“She had you, and when she died… I couldn’t let them take you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you growing up with strangers who never knew her love. So I… took you in. Quietly. Called myself your distant uncle. The system accepted it.”

“And Michael?” I asked, my voice trembling.

A sad smile flickered across his face.

“Michael… Michael isn’t my biological son. I adopted him after my wife passed. He was five. I found him in a church-run orphanage. I thought I could be a good father to him. Maybe it was selfish, but I didn’t want to be alone.”

Tears welled in my eyes.

“So we’re not…?”