…I froze, staring at the handwriting, my hands suddenly unsteady.
“I think you’re my mother.”
The room felt smaller, like the air had been pulled out of it. I turned the photograph over again, studying my own face—young, scared, and unmistakably pregnant. It had been taken decades ago, during the months I tried hardest to forget. No one else should have had that picture. No one.
A quiet knock broke my thoughts. The nurse stepped back in, her expression careful, almost fragile. This time, I looked at her differently—the curve of her smile, the familiarity in her eyes. My chest tightened.
“You found it,” she said softly.
I couldn’t speak at first. “How…?” was all I managed.
“I’ve been searching for years,” she admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything unless I was sure. But when I saw your name… I knew.”
Tears blurred my vision. All those years of silence, of wondering, of carrying that secret alone—and here she was, standing right in front of me.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” I whispered.
She reached for my hand, just as she had before, but now it meant something entirely different.
“You don’t have to wonder anymore,” she said.
And for the first time since I let her go, I didn’t feel like I had lost everything.
