A moving truck sat in my driveway, every box inside labeled with my name. I stood at the end of the path in the evening drizzle, still wearing my hospital coat, unable to comprehend what I was seeing.
Nika was near the door, taping a box shut. Angela handed bags to the driver, her movements deliberate, as if this had been planned.
“What is going on?” I asked, my voice trembling.
Neither answered. I stepped in front of them, blocking the walkway. Angela held out her phone, her eyes red-rimmed but dry, as though she had already cried all her tears.
“We can’t live with someone who lied to us our whole lives,” Nika said, staring past me.
“What lie? Sweetie, what are you talking about?” I demanded, looking from one daughter to the other.
Angela turned the screen toward me, and I felt the blood drain from my face.
On the phone was a photo of a handwritten letter. The slanted, careful script was unmistakable. My name appeared at the top. It was from a man named John.
In the letter, he introduced himself as the twins’ biological father. He explained that he had been deployed overseas while their mother was pregnant. When he returned months later, he learned she had died in childbirth and that his daughters had been adopted by the midwife who delivered them. He wrote to ask for the chance to meet his children. He wanted them.
And for twenty years, all I had ever told the girls was that they were adopted—never the rest.
“Where did you find this?” I asked, panicked.
