Chapter 3 - The Shadows of the PastThe next morning, after securing temporary emergency custody of the twins, Mark drove me to a small suburban house two hours outside Portland—the last known address Rachel had listed for our father.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I stepped onto the overgrown porch. The house looked quiet, lived-in, but lonely. I knocked three times.
The door opened, revealing a man in his late 60s with silver hair, deeply lined eyes, and familiar soft blue eyes—my eyes.
He looked at me, then at the two car seats Mark was holding behind me. The breath caught in his throat.
"Emma?" he breathed, his voice barely audible.
Tears welled in my eyes. "Dad?"
Arthur Sullivan collapsed into tears right on the porch, wrapping his arms around me in a hug thirty years overdue. Inside the cozy living room, surrounded by faded framed photos of Rachel and me as little girls that he had kept for decades, Arthur told us his side of the story.
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He had never stopped looking for us. Every year on our birthdays, he had placed ads in national newspapers hoping we would see them.
"I was told by Thomas Sterling fifteen years ago that both of you hated me and wanted nothing to do with me," Arthur sobbed, holding tiny Noah in his trembling arms. "I thought I was respecting your wishes by staying away."
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