Chapter 6 - The Shadows of the Past
Despite the corporate victory, the biological clock inside Owen’s chest was ticking down with terrifying precision.
By November, two months after adopting Hannah, Owen’s condition worsened drastically. He was forced to use an oxygen concentrator at night, and simple tasks like walking down the hallway left him breathless and exhausted.
Yet, those two months were the happiest of his sixty years.
He spent every available moment with Hannah. He hired private tutors who were amazed by her intellect; she picked up reading, mathematics, and music at a supernatural speed, absorbing knowledge like a sponge.
One evening, while Owen sat in his study wrapped in a blanket, watching Hannah paint at a small easel, Thomas, his trusted driver and personal investigator, entered the room carrying a faded manila envelope.
“Mr. Faulkner,” Thomas said softly, glancing nervously at Hannah. “I completed the deep background check you requested on Hannah’s mother. The hospital records from her passing were released today.”
Owen gestured for Thomas to step out onto the terrace.
Outside in the chilly autumn evening, Owen leaned against the stone balustrade, breathing through his oxygen tube. “What did you find, Thomas? Did she have any living relatives who might try to contest the guardianship later?”
Thomas opened the file, his expression somber. “Her mother’s name was Clara Miller. She was thirty-two when she passed from untreated pneumonia. She was a pianist who fell on hard times after her husband died in an industrial accident three years ago.”
Thomas paused, holding up a yellowed birth certificate.
“I looked into Clara Miller’s lineage, Mr. Faulkner. Clara was born in an orphanage in Chicago. But her biological mother... was your sister, Eleanor.”
Owen froze. The cold wind swept across the terrace, but Owen felt as if his blood had turned to liquid nitrogen.
“What did you say?” Owen whispered.
“Eleanor,” Thomas repeated gently. “Your younger sister who ran away from the family forty years ago after your father disowned her for marrying a music teacher. Eleanor had a daughter in secret—Clara. Clara had Hannah.”
Owen reached out with shaking hands and took the birth certificate. There, written in clear black ink under the maternal grandmother's line, was the name: Eleanor Faulkner.
Hannah was not a stranger. She was not a random street child he had pulled from the dark by coincidence. She was his grand-niece—the last surviving biological thread of the sister Owen had spent forty years regretting losing.
Owen dropped his head into his hands, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the cold rain on his cheeks.
“God...” Owen sobbed, his chest heaving with deep, ragged weeping. “I didn't find her. She was sent to me.”
He remembered forty years ago when his stern, arrogant father had driven Eleanor away, and Owen—young, ambitious, and hungry for the corporate throne—had stood by and said nothing. He had chosen money over his sister. And forty years later, in a dark alley behind a grocery store, Eleanor’s granddaughter had handed him a piece of stale bread and saved his soul.
Owen turned around and looked through the glass window.
May you like
Hannah was standing by her easel, holding a paintbrush dipped in bright yellow paint, painting a brilliant sun over a house that had two figures holding hands—a tall man and a small girl.
“Thomas,” Owen said, wiping his face. “Call Dr. Harris. Tell him I need to be admitted to the hospital tonight. I don't care what it takes... I am going to fight to stay alive for this child.”
