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She closed her eyes and started humming then, so softly I almost missed it.
It was the same melody that had lived in the back of my mind my whole life. The one I thought I had made up as a kid.
It was awkward and emotional and strange in the way only real life could manage.
There were tears, half-finished sentences, apologies nobody quite owed but gave anyway.
It didn’t feel like I was replacing one family with another. It felt like my life had been written on two separate pages, and someone had finally taped them together.
Evelyn’s dementia didn’t magically disappear when we reunited. Some days she knew me and called me “my boy” and held my hand like she was afraid I might vanish.
Some days she thought I was a neighbor coming to fix the TV.
But the grief in her changed. The sharp, wild guilt about a baby she had “lost” softened.
Her fear had a shape now. A name.
A face she could touch.
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