He had come back decades earlier.
And he had looked for me.
When he reached my parents’ old house, someone answered the door.
Margaret.
My own sister.
Daniel said she told him I had married another man, started a family, and wanted nothing to do with him.
“That’s impossible,” I whispered. “I never married.”
“I know now,” he said. “But I believed her then.”
Even after that, Daniel refused to give up.
He returned repeatedly, asking Margaret for my address or phone number.
She gave him nothing.
Every time, she repeated the same lie.
“How did you finally find me?”
“A neighbor.”
Mrs. Halloran, who had lived beside my parents’ house, had overheard Daniel pleading with Margaret through the years.
Eventually, she followed him to his car and secretly gave him my address.
“The truth belonged to both of you,” she told him.
I covered my face.
Margaret had spent decades telling me no one had ever asked about me.
