I froze.
“What?”
“You share the same biological mother.”
Emily covered her mouth.
“That’s impossible!”
But the doctor explained that our genetic results confirmed a close maternal relationship.
Suddenly, I remembered my mother’s photograph.
Her eyes. Her smile.
The same features I’d noticed in Emily’s face countless times.
We left the clinic holding each other, crying and laughing at once.
But one question remained.
Why had nobody ever told us?
That evening, I visited my seventy-four-year-old father.
When I told him what we’d discovered, his face changed.
He removed his glasses and began crying.
“Dad… did you know?”
He slowly nodded.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
My heart broke.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He stared toward the window.
“Because it was the most painful chapter of your mother’s life.”
Then he told me everything.
Before marrying him, my mother had given birth to a little girl. She was young, desperately poor, and completely alone.
