The night of my seventeenth birthday, my father knocked on the door of my attic bedroom and sat down on the edge of my bed. He looked uncharacteristically nervous. I wondered what was going on. His fingers held a cream colored envelope, with my name written across the front in a handwriting that I recognized as my mother's. How could it be, I wondered. She had died almost two years ago. Dead people have a tendency not to correspond with the living.

"Is that for me, Daddy?" I asked curiously.

"Yes, Charlotte. This is a letter for you."

I held out my hand.

"Wait, Charlotte, I have to explain. This letter is from your mother. She wrote it when you were only a few months old and told me that if anything were to ever happen to her, I was to give you this letter when you turned seventeen. I've never opened it."

My heart began to race. My mother, only a memory, had written me a letter. It was from her! My father set the envelope down beside me and kissed me on the cheek.

"Happy Birthday, Charlotte" he whispered.

I smiled, eager to read what my mother had to tell me. The instant he was gone, I opened the envelope with a swipe of my fingernail, pulling out a thin piece of paper. Elizabeth Fallon read the heading: it was a name I hadn't spoken in almost two years. I read it apprehensively, although I had absolutely no idea what I was in for. Running my finger over the words, I whispered them aloud to myself one by one:

January 1913

Dearest Charlotte,

If you're reading this, I must be gone. Of course, I have no idea how or when it happened. I was always afraid that something could happen to me, and so I wrote you this letter. There is a secret that I have kept from you your whole life. I am writing this letter as assurance that you will learn the truth. It is something you need to know.

When I was nineteen years old, I fell in love with a wonderful young man. We met in Paris, where I was living at the time. He was beautiful and mesmerizing, and I spent some of the best times of my life with him. We were different people, however, and knew that we would never make it together. After a short yet wonderful relationship, I decided to leave Paris, and him, behind, and to return to America. He gave me this self- portrait as a parting gift, and I never saw him again. It was when I returned back to the states that I learned I was going to have a baby. Charlotte, that baby was you. I know this is a shock, darling. Please, let me try to explain.

When I was only a few weeks along, I fell in love for the second time that year; however, this time it was real. George Fallon was sweet and charming. I deceived him; I told him the baby I was carrying was his. He proposed right away. I lied because I wanted you to have a real family, Charlotte, and not a father who you didn't know anything about. I don't know if I made the right decision.

I am writing this letter now, even though you are only two months old. I am going to give it to George, telling him that if anything is to ever happen to me, you are to receive it on your seventeenth birthday. I figure I should write it all now, just in case. The reason that I am telling you all of this now is because someday, you may want to find your biological father. I know very little about him, and I haven't spoken to him since that day in 1912 when I left him. Charlotte, your father is named Jack Dawson. He was twenty years old and he was an artist, a wonderful artist. Charlotte, that is all I know about him. I know it's not much, and I know that this is unimaginably hard for you, but you need to know the truth. If you decide to search for him, I wish you the best of luck. And no matter what, remember that I will always love you. Happy Birthday, Charlotte.

Love, Mother

My memories of the next few moments are hazy and scattered, a blend of shock and disbelief. Instantaneously, however, I made up my mind to find Jack Dawson, the man who was my father. He was a part of me that I knew nothing about, save a name and a few obscure facts. How could I live with the knowledge that he was out there, as oblivious to my existence as I had been to his just a few short minutes ago? After reading my mother's letter, a feeling of complete and utter emptiness swept over me. I was losing the man who I had always thought of as my father, and in his place was a stranger. In order to regain any sense of completeness, I had to find that stranger.

I placed the letter back in the envelope, it's edges now wrinkled from where I had dug my nails into it in panic and suspense. I was surprised to find something else inside, and I pulled out a slightly heavier piece of paper. It was a charcoal drawing of a man's face; nevertheless, it looked alarmingly like myself. The hair was lighter and short, but everything else was the same. Eyes, face, even posture: my father and I shared them all. Seeing him for the first time in my life only filled me with more questions. Now, I was bound to him not only by shared blood but by a shared appearance. On the bottom of the page the words For Lizzie had been scrawled. It was signed JD 3/25/1912. The portrait made me realize just how much a part of me he was, even though we had never met one another.

My father's outfit, plain and worn, betrayed his social and financial status. His lips were parted in a wide smile, revealing a set of shiny white teeth. I could not help but run my finger over his face, memorizing the curves of its structure as best I could. My father. Seventeen years had torn us apart; now, I was the only thing that could reunite us. My father's face called to me, and I vowed to find him.