She wouldn’t look at me.
The stranger introduced herself as Rachel and claimed the pregnant woman in the photo had been her older sister, Anna.
Anna had disappeared thirty-two years earlier—the same week I was born.
According to Rachel, my father had been secretly seeing Anna while he was already married to my mother.
But the affair wasn’t the worst part.
Anna had been pregnant with twins.
One child was officially listed as stillborn.
The other child had vanished from the hospital records completely.
I laughed at first.
Then Rachel handed me a sealed envelope my father had mailed to her only three days before his death.
Inside was a copy of an old birth certificate.
My name was on it.
But my mother’s name wasn’t listed as my mother.
Anna’s was.
I felt sick.
I turned to the woman who had raised me.
“Tell me this is fake.”
She started crying.
Then she said something I will never forget.
“Your father brought you home when you were two days old.”
I could barely breathe.
“Then where is Anna?”
My mother looked toward the coffin.
“She came looking for you.”
Rachel suddenly stepped closer.
“When?”
My mother whispered:
“The night she disappeared.”
The church doors opened behind us.
An older man stood there holding a second birth certificate.
He looked at me and said:
“You should probably ask where your twin brother has been for the last thirty-two years.”
