No. That couldn’t be him.
Daniel had been buried for 31 years.
Then I noticed something strange. The man shifted his weight, and when he did, I saw it clearly.
He limped on his right leg.
A small, settled limp—the kind that had been there a long time.
Daniel had never limped.
Which meant the man in front of me was not a ghost.
He held out the envelope.
I hesitated before taking it and opened the flap slowly.
Inside was a card that said:
“Happy birthday, sister.”
My heart began to pound.
The only brother I had was long gone.
“Happy birthday, Regina,” the man said finally. “My name is Ben. Before you ask anything, please sit down. There’s something about the fire that you’ve never been told.”
I let him in because I didn’t know what else to do.
Ben sat across from me while I stayed on the edge of the couch, gripping a coffee cup I didn’t remember pouring.
He looked around the room, then back at me.
“You and Daniel weren’t twins,” he said quietly. “There were three of us.”
I put down the coffee cup.
“Our parents kept you and Daniel,” Ben continued. “And they placed me with another family when I was three weeks old.”
