Then, during one of their long trips away, a letter arrived. The envelope carried a simple instruction: do not open it while they were present. I was alone, so I opened it immediately.
Inside was a message that shifted my entire understanding of my past. It was from my biological father, someone I had never met but whom I knew existed somewhere beyond the edges of family stories. He shared that he had been trying to find me for many years. He explained that my grandmother had left a significant inheritance and that he had been working tirelessly to help recover it.
For the first time in a long while, I felt a glimpse of something I had all but forgotten: the possibility that life could change.
