At that moment, I understood why the girl had been so frightened.
Her father once again wanted to decide whom his adult daughter was allowed to see.
“You have no right to make those decisions for her,” I said.
Robert nodded silently.
“I know. But I want to do the right thing for once.”
I returned to Emily’s room.
I told her about our conversation without trying to persuade her to forgive her father.
She remained silent for a long time.
Then she asked:
“Does your mother know my mother?”
That evening, I called my mother.
When I mentioned Sarah’s name, my mother began to cry.
It turned out that years earlier, she had tried to convince Robert that the child needed to know the truth. But the family hadn’t listened to her.
“Daniel,” my mother said, “Sarah never stopped loving her daughter. She spent years trying to recover her health and find her.”
