The Father Who Never Stopped Looking

Part 2 — The Name on the Envelope

I stared at Richard.

“Ashford?”

He nodded.

“That isn’t my last name.”

“I know.”

“Then whose is it?”

“Your father’s.”

I looked down at the envelope.

My hands suddenly felt cold.

“What’s his name?”

Richard hesitated.

“Jonathan Ashford.”

The name meant nothing to me.

Or at least, I thought it didn’t.

Then something strange happened.

A memory surfaced.

A man’s voice.

A deep voice saying, “When you’re scared, count backward from ten.”

I was six.

I was sitting on someone’s shoulders.

There were fireworks.

Then nothing.

I shook my head.

“I don’t remember him.”

Richard’s expression softened.

“You were very young.”

“What happened to him?”

Richard took a breath.

“He died eleven years ago.”

I looked at him.

“So he wasn’t looking for me?”

“No.”

“Then who was?”

Richard opened the folder.

“Your father spent the last years of his life trying to find you.”

My heart began pounding.

“Why?”

“Because he was told you had been taken somewhere safe.”

“By whom?”

Richard looked toward the parking lot.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to determine.”

I opened the envelope.

Inside was a photograph.

A little girl sat on a man’s shoulders.

She was wearing a yellow dress.

Her arms were wrapped around his head.

I stared at the photograph.

I knew that girl.

It was me.

I turned the photograph over.

On the back, handwritten in blue ink, were six words:

My daughter. My reason for everything.

I couldn’t breathe.

“He loved me?”

Richard nodded.

“Very much.”

I swallowed.

“Then why did my parents tell me he abandoned me?”

Richard’s eyes hardened.

“Because they wanted you to believe that.”

Part 3 — The First Lie

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