I looked down at the newborn.
“And who is this baby?”
“Her name is Helen.”
Ethan sat on the floor like he had when he was a child.
“Diane has an older daughter named Hannah. She isn’t Dad’s child. After Dad threw me out, I stayed at a shelter across town and eventually found work there. Hannah volunteered at the same place. That’s how we met.”
Richard had always presented himself to Diane’s daughters as a family friend who occasionally helped their mother financially. He avoided staying at the house while the girls were home.
One day, Ethan showed Hannah an old family photograph.
She recognized Richard immediately.
He was the man who attended her younger sister’s school performances and appeared at family celebrations. Hannah began searching through her mother’s files and discovered years of receipts, payments, photographs and correspondence.
Over several months, she quietly copied everything.
