I’d never noticed it before.
Beside the article was part of another photograph, almost completely cut away when the clipping had been saved years earlier.
Only half of a man’s face remained.
Mr. Harris stared at it.
Then at Sophie.
“That’s my father.”
Nobody spoke.
Mrs. Parker gave a confused laugh.
“What?”
Mr. Harris pointed to the half-visible face.
“His name was Richard. That’s my father.”
I looked again.
There was barely anything there—half an eye, part of a cheek, gray hair.
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
His voice had changed.
He unfolded the clipping fully and read the names beneath the photograph of Sophie’s biological parents.
His face shifted.
“Isabella.”
Sophie looked up.
“That was my first mommy.”
Mr. Harris gripped the edge of the desk.
“Your mother’s name was Isabella?”
“Yes, Isabella.”
He stared at her.
Something suddenly clicked.
Mr. Harris glanced around the classroom, as though remembering twenty children were watching.
Then he turned to me.
“Could you and Sophie come to my office, please?”
Mrs. Parker started to speak.
“You too,” he said.
Minutes later, Sophie sat beside me in the principal’s office, holding my hand.
Mr. Harris closed the door and crouched in front of her.
“Was your mother’s name Isabella H before she got married?”
Sophie’s fingers tightened around mine.
“I don’t know.”
But I did.
I’d seen the name on documents years earlier.
“Yes,” I said.
Mr. Harris closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were wet.
“Isabella was my sister.”
Sophie stared at him.
I thought I’d misheard.
“What?”
“My older sister.”
He pointed toward the clipping.
“That’s my sister.”
Mrs. Parker slowly sat down.
Mr. Harris was focused entirely on Sophie.
“She left home when I was 16. I knew she got married. Years later, my father told me she’d had a baby girl.”
His voice broke.
“A girl named Sophie.”
I couldn’t speak.
Sophie could.
“Me?”
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