“That compass. Mommy has one exactly like it. Hers is on her shoulder.”
A chill ran through my entire body.
That tattoo wasn’t something people simply copied.
Eight years earlier, during an unforgettable night in Seattle, I had sketched the design on a paper napkin while talking with a woman named Camila. It was nothing more than a cracked compass, symbolizing two people who had no idea where life would lead them.
Before sunrise, we’d both walked into a tiny tattoo studio and made the impulsive decision to get matching versions.
I had never seen another person wearing that design.
Not once.
Trying to remain calm, I leaned forward.
“Wh,,,,at is your mother’s name?”
Before any of them could answer, a woman wearing a gray nanny’s uniform hurried toward us.
Her face was filled with panic.
“Emily… Nora… Claire!” she called sharply. “What are you doing over here?”
She gently but quickly gathered the girls around her before looking at me with an uneasy smile.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir. They weren’t supposed to bother you.”
“They didn’t bother me,” I replied. “I was only trying to ask them—”
She interrupted before I could finish.
“Mrs. Montgomery will not be happy if she finds out.”
The surname stopped me cold.
Montgomery.
It wasn’t an ordinary name.
In New York, almost everyone knew the Montgomery family.
As the nanny hurried the girls toward a black luxury SUV parked beside the curb, memories I’d spent years forcing out of my mind suddenly returned.
Camila had always been mysterious.
She dressed simply, but everything she owned was obviously expensive.
She often ignored phone calls.
Whenever I asked about her family, she smoothly changed the subject.
Back then I thought she simply valued her privacy.
Now, standing in front of me, were three little girls who looked exactly like the woman I’d known years before.
And they claimed she still carried the same tattoo I had designed.
Before I could reach the sidewalk, the SUV doors closed.
One of the girls pressed her palm against the dark window and smiled at me.
Then the vehicle disappeared into the afternoon traffic.
I remained standing there long after it was gone.
Because one impossible question refused to leave my mind.
If Camila Montgomery was truly their mother…
…how could three seven-year-old girls know about a tattoo that existed because of one unforgettable night we had shared exactly eight years earlier?
