The restaurant had gone completely silent.
Emily stared at Eleanor, unable to move.
“You… you were my mother?”
Eleanor nodded through tears.
“I searched for you for twenty-three years.”
Emily stepped backward.
“But they told me nobody wanted me.”
Eleanor’s face collapsed with pain.
“Who told you that?”
Emily looked down.
“My foster mother.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out an old photograph.
“This was given to me when I turned eighteen.”
Eleanor took the photograph.
Her hands began shaking.
It showed a newborn baby wrapped in a white hospital blanket.
On the back was a handwritten note:
“Baby girl — no surviving family.”
Eleanor stared at it.
“That’s a lie.”
She turned the photograph over.
There was another name written underneath the original note.
DR. VICTOR HALE.
Eleanor suddenly remembered him.
The doctor who had told her that her baby had died.
The doctor who had refused to let her see the body.
Her eyes widened.
“He took you.”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears.
“Why?”
Eleanor pulled her into her arms.
“I don’t know… but I promise you one thing.”
She held Emily tightly.
“You were never abandoned.”
Emily finally broke down.
For the first time in twenty-three years, Eleanor was holding the daughter she had mourned every single day.
But then Emily whispered something that made Eleanor pull away.
“My foster mother left me one more thing.”
“What?”
Emily opened a small envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Eleanor unfolded it.
Only one sentence was written:
“If Emily ever finds her real mother, tell her the fire was not an accident.”
Eleanor’s face went pale.
She looked at Emily.
Then at the old letter.
Someone had stolen her daughter.
Someone had lied about her death.
And now, after twenty-three years…
They were finally about to discover why.
END OF PART 2
