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Chapter 2: The Name on the Back of the Photograph

My hands were shaking as I broke the seal.

Inside was a photograph.

Old, slightly faded.

A young woman in a simple white dress, standing alone in front of a church.

Smiling like she had the whole world ahead of her.

I turned it over.

On the back, in Eleanor’s handwriting: *”This was the day everything was taken from me.”*

“What does this mean?” I asked.

The lawyer glanced toward the road, then back at me.

“Eleanor didn’t always live alone,” he said quietly.

“She had a family once.

A husband.

A daughter.”

I stared at him.

“She never told me that.”

“She couldn’t.

There were legal reasons.

For decades.” He paused.

“But before she passed, she asked me to find out everything I could about you.

Your background.

Your family history.”

Something cold moved through me.

“Why would she need to know about my family?”