Margaret covered her face.
“Our Catherine never came back,” she whispered.
Richard’s voice broke.
“When the authorities contacted us, they told us our daughter had died. But our granddaughter had disappeared.”
I pressed my hand against my mouth.
“No…”
“Her name was Emily.”
The room seemed to spin.
Richard pointed to the tiny gold necklace around my neck.
“That pendant was Catherine’s final birthday gift to her daughter. We had it specially made.”
I clutched it.
“My mother told me she found me wearing it.”
Richard nodded.
“Your adoptive mother.”
Those words struck me harder than anything else that night.
“My mother never told me I was adopted!”
“She may have had reasons, Emily. Please don’t judge her before hearing her story.”
I looked at the old woman.
Margaret was staring at me with an expression I would never forget.
It wasn’t confusion.
It was the desperate hope of someone who had spent nearly half a century waiting for a miracle.
