Since my wife d.i.e.d, my daughter hadn’t spoken a word. I came home early and froze: she was laughing with the new maid. “she’s a fraud,” my housekeeper warned, “she lied about her address!” furious, I followed the girl to a squat downtown. I stormed in to fire her, but what I saw inside the room made me drop to my knees…

The next evening I followed Lena after she left work. She took a bus south through parts of the city I rarely saw anymore. Eventually she got off near an abandoned factory and slipped into a crumbling apartment building covered in graffiti.

A squat.

Anger surged through me. Had she been lying to get close to my daughter?

I stormed up the stairs and kicked open the door.

“Lena, you’re fired—”

The words died in my throat.

The room was almost empty. A thin mattress on the floor. A small chair.

And every wall was covered in photographs.

Pictures of my wife.

Her smiling at a carnival. Holding Sophie in a hospital room. Laughing in our kitchen. Moments I had never even seen before.

My knees buckled and I sank to the floor.

The girl turned slowly toward me, tears already running down her face.

“My name isn’t Lena,” she said quietly. “It’s Emily.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “Who are you?”

She swallowed hard. “I’m your wife’s younger sister.”

The words felt impossible.

“She told me she didn’t have any siblings,” I said hoarsely.

“She was embarrassed,” Emily explained. “I ran away when I was sixteen. We didn’t speak for years. But we found each other again… about three months before the accident.”