The man couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph.<\/p>\n
His hands trembled as he held it.<\/p>\n
“Your mother… where is she?” he asked.<\/p>\n
The boy swallowed hard.<\/p>\n
“In the hospital.”<\/p>\n
The garden fell silent.<\/p>\n
The boy lowered his head.<\/p>\n
“She’s very sick.”<\/p>\n
For a moment, the businessman couldn’t speak.<\/p>\n
Years of regret crashed into him all at once.<\/p>\n
The woman in the photo.<\/p>\n
The baby.<\/p>\n
The life he had lost.<\/p>\n
Slowly, he stood from the table.<\/p>\n
The anger that had filled his face moments earlier was gone.<\/p>\n
Only heartbreak remained.<\/p>\n
He knelt in front of the boy.<\/p>\n
“What is your name?”<\/p>\n
The child looked up.<\/p>\n
“Daniel.”<\/p>\n
A tear rolled down the man’s cheek.<\/p>\n
That was the name he had chosen years ago.<\/p>\n
Without hesitation, he pulled the boy into a tight embrace.<\/p>\n
The diners watched in stunned silence.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been looking for you,” the man whispered.<\/p>\n
Daniel began to cry.<\/p>\n
“So you really are my dad?”<\/p>\n
The man nodded.<\/p>\n
“Yes.”<\/p>\n
Then he stood and took his son’s hand.<\/p>\n
“Take me to your mother.”<\/p>\n
The boy’s eyes widened with hope.<\/p>\n
Together, they hurried out of the garden restaurant.<\/p>\n
And for the first time in years\u2014<\/p>\n
Daniel wasn’t walking alone anymore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The man couldn’t take his eyes off the photograph. His hands trembled as he held it. “Your mother… where is she?” he asked. The boy swallowed hard. “In the hospital.” The garden fell silent. The boy lowered his head. “She’s very sick.” For a moment, the businessman couldn’t speak. Years of regret crashed into him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}