When I was four years old, my mother sat me on a bench inside a church and said, “Stay here. God will take care of you.” Then she turned around and walked away, smiling, hand in hand with my father and sister. I was too stunned to even cry—I could only sit there and watch them leave me behind. 20 years later, they walked into that very same church, looked straight at me, and said, “We’re your parents. We’ve come to take you home!”

“You stay right here on this bench, Clara,” her mother had whispered, glancing nervously toward the heavy oak doors where her father was already standing, holding Sarah’s hand tightly. “God will take care of you now. We have to go. Be a good girl for God.”

And then, they had turned their backs. They had walked out the doors, into a blinding snowstorm, leaving a four-year-old child to stare at the empty, echoing church until a terrified janitor found her shivering and crying three hours later.

Now, the ghosts had returned.

Her mother’s eyes were already brimming with perfectly timed, crystalline tears. She let out a loud, theatrical gasp, raising a gloved hand to her mouth as she saw Clara standing near the altar.

“Clara,” her mother sobbed, her voice trembling with an emotion that felt rehearsed, polished for an audience. She took a hurried, dramatic step forward, her arms opening wide in a gesture of maternal longing. “Oh, my beautiful girl. It’s us. We’re your parents. We’ve come to take you home.”