PART 4 — EMILY
I couldn’t answer.
The woman stood there crying.
Anna walked toward her.
“Emily…”
Emily looked at Anna.
“You told him?”
Anna nodded.
Emily wiped her cheeks.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for twenty years.”
I stared at her.
“Twenty years?”
She looked at me.
“Mom told me everything when I was twenty.”
My voice barely worked.
“Your mother?”
“Anna.”
I looked at Anna.
“She told you?”
Emily nodded.
“She told me you were my biological father.”
I sat down.
Emily slowly approached.
“I wanted to find you.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Anna asked me not to.”
“Why?”
“Because she was afraid.”
“Of Carol?”
Emily nodded.
I closed my eyes.
The woman I had loved for thirty-six years had apparently built an entire life around secrets.
But I still couldn’t understand why.
“Where were you raised?”
Emily told me the name of the family.
I recognized it immediately.
Carol had mentioned them many times.
A wealthy couple who had once helped her family financially.
I felt sick.
“Carol arranged your adoption?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Emily looked at Anna.
Anna finally said:
“Because Carol believed she had to protect you.”
“Protect me from what?”
Anna took a long breath.
“From knowing that you had a child with me.”
I stood.
“But I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
“And she kept my daughter from me for forty years?”
Anna nodded.
“Why?”
“Because she loved you.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That’s not love.”
Anna didn’t argue.
“She was terrified of losing you.”
I looked at Emily.
“Did you know about me growing up?”
“No.”
“Then what happened when you turned twenty?”
“That’s when I found a box.”
“A box?”
“Like the one Anna showed you.”
Emily reached into her purse.
She pulled out a photograph.
It showed me at twenty-one.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Carol.”
My heart sank.
“What?”
“She gave it to me.”
“Why?”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears.
“She told me I had to understand that she wasn’t a monster.”
I couldn’t speak.
“She told me she had made terrible choices,” Emily continued, “but she had spent decades trying to protect the family she created.”
“What family?”
“Yours.”
I shook my head.
“She didn’t protect me.”
“No,” Emily said quietly. “She protected the version of your life she was afraid to lose.”
That sentence stayed with me.
For the first time, I understood that Carol’s actions weren’t driven by one simple reason.
There had been fear.
Jealousy.
Love.
Guilt.
And something else.
Something Anna still hadn’t told me.
I turned toward her.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Anna’s face changed.
“There’s one more thing.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
Anna walked toward the wooden box.
She removed a hidden compartment from underneath it.
Inside was a small hospital bracelet.
I picked it up.
The name printed on it was mine.
But beneath my name was another name.
Emily Carter.
My hands began shaking.
Anna whispered:
“She wasn’t the only child.”
I looked up.
“What?”
Anna’s eyes filled with tears.
“There were twins.”
