“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.
That’s when Angela turned the screen toward me, and I felt the blood leave my face.
“We can’t live with someone who lied to us our whole lives.”
I knew that handwriting before I even finished the first sentence.
On the screen was a photo of a handwritten letter. Slanted, careful writing; my name at the top. From a man named John. I grabbed the phone from Angela and zoomed in on the words, my fingers trembling.
In it, he introduced himself as the twins’ biological father. He had been deployed overseas while their mother was pregnant, and when he returned several months later, he learned she had died in childbirth and that his daughters had been adopted by the midwife who delivered them.
He introduced himself as the twins’ biological father.
He said he had written to ask for the chance to meet his daughters. He had wanted his kids.
And for 20 years, all I ever told the girls was that they were adopted… never the rest.
“Where did you find this?” I protested.
“The attic,” Angela said blandly. “We were looking for old photo albums. Found an envelope addressed to you. We thought maybe it was something we should know.”
She took the phone back. “Turns out we were right.”
“Angela… Nika…”
“Don’t,” Nika warned. “Just don’t.”
He had wanted his kids.
The boxes kept moving. The truck kept filling. And I stood there in the rain trying to find words for something I’d buried two decades ago.
To understand why they were loading my life into boxes, you have to go back 20 years to the night I met their mother.
I was a young midwife on my first solo delivery. I was terrified, doing my best, trying to keep my hands steady. The mother was barely more than a girl herself, probably just 17 or 18.
She labored for hours, growing weaker with every passing minute. And somewhere in the middle of the night, she grabbed my wrist so hard I still remember the pressure of her fingers.
She labored for hours, growing weaker with every passing minute.
“I can’t raise them alone,” she whispered. “And if something happens to me… promise me you’ll take care of them. Please.”
I nodded.
What else could I do?
She smiled like I’d lifted something enormous off her chest, and an hour later, she delivered two tiny girls, Nika and Angela. And by morning, their mother was gone.
My coworkers said the babies would go to the state. I went home that night, sat at my kitchen table for a long time, and thought about a dying girl’s hand on my wrist.
My coworkers said the babies would go to the state.
Two weeks later, I started the adoption paperwork.
I won’t pretend it was easy. But it was the best thing I ever did.
I never built another family. The girls were the only family I ever chose.
***
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