I stared at that photograph for nearly an hour.
The girl was standing beside a motel pool.
You couldn’t see her face.
The man claimed she was Gia.
He said he had more photographs.
He said he could tell me where she lived.
For about 30 terrible seconds, I considered paying him.
Then I called the police.
Nothing came of it.
Nothing came of most things.
Tips arrived.
Tips disappeared.
People remembered seeing her in places she had never been.
Someone swore she was working at a diner in Tennessee.
Another person claimed she had joined a church group in Arizona.
Each possibility gave me a little piece of my daughter back.
Each dead end took her away again.
By the fifth year, people had stopped saying her name in front of me.
I never stopped saying it.
Gia.
I said it when I talked about the past.
I said it when someone asked if I had children.
