My voice barely came out.chfr
Annie looked at the necklace in her palm.
“My mom never told me who my father was.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“Annie…”
“But Lily found out.”
Annie’s voice broke.
“She found an old address in one of your husband’s letters. She went there.”
“Where?”
“To his old workshop.”
I froze.
Daniel had owned a tiny workshop before we married.
After Lily was born, he sold it.
Or at least, that’s what he’d told me.
I grabbed my coat.
“Take me there.”
Sarah hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
I looked at Lily’s empty bed.
“But she’s my daughter.”
Annie quietly stepped forward.
“I’m coming too.”
Sarah immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“Mom, she’s my sister.”
The room went silent.
Sarah looked at her daughter for a long moment.
Then she nodded.
We drove through the city in silence.
I sat in the passenger seat.
Annie sat behind me.
I kept looking at her in the mirror.
Every time I did, my heart twisted.
She looked like Daniel.
Not completely.
But enough.
The shape of her eyes.
The way she frowned when she was frightened.
The habit of rubbing her thumb against her fingers when she was nervous.
Things I had seen in my husband for years.
And things Lily had inherited too.
Two girls.
One father.
Two lives that should never have been separated.
When we arrived at the old workshop, the building looked abandoned.
The windows were dusty.
The sign had fallen crookedly from the wall.
I pushed the door open.
Inside, everything smelled of old wood and machine oil.
Then I heard something.
A sewing machine.
My heart stopped.
“Lily?”
No answer.
I walked toward the back room.
The machine stopped.
Then Lily stepped out.
Her face was swollen from crying.
“Mom.”
I ran to her.
I pulled her into my arms.
She resisted for half a second.
Then she collapsed against me.
“I’m sorry.”
I held her tighter.
“Never disappear like that again.”
“I had to find out.”
