Nobody spoke for a moment.
Then I asked:
“Do you have photographs?”
Alexander’s face broke.
“Yes.”
He opened his phone.
Then stopped.
“Would you rather not?”
I almost cried.
The question itself felt kind.
“I want to see.”
He handed me the phone.
The first photograph showed a young woman.
Dark hair.
Deep brown eyes.
A wide smile.
She looked like me.
Not vaguely.
Painfully.
My fingers trembled.
“That’s Amelia?”
“Yes.”
“My mother?”
Alexander nodded.
I swiped.
Another photograph.
Amelia holding a little girl.
The child had curly hair.
A red sweater.
And my necklace.
I stopped breathing.
“That’s me?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
Margaret answered.
“We have hundreds.”
I kept swiping.
Birthday cake.
A beach.
A small white dog.
Christmas pajamas.
A little girl standing between Amelia and a tall man.
“My father?”
Alexander nodded.
“David Monroe.”
“What happened to him?”
His eyes lowered.
“He died in the fire too.”
I closed my eyes.
For years, I had imagined abandonment.
Maybe my mother had been too young.
Maybe my father left.
Maybe nobody wanted me.
The truth was crueler.
And kinder.
They had not left me.
They had died.
I opened my eyes.
“Tell me everything.”
Alexander looked at Henry.
The attorney nodded.
Then Alexander began.
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