Beneath his wallet was a folded photograph of a teenage girl holding a handwritten sign that read, “Hi Dad. I’m Sophie.” Behind it was a sealed DNA-testing report with Lucas’s name printed across the top. I felt physically sick. When I finally entered his hospital room, I placed both items beside him without saying a word. Lucas stared at them, then closed his eyes. He admitted that three weeks earlier, a woman he had dated before we met contacted him and said her fourteen-year-old daughter might be his. Lucas had taken a legal paternity test without telling me. The result had arrived that morning.
Sophie was his daughter.
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