Ellie gave me the enormous shrug children use when they don’t think something is important.
Then she said:
“He says strawberry was your favorite too.”
I stopped washing the dish in my hand.
“My favorite?”
“Yeah.”
She was already watching the street, worried the truck might leave.
“He said you always picked this one when you were little.”
A strange chill moved through me.
Because he was right.
Strawberry shortcake had been my favorite.
Not occasionally.
Every single time.
Other kids loved rocket pops, drumsticks, and those character ice creams with gumball eyes.
Not me.
I always chose strawberry shortcake.
From the time my mother had to lift me high enough to reach the truck window until I was old enough to walk there myself with quarters in my pocket.
But that childhood had happened thirty years earlier.
Four hundred miles away.
In Millbrook, the town where I grew up and left when I turned eighteen.
There was absolutely no reason an ice cream truck driver in my current neighborhood should know any of that.
I tried to find the obvious explanation.
“Ellie, did you tell him my name?”
“No.”
“Did you tell him strawberry shortcake used to be my favorite?”
“No.”
She looked genuinely confused.
“I didn’t tell him anything about you. He just knew.”
That sentence bothered me.
He just knew.
So the following evening, when the faint music of the truck floated down our street, I went outside with Ellie.
The truck was parked near the corner.
Children crowded around it.
Bikes had been abandoned in driveways and on lawns.
The evening sunlight came through the trees in that beautiful golden way summer light sometimes does.
Behind the serving window stood the driver.
At first glance, there was nothing unusual about him.
He looked somewhere around sixty.
Gray hair.
Glasses.
Faded baseball cap.
The kind of older man you could walk past in a grocery store without remembering five minutes later.
Ellie ran straight to him.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said.
His face brightened when he saw her.
His hand moved automatically toward the freezer, probably already reaching for her usual strawberry bar.
Then he saw me.
And stopped.
His expression changed.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Not anything that immediately made me want to grab Ellie and leave.
Instead, he looked almost stunned.
Like he was staring at a face he recognized from somewhere very far away.
His hand remained frozen halfway toward the freezer.
Finally, he asked:
“You’re Ellie’s mother?”
“Yes.”
I kept my voice neutral.
I also positioned myself slightly between him and my daughter.
He nodded slowly.
Then he said:
“Sarah?”
Every hair on my arms stood up.
I had never told him my name.
As far as I knew, neither had Ellie.
“Do I know you?”
He gave a nervous little laugh.
“Probably not anymore.”
That answer somehow felt worse than if he had simply said yes.
Probably not anymore.
Meaning there had once been a time when I might have known him.
“What does that mean?”
My voice was sharper now.
He wiped his hands on a cloth inside the truck.
I could tell he was trying to decide how much to say.
