Chapter 24
His face had gone white.
“I never heard this.”
“I believe you.”
The words came before I had time to decide whether I did.
But I did.
Maybe not completely.
Maybe trust wasn’t a door that opened all at once.
Maybe it was a series of small decisions.
Alexander lowered his head.
“My father died believing I admired him.”
Dana said softly, “You admired the person you believed he was.”
He stared at the screen.
“Is there a difference?”
“Yes,” I said.
He looked at me.
“There has to be.”
That answer was as much for me as for him.
Because I had loved Richard.
And if loving someone dishonest made me guilty of everything they had done, I didn’t know how I would live with myself.
“We don’t choose what people hide from us,” I said. “We choose what we do after we find out.”
Alexander looked at me for a long time.
Then nodded.
Something changed between us.
Not forgiveness.
Not family.
Not yet.
But recognition.
Two people discovering that the past had been shaped by stronger personalities, hidden choices, and old fear.
And both of us now had to decide what came next.
Chapter 5: The secret Richard knew first - DailyFeed
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Chapter 5: The secret Richard knew first
Dana checked the remaining files.
“We still haven’t found the second possible father’s identity.”
“Open IF I AM WRONG,” I said.
The folder required a password.
The screen displayed a question.
WHAT DID DANIEL CALL HER?
I stared.
“Call who?”
Dana frowned.
“Maybe Eleanor.”
Alexander shook his head.
“Or Clara.”
I thought about the letter.
My father knew the way I snorted when I laughed.
He fixed old radios.
He slept with me on his chest.
And then another memory surfaced.
Not a picture.
A sound.
His voice calling from the kitchen.
Birdie?
I blinked.
“Birdie.”
Dana typed it.
Incorrect.
“Try Little Bird.”
Incorrect.
My frustration grew.
Alexander said, “What did he call Eleanor?”
I searched my memories.
My mother.
My father.
Sunday mornings.
Pancakes.
Music from an old radio.
He had called her Ellie.
But that was too obvious.
Then I remembered a birthday card I’d once kept in a foster-home suitcase until the ink faded.
To my two favorite girls.
Sunshine and Sparrow.
“Try Sparrow.”
The folder opened.
My breath caught.
Inside was one document.
A scanned letter.
No video.
No legal record.
A letter from my mother addressed to Daniel.