I knew that face.
It was mine.
I stopped breathing.
“That’s my mother,” I whispered.
In the photograph, Mom looked younger than I had ever seen her, not sick and tired as she had been near the end, but bright-eyed and laughing at something outside the frame. She wore a pale yellow cardigan I remembered from an old box of clothes Ethan and I could never bring ourselves to donate.
Charity & Philanthropy
Beside her stood a man I did not know.
Tall, dark-haired, wearing a gray coat and looking down at me with such tenderness that my chest hurt.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Harrison did not answer right away.
I looked up. “Who is he?”
“That,” Harrison said, “is Daniel Cole.”
Military
The name meant nothing for half a second.
Then I looked from the photograph to Harrison’s face. The same dark eyes. The same line of the jaw, softened by age and experience.
“Your brother?” I guessed.
“My younger brother.”
I stared at the picture again.
“My mother knew your brother?”
Pregnancy & Maternity
“She did.”
“How?”
Harrison folded his hands. “They were engaged.”
The office seemed to tilt.
I looked at Colonel Reeves, as if he might correct him, but he only watched with a grave expression.
“No,” I said. “My dad was Mark Parker.”
Men's Clothing
