The video call ended twenty minutes later.
Lily remained seated.
She was staring at the black screen.
“He knew.”
I nodded.
“He had a picture.”
“Yes.”
“He thought you sent it.”
“I didn't.”
She looked at me.
“Then somebody wanted him to think you did.”
I felt a cold pressure settle in my chest.
There was only one person who had controlled both sides of the story.
My former partner's father.
But he had been dead for years.
“We need to find the letters,” I said.
Lily nodded.
We called his brother again.
He answered immediately.
“I heard from him.”
“So did we.”
“He told me about the photograph.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Did your father ever intercept mail?”
Silence.
Then he said, “Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw him do it.”
“When?”
“After my brother left.”
“What did he do with the letters?”
“I don't know all of them.”
“Where are they?”
“I don't know.”
Lily leaned toward the phone.
“Did he keep them?”
The man heard her.
“Probably.”
“Where?”
“There was a house.”
“What house?”
“My father's old property.”
I remembered the name of the town.
The place was several hours away.
“He kept business records there,” the man continued. “Documents. Personal things. Anything he didn't want people finding.”
“Is the house still there?”
“Yes.”
“Who owns it?”
“No one. It's been tied up in an estate dispute.”
Lily looked at me.
“Can we go?”
I hesitated.
“We shouldn't go alone.”
Her uncle agreed.
“I can meet you there.”
The next morning, we drove.
Lily sat in the passenger seat.
Neither of us talked much.
The road stretched through farmland and wooded hills.
After two hours, she asked, “What if we find nothing?”
“Then we know we tried.”
“What if we find everything?”
“Then we finally understand.”
She looked out the window.
“I'm not sure which scares me more.”
The property was hidden behind a long gravel road.
The house was larger than I expected.
Old.
Dark.
Partially boarded.
Her uncle was waiting near the gate.
He looked older than I remembered from the photographs, but he had the same eyes as Lily's father.
He hugged me briefly.
Then he looked at Lily.
“You've grown.”
“You've never met me.”
“I know.”
He smiled sadly.
“I've seen pictures.”
Lily looked at him.
“From my dad?”
“Yes.”
“Were you the one who kept his letter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he asked me to.”
She nodded.
Inside the house, dust covered the floors.
Her uncle led us toward a room at the back.
“My father used this as an office.”
There were cabinets along every wall.
Some had been emptied.
Others were locked.
He tried several keys.
Nothing.
Then he found a small brass key taped beneath a drawer.
The lock opened.
Inside were folders.
Dozens of them.
Lily stood beside me.
“What are those?”
Her uncle pulled out the first file.
Letters.
My name appeared on the top envelope.
I couldn't breathe.
He handed it to me.
The handwriting was mine.
The date was fifteen years ago.
I opened it.
Anna,
I don't know why you haven't answered my calls. I need you to know I am still trying to see Lily. I have never stopped thinking about her.
I stared at the page.
I had never seen it before.
Another letter.
And another.
Then letters from Lily's father to me.
Then letters from me to him.
Dozens.
None had reached their intended recipient.
Lily began crying.
“He kept them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her uncle looked ashamed.
“Because my father believed my brother would destroy his career if he stayed.”
“Career?”
“He had investors. Contracts. Public expectations. He was building a business around the family name.”
Lily shook her head.
“So he chose money over me.”
Her uncle looked at her.
“He made that choice for your father.”
“That doesn't make it better.”
“No.”
Lily picked up another letter.
The date was from when she was three.
Her father had written about her birthday.
He had apparently received information about her through his brother.
He knew she liked drawing.
He knew she had started preschool.
He knew she had a scar on her knee.
Lily read silently.
Then she looked at me.
“He knew all of this.”
I nodded.
“He was watching from far away.”
“Apparently.”
“Why didn't you ever know?”
“I thought he didn't care.”
She looked down.
The discovery was not making her happy.
It was making her grieve a different childhood.
Not a childhood without a father.
A childhood where her father had wanted to be present but had been prevented from doing so.
Her uncle pulled out another file.
“This one is different.”
Inside were documents concerning my former partner's father.
Legal papers.
Financial records.
Copies of contracts.
Then a letter.
The first line made my blood run cold.
If you contact Anna again, she will lose everything.
I read the page twice.
It was a threat.
Not vague.
Specific.
He threatened my employment.
My apartment.
My ability to keep Lily.
He had written that if I pursued contact, he would use his connections to make sure I was declared unfit to raise my daughter.
I sat down.
Lily crouched beside me.
“Mom.”
“I didn't know.”
“I know.”
“I thought he left because he wanted to.”
“I know.”
Her uncle looked away.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid.”
I nodded.
“I understand.”
But understanding did not erase the years.
We kept searching.
Near the bottom of the cabinet, Lily found a small envelope.
Her name was written on it.
She froze.
“Mom.”
I looked.
The handwriting belonged to her father.
“Open it,” I said.
She did.
Inside was a birthday card.
The date was from her tenth birthday.
He had written:
I don't know whether you will ever read this. I hope one day you will. I hope you know that I remember the day you were born. I remember your mother's face. I remember holding you once before I left. I have never forgotten.
Lily pressed the card against her chest.
“He held me.”
I nodded.
“Once.”
“I don't remember.”
“You were a baby.”
She cried.
Her uncle quietly left the room.
We stayed there together.
After a while, Lily said, “I don't want to hate him.”
“You don't have to.”
“I don't want to forgive him either.”
“You don't have to do that today.”
She looked at me.
“Can I be angry?”
“Yes.”
“Can I love him?”
“Yes.”
“Can I be angry and love him?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
That seemed to matter.
Before we left, her uncle handed me a folder.
“There is one more thing.”
Inside was a copy of a legal document.
It showed that the family trust had been dissolved years earlier.
But one beneficiary remained listed.
Lily.
She stared at the page.
“What is that?”
“Your grandfather established a trust before you were born.”
“For me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her uncle looked uncomfortable.
“Because regardless of what he said, he knew you were his granddaughter.”
I read the document carefully.
The amount was substantial.
But the money was not what frightened me.
The document contained a clause.
The trust would become accessible to Lily when she turned sixteen, provided her biological father had acknowledged her legally.
Her father had never signed the acknowledgment.
Not because he denied her.
Because the documents had apparently been withheld.
Lily looked at me.
“Does that mean I'm going to lose it?”
“I don't know.”
Her uncle shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because your father may be able to establish paternity now.”
Lily looked toward me.
The path ahead suddenly became clear.
The question was no longer whether her father existed.
He did.
The question was whether they could repair fifteen years of separation.
And there was one person who could finally tell them why the separation had lasted so long.
Her father was ready to come home.
But before he did, he wanted to confront the man whose decisions had kept them apart.
And that man was already dead.
Which meant the confrontation would have to happen through the evidence he had left behind.
Click here to continue reading: PART 9: The Evidence Could Explain Fifteen Years of Silence, but Lily Still Had to Decide Whether She Wanted Her Father Back in Her Life
She Came Home From Los Angeles Looking at Me Like a Stranger, and I Knew Before She Spoke That Something Had Gone Terribly Wrong
Part 8 of 12
