The old man stared at Daisy’s necklace as if he had seen a ghost.
“Where did you get that?”
Daisy touched the tiny golden pendant.
“Mommy gave it to me before she left.”
The man’s breathing became unsteady.
He carefully turned the pendant over.
There was a tiny engraving on the back.
C + E — FOREVER.
His eyes filled with tears.
Ethan noticed.
“What does it mean?”
The man sat down slowly.
“It means your mother was my daughter.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“What?”
The old man looked at both children.
“Clara was my little girl.”
Daisy whispered:
“Then… why did she leave us?”
The man closed his eyes.
“Because I thought she had betrayed me.”
Twenty years earlier, Clara had fallen in love with a poor young man.
Her father had forbidden the relationship.
They argued.
Clara left home that night.
But she never betrayed him.
The truth was far worse.
“She wrote me dozens of letters,” the old man said. “I never received a single one.”
Ethan’s eyes filled with tears.
“Why?”
The man pulled an old envelope from inside his wallet.
“Because someone made sure I would never see them.”
Ethan stared at him.
“Who?”
The old man looked toward the restaurant entrance.
His expression suddenly changed.
Fear replaced sorrow.
“I don’t know if I can tell you.”
“Please,” Ethan whispered. “We have nothing left.”
The man reached for Ethan’s hand.
“You have me now.”
Then he pulled another photograph from his wallet.
It showed Clara as a young woman standing beside a man Ethan had never seen before.
Ethan stared at it.
“That man…”
The old man nodded.
“He is your father.”
Daisy suddenly asked:
“Where is Mommy?”
Silence.
The old man looked down.
His voice broke.
“She disappeared three years ago.”
Ethan began crying.
“Is she dead?”
The man couldn’t answer.
Instead, he turned the photograph over.
There was a handwritten message on the back.
“If anything happens to me, take my children to their grandfather. He is the only person who can protect them.”
The old man stared at the words.
Then he looked at Ethan and Daisy.
“I spent twenty years believing my daughter abandoned me…”
He pulled both children into his arms.
“…when she was actually trying to bring you home.”
Daisy buried her face against his chest.
For the first time in years, Ethan stopped pretending to be strong.
He cried too.
But then—
the restaurant doors suddenly opened.
A woman in a dark coat rushed inside.
She looked directly at the children.
And whispered:
“Clara told me never to let him find you.”
The old man slowly stood.
His face went pale.
Because he recognized the woman.
She was the last person he ever expected to see.
“You…”
The woman smiled nervously.
“I know where Clara is.”
CUT TO BLACK.
THE END OF PART 2.
