“How did you get that?”
Julian looked confused.
“It was in the drawer.”
My stomach tightened.
That drawer contained personal records from before we met.
Things I never discussed.
Things I never planned to discuss.
“What is it?” he asked.
I stared at the envelope.
Then at him.
“Where exactly did you find it?”
“In the cabinet beside your desk.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Because I knew what was inside.
And Julian clearly didn’t understand what he had discovered.
I reached for the envelope.
My fingers trembled slightly.
Inside was a photograph.
A photograph I had not seen in more than fifteen years.
A photograph of a young girl standing beside a woman everyone believed had disappeared from my life forever.
My mother.
Julian watched my face carefully.
“Who is she?”
I looked down at the photograph.
And for the first time in years, the carefully built walls around my past began to crack.
