“Daddy, that waitress looks just like Mummy!” The words struck Edward Harrington like a bolt from the blue. He turned sharplyand froze. His wife had been gone for years.
On a damp Saturday morning, Edward Harrington, a wealthy industrialist and devoted single father, walked into a quiet little tearoom tucked away on a cobbled side street. His daughter, Poppy, trotted beside him, her small hand clasped in his.
Edward hadnt smiled much of latenot since Beatrice, his beloved wife, had been lost in a dreadful carriage accident two winters past. Life without her laughter, her warmth, her voice, had become a hollow silence.
They took a table by the window. Edward absently scanned the menu, weary from yet another sleepless night, his thoughts adrift. Opposite him, Poppy hummed softly, fiddling with the lace on her pinafore.
Then, in a hushed but certain tone, she spoke.
“Daddy that waitress looks just like Mummy.”
At first, the words barely registereduntil they hit him like a strike.
“What did you say, love?”
Poppy pointed across the room. “There.”
Edward turnedand his breath caught.
Just a few paces away, a woman was smiling at another patron. She was the very image of Beatrice.
The same warm hazel eyes. The same graceful bearing. The same dimples that only appeared when she laughed.
But it couldnt be.
He had seen Beatrices body himself, attended the funeral, held the death certificate in his hands.
Yet here she stoodalive, breathing, speaking.
His stare lingered too long.
At last, the woman noticed him. Her smile wavered for the briefest moment, her eyes flashing with recognitionor dreadbefore she swiftly vanished into the kitchen.
Edwards pulse roared.
Could it truly be her?
Was this fates cruel jest? A mere twist of chance? Or something far more sinister?
“Stay here, Poppy,” he murmured.
Brushing past startled customers, he made for the kitchen dooronly to be halted.
“Sir, you cant go back there.”
Edward lifted a hand. “I must speak with the waitressthe one with the chestnut plait, the cream blouse. Please.”
The attendant hesitated, then yielded.
Minutes dragged.
At last, the door opened, and the woman stepped out. Up close, the resemblance was chilling.
“May I help you?” she asked warily.
Her voice was differentsofterbut those eyes were unmistakable.
“I I beg your pardon,” Edward faltered. “You bear an uncanny likeness to someone I once knew.”
She offered a polite smile. “So Ive been told.”
Edward searched her face. “Do you know Beatrice Harrington?”
Her gaze flickered. “No, Im afraid not.”
He hesitated, then extended a calling card. “If you recall anything, do send word.”
She refused it. “Good day, sir.”
And turned away.
But Edward saw itthe faintest quiver in her fingers, the way she worried her lip just as Beatrice used to when uneasy.
That night, sleep escaped him.
He sat by Poppys bedside, watching her sleep, the encounter replaying endlessly in his mind.
Was it truly her? If not, why had she seemed so shaken?
He scoured the papers, the directories, but found nothingno photographs, no listingssave for a name: Clara. A fellow server had called her that.
Clara.
A name that felt deliberate. Weighted.
He summoned a private investigator.
“I need everything you can uncover about a woman named Clara, working at a tearoom on Baker Street. No surname yet. She is the living likeness of my wifewho was meant to be dead.”
Three days later, the report arrived.
“Edward, I dont believe your wife perished in that accident.”
A chill gripped him.
“What do you mean?”
“The constables records show another driving. Your wife was a passenger, but her remains were never formally identified. The effects matched hers, but the coroners notes dont align. And Clarathe waitress? Her true name is Beatrice Somersby. She altered it half a year after the crash.”
Edwards world tilted.
His wife was alive.
Hiding.
Breathing.
The truth bore down on him like a millstone.
That night, he paced, tormented by one question: why?
The next morning, he returned to the tearoom alone.
When she saw him, her eyes widened again, but she did not flee. She murmured something to a colleague, shed her apron, and motioned for him to follow her outside.
They sat beneath a gnarled oak behind the shop.
“You know,” she said quietly, “I always wondered when youd find me.”
Edward studied her face. “Why, Beatrice? Why let us believe you were gone?”
She looked away, her voice unsteady. “I didnt plan it. I was meant to be in that carriage, but at the last moment, a friend took my placePoppy had taken ill. The accident happened later that evening. The rings, the cloakthey were mine.”
Edward frowned. “So the world thought you dead.”
She nodded. “I learned of it from the broadsheets. I froze. For a moment, I thought it a mercya way to vanish.”
“Vanish from what?” His voice cracked. “Me?”
“No. Never you,” she said firmly. “The scrutinythe society pages, the fortune, the endless performance. I lost myself. I no longer knew who I was beyond being your wife.”
Edward was silent, stunned.
She went on, tears slipping free, “Seeing the funeral, your griefI wanted to cry out. But it felt too late. Too tangled. And when I glimpsed Poppy, I knew Id failed her. Id left her behind.”
He sat quietly, his heart in turmoil.
“I loved you,” he whispered. “I still do. And Poppyshe remembers you. She said you looked like Mummy. What am I to tell her?”
She brushed her tears away. “Tell her the truth. That Mummy made a dreadful mistake.”
Edward shook his head. “No. Come home. Tell her yourself. She needs you. And I believe I do as well.”
That evening, Edward brought Beatrice home.
When Poppy saw her, she gasped, then dashed into her mothers embrace.
“Mummy?” she breathed, clinging tight.
Beatrice wept. “Yes, my darling. Im here.”
Edward watched, his heart breaking and mending all at once.
In the weeks that followed, the truth settled quietly.
Edward used his influence to untangle the legal knots around Beatrices name. No scandal sheets, no gossipjust quiet suppers, bedtime tales, and a chance to begin anew.
Beatrice slowly found her footingnot as the woman shed pretended to be, but as the woman she chose to become.
It was flawed, but it was real.
One evening, after tucking Poppy in, Edward asked, “Why now? Why stay this time?”
She looked up, steady. “Because this time, I remembered who I am.”
He arched a brow.
“Im not just Clara the waitress, or Mrs. Harrington the tycoons wife. Im a mother. A woman who lost herselfand at last found the strength to come home.”
Edward smiled, pressed a kiss to her brow, and clasped her hand firmly.
And this time, she held on.
