He grinned. “What are you up to?”

And then Sully opened the door.

“Oh my God! It’s you!” Marc said.

Sully looked at his mom, then looked again at the man standing beside her. That’s when it hit him. He was looking at an older version of himself. He began backing up as Lovey pushed the man in the door ahead of her.

“Are you my father?” Sully asked.

“Yes!” Marc said, and wrapped his arms around Sully and began thumping him on the back, and then looking at him, and then hugging him all over again. “I can’t believe you’re here! I just found out about all of this less than a week ago. I am still horrified at what your mother went through alone, and had no idea she was here. Because of my cousins who still lived in the area where you grew up, I knew enough about your adoptive parents to find you, only to learn you’d just retired. I called the station where you worked, told them who I was, and asked a man named Rick to give you my phone number. But when you didn’t call, I just assumed you weren’t interested in meeting me.”

“I never got the message, but I’m so glad you found me, anyway,” Sully said, and then Melissa walked into the foyer.

“Hi…what am I missing?” she asked, smiling.

“Honey, this is Marc Adamos,” Sully said.

Melissa gasped. “Your father?”

Sully grinned. “What do you think?”

She started laughing. “Well, now I know what my future husband is going to look like at that age. I’m still going to be giving women the evil eye.”

Marc grinned. “Please introduce me to my future daughter-in-law.”

“Marc, this is—”

“Please… Dad, Pop, Father…anything,” Marc said.

Sully sighed. Marc Adamos had just thrown out the anchor he needed to settle his world.

“Dad, this is Melissa Dean, my fiancée and soon-to-be bride.”

“It is a true pleasure to meet you,” Marc said.

“I don’t know how all this happened, but I’m so happy you found us,” Melissa said. “Come sit,” she said, and led the way into the living room.

They’d barely cleared the doorway before Marc stopped, then turned and walked toward the painting of mother and child hanging on the wall. He touched the face of the girl, then the necklace around her neck, and then the baby. Then he saw the name of the artist who had signed it and turned abruptly.

“Elliot Graham? Is this an original?”

Sully nodded. “He just gave it to me last week.”

“You know him? How? He disappeared from the art scene probably twenty years ago.”

“He lives here,” Sully said.

“But the scene… Did he paint it from a photo?” Marc asked.

“There were never any pictures taken of the baby and me,” Lovey said.

“Then how? I don’t understand,” Marc said.

Sully patted his dad on the shoulder. “It’s a long story. I’ll have to introduce you before you’ll understand, but it’s the necklace you gave her that unlocked the mystery of where she’d gone. Mom left the necklace for me when she disappeared. I didn’t know I was adopted until my adoptive mother died. Then I found the necklace with my adoption papers and a letter stating my mother wanted me to have it. I swore if I found her, I’d be the one to put it back around her neck, and there it is,” Sully said, and winked at his mom.