For two months, my daughter Mindy dodged my questions about meeting her fiancé, Daniel. Finally, she agreed to dinner. I spent the day preparing—until I opened the door and dropped my grandmother’s vase. Standing there was Daniel… with the same eyes and smile as Mark, the man who vanished from my life 30 years ago.
At dinner, Daniel revealed his dad died when he was a baby. His name? Mark. His mom? Laura, a nurse at Riverside Medical—the same hospital where Mark volunteered before disappearing. I felt my world tilt.
The next day, I found Laura. Her face turned white when she saw me. She admitted it all: Mark had terminal cancer. He left to spare me the pain, never stopped loving me, and died shortly after Daniel was born.
When I told Mindy, she panicked, thinking she and Daniel were related. I reassured her—Mark and I had no children. She was free to marry the man she loved.
Months later, at their wedding, Daniel danced with both of us. As I looked into his eyes, so much like Mark’s, I felt peace. Love had found a way back—through the son of the man I once lost.