Thompson was my maiden name, the name I’d had in foster care. Nobody called me that anymore, except for official documents. How did this stranger know that name? Who are you? I asked, backing away from the car. The man stepped out of the limo, not caring that he was getting soaked by the rain. He was tall and distinguished, wearing an expensive suit that probably cost more than I made in 6 months.

But what struck me most was his eyes. They were filled with tears. “My name is Robert Thompson,” he said, his voice breaking. “And I’ve been looking for you for 20 years. I felt like the ground had opened up beneath me. Thompson, the same last name I’d grown up with. The only connection I had to a past I’d never known. I don’t understand, I whispered.

You’re my daughter, he said, stepping closer. My baby girl, I’ve been searching for you since the day you disappeared from the hospital. The world stopped spinning. Everything went quiet, except for the sound of rain hitting the pavement. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. My father. The father I’d dreamed about my entire childhood.

The father I’d imagined a thousand times but never thought I’d meet. “That’s impossible,” I said, shaking my head. “I was abandoned. I was put up for adoption. My parents didn’t want me.” “No,” Robert said firmly. “That’s not what happened.” “Not even close.” He pulled out his phone and showed me a photo of a young black woman holding a baby.

The woman had my exact face, just younger. The baby had my eyes. This is your mother, Angela. She died in a car accident when you were 6 months old. I was in the military, deployed overseas. By the time I got back to the States, the system had already placed you in foster care. They said I had no legal rights because Angela and I weren’t married.

I’ve been fighting courts and hiring investigators for 20 years trying to find you. I stared at the photo, my whole world reshaping itself. Why now? Why did you find me now? Because 3 months ago, my investigator finally tracked you down. I’ve been watching from a distance, trying to figure out how to approach you.

Tonight, I was working up the courage to knock on your door when I got a call from someone who said they saw a young black woman being thrown out of a party in a storm. The description matched you perfectly. Someone had called him. Someone at the party had seen what happened and called my father. I couldn’t process it all. This man, this stranger who looked like me, was claiming to be the father I’d dreamed about my whole life.

And he’d shown up at the exact moment when I’d lost everything else. I know this is overwhelming, he continued. I know you have no reason to trust me, but please let me get you out of this rain. Let me tell you the whole story. Let me show you who you really are. Behind us, I could see lights from the Henderson mansion.

Inside that house were people who thought they were better than me, who had just humiliated me in the worst way possible. People who saw me as nothing. But standing in front of me was a man who claimed to be my father, who said he’d spent 20 years looking for me. “Who are you really?” I asked. “I mean, what do you do?” Robert smiled.

And for the first time in hours, I felt warmth. I built a tech company from nothing after I left the military. Thompson Industries. Maybe you’ve heard of it. I had heard of it. Everyone had. Thompson Industries was one of the biggest tech companies in the world, which meant the man standing in front of me, my supposed father, was worth billions of dollars.

The irony hit me like a truck. Beverly Henderson had just thrown me out of her house for not being good enough, for being worthless trash with no family and no background. But if this man was telling the truth, I was the daughter of someone worth more than the entire Henderson family combined.

I looked back at the mansion one more time, then at this man who might be my father. Even if he was lying, even if this was some elaborate scam, anything was better than standing in this storm with nowhere to go. I got in the limousine. The inside was like something from another world. Leather seats, a mini bar, screens everywhere.

It was warm and dry and quiet, except for the rain hitting the roof. Robert sat across from me and handed me a thick soft blanket. “Tell me about my mother,” I said. For the next hour, as we drove through the city, Robert told me about Angela, how they met in college, how she was studying to be a teacher, how she wanted to change the world one student at a time.

He showed me photos and videos on his phone. I watched my mother laugh and dance and sing, and I saw myself in every movement she made. He told me about the night I was born, how happy they were, how Angela held me and said I was going to do amazing things with my life. He told me about the accident that took her away.

About coming home from deployment to find that his baby girl had vanished into the system. “I never stopped looking,” he said. “I hired the best investigators money could buy. I offered rewards. I put my resources behind finding you. And tonight, when I finally worked up the courage to approach you, fate put you right in my path.