And when I finally did, I knew something.
The woman who had lost everything still had enough love left to save another little girl.
I stopped reading.
Then I reached the final paragraph.
But Lily, there is one more reason I chose Sarah.
Before I became sick, I discovered something about the night of her accident. Something that could have changed her entire life.
I kept it from her because I was afraid the truth would destroy the peace she had finally found.
Now that I am gone, she deserves to know.
My fingers went numb.
I looked at Margaret.
“What truth?”
She didn’t answer immediately.
Instead, she pointed toward the document inside the envelope.
It was an old medical report.
At the bottom was a doctor’s signature.
And beside it was a date.
November 19.
The day after the accident.
I read the first line.
Then the second.
And suddenly, I understood why Daniel had written that I still didn’t know the real reason he chose me.
Because the report revealed that someone had visited me while I was unconscious.
Someone who had been looking for me for years.
Someone Daniel had secretly been trying to find.
I looked at Margaret.
“Who was it?”
She slowly opened another drawer.
Then she placed a small photograph in front of me.
It showed a woman standing outside the hospital nursery.
On the back, there were four words written in blue ink:
Your daughter’s biological aunt.
I stared at the photograph.
I had never seen that woman before.
And according to the note Daniel had left, she had been searching for our family ever since the accident.
But there was something even more shocking.
The woman’s name was written beneath the photograph.
It was the same name Daniel had written on the back of the first picture.
And she was still alive.
I picked up my phone.
For the first time in seven years, I was about to call someone who might know something about my daughter that I had never been told.
But before I could dial, Margaret grabbed my wrist.
“Sarah, please listen to me.”
Her voice was trembling.
“Before you contact her, you need to understand one thing.”
“What?”
Margaret looked at the photograph.
“She didn’t come here that night to say goodbye.”
She paused.
“She came because she believed your daughter had been promised to her.”
My blood ran cold.
What had Daniel discovered about Emma’s family? And why had he waited until after his death to reveal it?
PART 4 — The woman who came looking for Emma.
