Madison couldn’t help but stare at a toddler in the waiting room. The mother noticed and shifted in her chair. The little girl with curly brown hair played with a handmade doll on the floor. She kept covering her doll’s face with a blanket then picking it up and hugging it. She repeated this several times. The mother paid no attention but occasionally peered over her magazine at the staring woman.
She sensed a strange familiarity with the little girl. The eyes and expressions reminded her of the child she lost. She even pulled her left earlobe like Georgia did. She decided to speak to the mother, “Your daughter is a cutie. What’s her name?” The mother replied, “Daisy.” With eyebrows raised and a feigned smile, Madison spoke, “She’s beautiful.” That was her daughter’s middle name, but she didn’t mention it.
The toddler brushed the hair back off her face, and a startled Madison stood up. The child had a heart-shaped strawberry birthmark on her forehead exactly like Georgia had. She was so shaken up at all the similarities, she had to get out of there. She fumbled for the key fob and pressed the horn button to find her car. Thinking, “It can’t be my baby. We buried her two years ago.”
She drove to the cemetery and knelt to place a single daisy on the grave. As she stood up, she noticed fresh dirt around the marble marker but was too emotional to inquire about it. She just thought of how the toddler had an uncanny resemblance to Georgia.
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