Chapter 75

The elderly lady inclined her head, a wistful smile flickering across her gentle features. “That’s the only photograph I have of the three of us together,” she explained, her voice soft with nostalgia. “He carried almost every snapshot we took from the moment we became friends in college. But this one—this is the sole remnant I managed to keep.” Thomas’s mother’s lips trembled, and sorrow welled in her dark eyes.

“She left not long after she had her first child,” she continued, folding her hands in her lap. “She and her husband packed up one day and simply disappeared—I never learned where they intended to go. A few years after that, I heard he'd been in an accident along with his wife. I searched desperately for their son, but all my efforts hit dead ends. It was a tragedy.”

Cassandra leaned forward, her pulse quickening. She gazed intently at the sepia-toned portrait resting on the coffee table between them: a smiling young woman cradling a chubby-cheeked infant i