For the first time in years, I felt something impossible rising within me. Hope mingled with fear, curiosity with dread.
What if I didn’t know the whole story of my own life? What if there was something my parents had never told me, a secret that could explain why this stranger looked like my daughter?
I sat in my armchair for another hour, staring at Hannah’s face until Biscuit nudged me with his wet nose, reminding me that he was past bedtime.
But I couldn’t sleep that night. I kept thinking about those eyes looking at me from the screen, asking for help, searching for answers.
And somehow, deep down in my gut, I knew that my life was about to change forever.
Announcements
I didn’t text Hannah right away. I couldn’t. What would I say? “Hi, I look exactly like you, but I’ve never been pregnant?”
It seemed crazy, even in my own head.
Instead, I spent the entire sleepless night doing something I should have done years ago. I went up to the attic, climbed down the creaking ladder, and started rummaging through the dusty boxes I had placed up there after my mother passed away three years ago.
I had put it off by telling myself that I would eventually go through his things.
But that day turned into three years of avoidance.
Announcements
Today, in the middle of the night, with a flashlight, I searched through one box after another. There were old photo albums with pictures of me as a baby, my mother’s journals filled with grocery lists and gardening notes, medical records from my childhood, report cards, and birthday cards I had made in elementary school.
But nothing could explain why a stranger looked exactly like a younger version of me.
My back was hurting from bending over cardboard boxes.
I was about to stop when I spotted one last box in the furthest corner.
Announcements
It was smaller than the others, sealed with yellowed tape. My mother’s handwriting was written in felt-tip pen on the side, but it didn’t say what was inside. Just the date: 1974.
The year of my birth.
My hands trembled when I removed the tape. Inside were things I’d never seen before: a baby blanket I didn’t recognize, a hospital bracelet, and a sealed envelope with my name on it.
I sat down hard on the attic floor and opened it.
