A man pauses for a little girl selling flowers—but the bracelet on her wrist reveals a long-buried past he thought was gone forever

He didn’t speak for a long moment.

The rain came down. A woman with a stroller navigated around them with mild irritation.

“How old are you, Clara?” Daniel asked, though part of him already knew why he was asking.

“Seven,” she said. “Seven and a half.”

He did the arithmetic he’d been avoiding.

The timing was exact. Terrifyingly exact.

He looked at Clara’s continue reading …