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That night, Grant had a public event for his new book, *The Daughter I Lost in Cairo*. Tara showed me the poster on her phone, her voice cold.
“No,” I said. “He made money from hiding you.”
Before the event, we went to Grant’s house. When he opened the door and saw Tara, all the color drained from his face.
“You remember my name,” she said. “That’s more than I expected.”
Grant tried to explain, but I stopped him. “You are done deciding what we get to hear.”
“Was that before or after you left me at Claire’s apartment?” she asked.
“My name is Tara,” she said. “I’m the daughter he claims he lost in Cairo. He didn’t lose me. He hid me.”
I stood beside Tara. “You protected your reputation,” I said. “You destroyed our lives.”
Later, Tara came home with me. I opened the cedar box I had kept for twenty years. Inside were her ribbons, her little red shoes, a pancake recipe card, and old missing posters softened at the edges.
The next morning, I made pancakes. The first one burned, the second one tore, but by the third, Tara walked into the kitchen wearing my old sweater.
“I’m not ready to call you Mom,” she said quietly.
“Then call me Cassidy,” I said. “That’s enough for me.”
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