, a silent hush of snow floated in the air. Helen stared, momentarily zoned out in the descent of flakes.

The big fluffy flakes barely weighed anything. Sophie used to love playing in the snow. But long gone were the days of bundling Sophie in snow pants, boots, hat and mittens. Gone were the moments of zipping up her coat all the way to her chin and patting her on the butt as she made her way out the back door. Helen clung tightly to the memories she had of her daughter. Even ten years later, she held out secret hope her daughter was still alive.

Helen carefully arranged a bouquet of thorny red roses in a vase. "Damn," she muttered and yanked her finger away from the stems. Blood seeped out from the tiny wound and pooled on the pad of her finger. For a few exquisite seconds, it defied gravity before it dropped and splat on the tabletop.

Helen thought the blood droplet was a lot like life. Something beautiful mixed with all the thorny bits. How she herself had clung to the familiar, for a few deceptive moments before she had gone splat in the unknown.

Helen had gone to the police station. She had taken one look at the backpack and known it was Sophie's but they had made her identify the contents anyhow. The news headlines screamed Missing Child Sparks Community Outrage in Quiet Coastal Community. Sophie was pictured in local newspapers, wide-eyed and innocent with her appealing front-toothless smile. This kind of thing didn't happen in Brunswick. There were search parties organized, casseroles dropped off, a tip hotline established and a slew of unanswered questions. The police camped outside her house for the first week. Reporters, too. Then came the psychics. They were the worst. Helen was a love, wish, dream, be, create, give, smile, learn, hope, trust, live, share kind of person. It was simply her nature. But a slow burn started that day deep inside her. A slow, bitter smolder. Her heart started bleeding. Her spirit chipped. Little did she know it would chip and chip and chip, until it crumbled into nothing. That she would work so hard, to lose it all anyway.

Statistically speaking, Sophie was dead. Everyone told her so. The police, the Center for Missing Children, other missing children's parents from her support group. She knew that—but she always believed a mother knew if her baby's heart was still beating somewhere out there, and Helen had never felt the loss of Sophie in the deepest recesses of her heart. She just felt she was still alive. A mother knew.

She shook the memories from her head. Not knowing had been the worst. It let in the nightmares. The "what if's" and the tortures of imagination could drive a person crazy, especially after a decade of unanswered questions. But Helen reminded herself daily she had to be strong because ... what if Sophie came home? If she showed up and Helen was in the looney bin, without a safe home to return to—that would be the ultimate failure as a mother.

"Hey," Sam said.

Helen startled and glanced at the clock. Her husband arrived home just after five p.m. At fifty, he was still handsome as ever. 'Easy on the eyes' as her mother had called him before she'd passed away. Tall with an athletic build and a strong jaw, but kind eyes. He kissed her cheek and swatted her rear as he passed on his way to the kitchen.

Sam had swept Helen off her feet at twenty-three. She had loved that he was a responsible, single father of a two-year-old son; it showed his character. He was attentive and romantic. He'd wooed her with flowers, compliments and simple moments of affection. He was tender and open with her.

At twenty-four, they married, and by twenty-five, she'd delivered Cora. Those early years had been pure joy. Shane—four, and Cora just a newborn—had seemed to complete their lives. Sophie came four years later—by accident. A happy surprise to Sam and Helen but Cora, then four and Shane eight, weren't quite as elated. And then Mary had started acting up.

Sophie had looked more like Helen than Sam, but she had Sam's eyes. A chocolate brown with a solemn stare. But on Sophie's cherubic face, those eyes held people in the palm of her tiny hand. Helen ran a hand through her own golden hair. Cora had been a perfect mix of her and Sam, and Shane looked mostly like his mother; tall, athletic, fair-skinned and haired.

In their first year with Sophie, there had been a lot of singing 'you can't always get what you want' to the kids. Now, decades later, Cora and Shane loved to bring that song up and sing it back to Sam and her when the moment was right. Helen grinned at the thought.

"Hi, love. How was work?" she asked, and followed him to the kitchen.

"Same as always. Me trying to get Dad to modernize—Dad refusing—me plotting his retirement." Sam winked at her. She watched as he set a new bouquet of flowers on the counter for her. She loved the way he brought flowers for her once or twice a week when he came home from work. She grinned, plugged the sink, ran the water and put the flowers in. She'd arrange them later.

Since before they met, Sam was on track to take over the family business. A business which, over the years, had amassed them a small fortune. Sam's father had promised to retire three years ago, but was still working full time—much to Sam's dismay. He had plans to bring the company more up-to-date. He wanted a technologically savvy company, not the archaic one his father started. Theirs was an odd relationship. Helen's father-in-law was absent from her and the children's lives. He and Sam only had a working relationship. Sam had explained once that his father despised Sam for having a child out of wedlock and refused to acknowledge Shane. Apparently, that had extended to Cora and Sophie, as well. Sam's father attended their wedding and that had been the second to last time she had seen him. There were moments when Helen still missed her own parents who had passed on years ago, about the same time she'd stopped trying to talk Sam into working on his relationship with his father.

With her step-son, Shane, now twenty-five and living in Boston, and Cora, twenty-one and renting in Portland, the house was eerily quiet. Empty nesters. They should still have had a child in their home for at least another year. But it was what it was. Helen spent many of her days volunteering at Parkview Hospital, while Sam spent his at work. She preferred volunteering to the empty house. She closed her eyes and let remembrance invade.

The house was silent. Cora was at school. Shane was at his mother Mary's house—where he'd preferred to stay since Sophie disappeared. Helen stumbled down the hall to the bathroom. Her mind raced. Panic swept her up in an instant. She fought to breathe, clutched at her throat.

Her baby, her baby, her baby. Find her.

Her brain chanted over and over. She vomited. Finding Sophie seemed like an endless, impossible task. Helen knew she needed to be strong. Knowing and doing were two different things. She inhaled slowly and counted to ten backward to try and manage her emotions, just as her doctor had suggested. By the time she whispered one, she felt marginally better.

In the kitchen, Helen stared at a handmade craft on the fridge, it took her back to that day; March 14, 2006. Her heart sank; all she could hear was her deafening heartbeat. She could hardly breathe. Helen stared blankly at the craft Sophie had made her with her little school picture inside, she whispered, "Don't be scared, baby. Don't be scared." As if she could hear her, or feel her, something, anything.

Sighing, she opened her eyes and blew out a breath. Each time Helen had witnessed Shane and his father growing closer over the years, each time he went to a father-daughter event with Cora, she found herself angry with him for not mourning the loss of having those very same moments with Sophie. Helen felt the pang of heartbreak with every rite of passage that came and went for Cora and Shane, knowing that those moments were stolen from Sophie. She knew it was unfair to judge Sam in the way he coped with the loss but sometimes she couldn't help it. She pushed those old emotions aside and went to him. It was important to stay in the present; too many ghosts haunted her past.

She snaked her arms around Sam's waist and pulled him close. "I missed you today. The house was too quiet without you," she said, "and thank you for the flowers." Helen inhaled the masculine scent of her husband.

Sam smiled and kissed her forehead tenderly. "I love you."

"Ditto," she answered.