My daughter locked herself in her room saying, “I know what I saw” – I learned why after she gave me an ultimatum
“So what is it about?” Please, Penny, I’m going crazy here. ”
“Simply go,” she said, quieter now. “I don’t want to talk to you. ”
My eyes filled with tears. “I won’t go anywhere. I will sit here all night if I have to. ”
And that’s what I did. I sat with my back against her door, listening to her occasional sniffings, the sound of her footsteps, the rustling of her sheets as she was probably trying to sleep. Every few minutes I tried again.
“Is it something in school?” Is anyone harassing you? ”
Nothing.
One closed chamber door – Source: Midjourney
“Are you upset about dad’s journey?” He’ll be at home in two days. ”
Still nothing.
“Please Penny. I love you more than anything. In any case, we can find a solution together. ”
Then I heard a gentle rustling of paper. A moment later, a folded note slipped from under the door.
A folded paper – Source: Midjourney
I picked it up with trembling hands.
It read: “I know what I saw. Don’t pretend that this is not true.
My heart skipped a beat.
I squatted closer to the door. “What do you think you’ve seen?”
Nothing. Then another word slipped.
If he comes back tonight, I’ll tell everyone, and especially Dad, what happened in the garage.
My hands were shaking. She must have seen us two nights ago. She wasn’t supposed to be at home.
– –
The window of a house at night – Source: Pexels
This evening had first been like all the others. I had finished cleaning after dinner, checking my watch every few minutes.
“I’m going to Jessica’s to study. Penelope had wanced the backpack in the shoulder strap. “Come back at nine o’clock. ”
“Send me a text when you’re there,” I said automatically, with my mind elsewhere.
By the time his bike disappeared into our driveway, I rushed into the garage. Not to work on my pottery as I used to do, but to do the hundred steps. I went back and forth on the concrete floor, repeating what I was going to say, wondering if I should cancel everything.
A woman walking in the garage – Source: Midjourney
The message had arrived three days earlier: I found you. My name is Adam. I think I’m your brother.
At first, I deleted it as spam. But there was another one: I have Mom’s letter for me. And a picture of her holding me in her arms the day she abandoned me. You look like two drops of water.
A woman reading a message – Source: Pexels
My mother’s confession on her deathbed had prepared me for this eventuality, but reality still took my breath away. In her last few days, mom had finally shared the truth.
She told me that at the age of seventeen, she had a little boy. Her parents forced her to abandon her. She had never even held him in her arms.
“I called him Adam,” she had whispered, tears running down on her glowing face. “I thought of him every day of my life. ”
She tried to find him years later, but she found herself in a dead end every time. The adoption agency had closed, the files were sealed. Eventually, she had abandoned, married my father and had me.
But she never forgot her first-born.
A woman holding a baby – Source: Pexels
I didn’t talk to Sam about texting. I think I needed to take stock myself first. To meet him alone, just once, before bringing this seismic change into the life of our family.
At 7.30 p.m. sharps, lights swept the garage windows and a door closed gently.
Then we hit the side door with hesitation.
I opened it and it was there. Large, with pepper and salt hair despite being 40 years old. He had my mother’s eyes.
“I almost turned around,” he said, with a trembling voice.
A man standing in front of a house – Source: Midjourney
“I almost canceled,” I admitted.
We sat silently for a few seconds that looked like minutes. Then he searched his pocket and took a picture of it.
It was a scan of an old adoption paper with a yellowed photo.
“I didn’t know about you until last year,” he said. “I only found out that I had a sister when I dug deeply about my biological mother and where she had lived. It took me months to find your trace. ”
A man using his laptop – Source: Pexels
I stared at him as tears were running down my cheeks.
“My mother… I mean our mother… she told me the truth just before she died,” I whispered. “She was seventeen when her parents forced her to abandon you. I didn’t know you existed until last year. ”
Adam slowly nodded his head. “The family that adopted me. They were good people. But I always felt that something was missing. As if there was a hole that I couldn’t explain. ”
A Sad Child – Source: Pexels
“She looked for you,” I told her. “Years ago. But the files were sealed. ”
He acquiesced, and then we talked a little bit earlier to finally hug each other.
It was the kind of embrace that comes from absence. Years we’ve never had. I was crying. He, too.
“I have his eyes, don’t I?” “,” he asked, withdrawing to look at me.
A man standing in his sister’s house – Source: Midjourney
“That’s true,” I laughed through tears. “And his stubbornness, too, I bet. ”
I suppose that’s when Penelope saw us. I was so caught in the moment that I didn’t even hear the side door open. I didn’t even notice that she was watching her mother kiss a stranger.
– –
Back in the corridor in front of Penelope’s room, I sat on the floor, with my back in hand. It contained our mother’s last letter and some documents that I had collected since Adam had first reached out.