I slowly opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed me twenty-nine years earlier.
I was standing outside a hospital.
Beside me was my mother.
And in my arms was a newborn baby.
Emma.
But there was something else.
On the back of the photograph was a handwritten message:
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO BE EMMA’S MOTHER.
My hands began shaking.
Emma stared at the picture.
“Mom?”
I couldn’t speak.
Because there was one person in the photograph I had completely forgotten.
A young man standing behind us.
Daniel’s father.
I looked at Emma.
Then at the photograph.
And suddenly I remembered.
Twenty-nine years ago, before Emma was born, Daniel’s father had been my fiancé.
We had broken up after discovering he had another family.
I had never told Emma.
I had never told anyone.
Or so I thought.
Then Emma noticed something written underneath the message.
A phone number.
She called it.
A man answered.
His voice was old and weak.
“Laura?”
I froze.
It was Daniel’s father.
“Where did you get this number?”
He laughed softly.
“From the person who has been trying to stop your daughter from marrying my son.”
Emma grabbed my arm.
“Who?”
The old man went silent.
Then he said:
“Daniel.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“He discovered the truth months ago.”
“What truth?”
The man’s voice cracked.
“Emma isn’t your biological daughter.”
Emma collapsed into a chair.
I couldn’t breathe.
Then he added:
“And Daniel isn’t the only person who knows.”
A second voice suddenly came through the phone.
A woman’s voice.
Calm.
Familiar.
“Hello, Laura.”
I recognized it immediately.
It was Chloe.
Daniel’s sister.
She whispered:
“Did you really think we wanted Emma to marry him without knowing who her real father was?”
Emma stared at me, tears streaming down her face.
And then Chloe said the one thing that turned our entire family upside down:
“Laura, your daughter isn’t marrying into our family tomorrow… because she’s already part of it.”
The line went dead.
