Nora had recently separated from her family and had not been in regular contact with them.
That helped explain why no immediate missing-person report had intersected with Melissa’s case.
As for Melissa, she had apparently been thrown farther from the vehicle during the accident and found later by a road-maintenance crew searching an adjacent drainage area.
Her handbag had remained in the car.
So had her coat.
And because the car belonged to her, the earliest assumptions hardened quickly into official conclusions.
One error leaned against another until an entire family built seven years of grief on top of them.
DNA testing would now formally confirm Melissa’s identity.
I gave my sample without hesitation.
The results arrived eleven days later.
99.99 percent probability of parent-child relationship.
I printed the report.
Then I sat on the floor beside my desk and cried.
Not because I had doubted her.
Because for the first time, a piece of paper had finally told the truth.
