Lauren looked up and immediately saw something in my face.
“What happened?”
I placed the photograph on the table.
She studied it.
Andrew went still.
Not surprised.
Still.
Lauren noticed too.
“You know her,” she said.
Andrew did not answer.
“Andrew?” Lauren asked.
He looked at the photograph, then at me.
“I was hoping I was wrong.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Wrong about what?”
He reached into his jacket and removed his phone. After a moment, he opened a photograph and placed the screen beside the picture Daniel had given me.
It showed Andrew standing outside a hospital with the same girl.
Older now.
Smiling.
Lauren looked from one image to the other.
“How do you know Sophie?”
Andrew swallowed.
“She’s the reason I found you.”
The room fell silent.
“I don’t understand,” Lauren said.
Andrew’s eyes remained on me.
“Three months ago, Sophie contacted me through a genealogy website. She was searching for her biological father.”
Lauren slowly turned toward me.
I could not speak.
Andrew continued, his voice almost a whisper.
“She believed her father’s name was James.”
PART 3
I stared at Lauren.
She stood beside the kitchen table, one hand resting on the back of a chair as if she needed something solid beneath her fingers. Andrew’s phone lay between us, its screen glowing with the image of Sophie outside a hospital. She looked older than in Daniel’s photograph, but there was no mistaking her face.
Or the expression Andrew wore beside her.
Not affectionate in the casual way of an uncle or family friend.
Protective.
Familiar.
Lauren looked at her brother first.
“You knew,” she said.
Andrew shook his head. “Not exactly.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I knew she was searching for someone named James. I knew the dates pointed to Dallas. I knew her mother had once worked with a man who was married.” He glanced at me. “I did not know it was him until today.”
“How did you know today?” I asked.
Andrew tapped the photograph Daniel had given me.
“That lake is near the house where Sophie grew up. I have seen the picture before. Rebecca kept it on her desk.”
The name moved through the room like a draft.
Lauren folded her arms tightly. “You know Rebecca too?”
Andrew’s face tightened.
“I met Sophie first. Rebecca came later.”
I could barely keep up. “Start at the beginning.”
He looked at Lauren, not me.
“Sophie contacted me through a genealogy site because we shared a partial family connection. At first I assumed it came through my adoptive family. But the match was stronger than it should have been. We exchanged messages. She told me she was looking for her biological father, and that her mother refused to discuss him.”
“And you helped her,” Lauren said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I know what it feels like to have a blank space where your history should be.”
Lauren’s expression softened despite herself.
Andrew continued. “Sophie had very little information. A first name. A city. A few old photographs she found after her grandmother died. One of them showed a company event. James was in the background.”
My mouth went dry.
“She recognized me from that?”
“No. She asked me to identify people in the picture. I could not. Then I found Lauren.”
Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “You found me because of Sophie?”
“At first, yes.”
The truth landed between them.
“You should have told me,” Lauren said.
“I was afraid you would think I had used you.”
“Did you?”
“In the beginning, maybe.” Andrew lowered his eyes. “Then I got to know you. You became my sister.”
Lauren closed her eyes. Every secret in the room seemed to have arrived wearing the disguise of protection.
Andrew took a breath. “I found out you had children. I heard the way you talked about your family. I stopped thinking of you as a path to information.”
Lauren turned away from him.
I looked at Sophie’s photograph again.
“Where is she now?”
Andrew hesitated.
“That is complicated.”
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know about me?”
“She knows your name.”
My hand tightened against the edge of the table.
“And what does she believe?”
“That you might be her father.”
The word pressed against every wall in the room.
Lauren finally sat down.
“Has she asked to meet him?”
Andrew glanced at me. “Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“She asked me to find out what kind of man he was.”
No accusation could have cut deeper.
I thought of the evidence Lauren had received over the years. The photographs. The hotel receipts. The single sentence written on the back of the oldest picture.
She deserves the truth you will not give her.
“What did you tell Sophie?” I asked.
Andrew held my gaze.
“I told her I did not know yet.”
“Fair enough,” I said.
Lauren looked surprised.
This was no longer only about where I stood. It was about a girl who had spent years wondering why part of her story was missing.
I picked up Daniel’s photograph.
“What does Rebecca say?”
Andrew’s jaw tightened.
“She says you are not Sophie’s father.”
Relief moved through me—then vanished.
“She refuses a DNA test.”
“Why?”
“She says the past should remain in the past.”
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