FIVE YEARS AFTER THEY DISAPPEARED, MY STEPDAUGHTER RETURNED WITH HER FATHER’S

That night, Lily and I sat awake until sunrise talking through five years of silence. She told me about college, loneliness, and the guilt Daniel carried until the end of his life. I told her about surgeries, empty holidays, and the way I still kept her sixteenth birthday photo on the mantel because I never stopped believing she was my daughter.