“Do you know where they are now?” Emily asked.
“No. But your father wanted you to have the choice.”
Emily returned home late that evening.
Sophie had already set the table.
“Mom! Where have you been? I called you three times!”
Emily stood in the doorway, looking at her daughter.
Sophie was tall, thoughtful, and had the same warm brown eyes as her mother.
Eighteen years earlier, Emily had been terrified of holding her.
Now that tiny baby had become a young woman.
“Sophie,” Emily said quietly, “we need to talk.”
They sat together at the kitchen table.
And for the first time, Emily told her daughter everything.
She explained how young she had been when Sophie was born.
She described the investigation, the fear, and the painful circumstances surrounding her pregnancy.
Then she told Sophie what Grandpa Henry had kept secret.
Sophie listened without interrupting.
When Emily finished, her daughter picked up the old photograph.
