“You really do look like her,” Robert finally said.
“Did you know my mother well?”
He was about to answer when my father interrupted him.
“We didn’t come here to talk about her.”
“Then why did we come here?” I asked. “What are all of you hiding from me?”
No one answered. A few minutes later, my father received a phone call and stepped away from the table. The moment he
walked onto the balcony, Robert leaned toward me.
“Listen carefully. Whatever you learn tonight, don’t judge him until you’ve heard the entire story.”
“Why? What did he do?”
Robert glanced toward my father.
“Twenty-two years ago, he made all of us promise that you would never learn about that night.”
“What night?”
“The night your mother placed the baby in his arms and told him she would never return.”
I stopped breathing.
“What are you talking about? I was told my mother died.”
Robert’s expression changed. He seemed to realize that he had already said too much. At that moment, my father returned.
I abruptly stood up.
“My mother gave you a baby and disappeared? Has she been alive this entire time?”
My father said nothing. His silence felt like an answer. I grabbed my bag.
“You’ve lied to me my entire life.”
“Emily, sit down.”
“I grew up believing my mother was dead because of you. Now I find out that she may be alive somewhere.”
“Please open the envelope.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“There’s no money inside.”
He pushed the envelope toward me.
With trembling hands, I opened it. The continuation read in the comments Inside were several old documents, a
hospital identification bracelet, and a letter written in a woman’s handwriting.
But the name on the first document forced me back into my seat.
“Father of the child: Unknown.”
Below it were the words:
“Legal guardian: Mark Davis.”
Mark Davis was my father.
“What does this mean?”
He sat across from me but couldn’t look into my eyes.
“I’m not your biological father.”
For a moment, I couldn’t even hear the sounds of the restaurant around me.
My father explained that he had loved my mother when they were young. But she had chosen another man, someone who disappeared as soon as he learned she was pregnant.
After I was born, my mother was diagnosed with a serious heart condition. She knew she didn’t have much time left.
