CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

Tim didn’t hold anything back. He sat with Angelie in the quiet of the living room, and as the minutes ticked by, he unraveled the truth layer by layer. He started from the beginning. How he met Patricia. How the DNA test was done. How the results confirmed what seemed impossible, that the woman everybody had long assumed was gone forever, was alive and breathing.

He told her about the accident. How Patricia lost her memory and ended up with another man in Mexico. He told her about the years lost, about the search that never stopped, even when the world believed she was dead. And when the memories came back, not excluding the part Jacob Lu played. How he framed their biological father, every single detail.

Angelie sat, her eyes locked on the floor, hands resting on her lap. She barely blinked. Tim watched her closely, unsure if his words were hitting or bouncing off like water on stone.

When he finished, silence fell over them like a duvet. The kind of silence that made your breathing