“Constantly. And always the wrong tune.”
Mia smiled.
And when she did, I saw something unmistakably familiar—the crooked corner of Daniel’s smile.
For years, I had thought of Daniel’s betrayal as something that permanently divided my life into before and after.
But now I understood something I hadn’t been ready to accept.
Daniel had betrayed me.
He had also been the loving father Sophie remembered.
And, without ever knowing it, he had been Mia’s father too.
Those truths were painful.
But they could exist together.
And perhaps that was the final secret my daughter had been trying to uncover all summer: sometimes learning the truth doesn’t erase the past.
It simply gives you a way to live with all of it.
