Ashley sat at her desk, her fixed blankly on the calendar. The date glared back at her — June 13th. Vanessa's birthday.
A sharp ache intensified in her chest as memories of her little girl crashed over her in relentless waves. Each one more painful than the last.
Vanessa had been taken when she was just a year and eight months old. Now, four months later, she would have turned two. And Ashley still had no idea where she was—or if she was even alive.
She felt like a failure. A pathetic loser. She'd failed basically at everything she had attempted to do in her life. Her marriage, saving her parents, protecting her child. She was a joke to motherhood, and the crushing weight of that truth pressed heavily on her chest like a rock.
Tears welled in her eyes as she pictured Vanessa's smile, her laughter, those tiny hands that used to cling to her. How big was she now? Did she still curl up in someone's lap, or had she outgrown that? Did she call someone else Mommy now?
