Emma eventually convinced us to sit down.

Dinner had already grown cold.

We moved into the dining room.

For several minutes, nobody seemed to know what to say.

Then Emma asked,

“How long ago did you two know each other?”

Stephen didn’t answer immediately.

He was staring at her.

At her eyes.

Her expression.

Something shifted on his face.

“How old are you, Emma?”

She frowned.

“Forty.”

Stephen went completely still.

His eyes moved from Emma to me.

Then back.

“Alana.”

His voice changed.

“We broke up forty years ago.”

“I know.”

He took a slow breath.

“I don’t want to assume anything.”

His fingers tightened around the chair.

“And I know I probably have no right to ask this after all these years.”

Then he looked at Emma again.

“But could she be my daughter?”

The room went silent.

Emma stared at me.

And suddenly the secret I had carried for four decades was no longer mine alone.