The hospital called and said a little boy had listed me as his emergency contact. I laughed nervously and said, “That’s impossible. I’m 32, single, and I don’t have a son.”

of her.”

The words settled deep inside me. Rachel.

At nineteen, Rachel Vance had been the brightest person I knew. She could turn a bad diner into an adventure, a failed exam into a comedy act, and a rainy night into a reason to dance barefoot in the dorm parking lot. But she also carried shadows she never named—days when she vanished, weeks when her continue reading …