What?
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My father looked up at me.
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Your biological mother was named Ana.
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I started laughing nervously. It was a short laugh, with no sign of cheerfulness. It seemed to me that I was just entering a nightmare from which I could not wake up.
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It’s not funny, Dad. If that’s a joke, it’s the worst joke you’ve ever made.
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It is not a joke.
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He took out an old photo from his pocket and placed it next to the box. In the picture appeared a young woman, brunette, with green eyes, holding a baby wrapped in a white blanket.
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I watched the photo and felt my heart tighten.
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That woman looked strikingly at me.
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It had the same eye shape, the same nose and the same pitipe in the left cheek. It was like watching a photo of myself taken in a few years.
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Who is it? I whispered.
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— Ana. – Your mother.
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I got involuntarily approached the bank, then stopped. I was still afraid, but curiosity was beginning to mix with horror.
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And where is it now?
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Dad bowed his head.
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He died the day you were born.
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For a few seconds, I haven’t heard anything. Neither the rust of the leaves, nor the birds, nor the wind that moved the branches above us.
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I don’t understand, I murmured. If she was my mother, then who are you?
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My father remained still.
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I am Robert, the man who raised you. But I’m not your biological father.
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I felt my breathtaking.
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No…
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Ana was my little sister.
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I leaned against the trunk of a tree. I was under the impression that each sentence was snatching up a piece of my life that I had known until then.
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You mean you’re my uncle?
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Yes, Emilia.
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I started to cry.
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Dad got up instinctively, but when he saw that I was retiring, he immediately sat back.
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I’m sorry,” he said. I feel so sorry.
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Then why did you speak to me like that? Why did you tell me you wanted to kiss me? Why did you bring me alone into the woods and ask me to close my eyes?
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My voice became almost a scream. I could no longer hold in myself the fear I had felt since I left home.
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My father covered his face with his palms.
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Because I was an idiot, Emilia. Because I have prepared this moment in my mind hundreds of times and, when I got here, I said everything wrong.
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I looked at him incredulously.
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How can you say such a thing by mistake?
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I wanted to give you the medal and show you the place where your mother asked me to take care of you. I wanted to hug you and kiss you on the forehead, like I used to do when you were little. But I was so excited, I started talking without realizing what my words sounded like.
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I shook my head.
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And that question in the kitchen? When did you ask if I’d mind if you kissed me?
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He swallowed in sec.
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I wanted to know if you still accept my gestures of affection as if you were a child. I knew I was going to tell you that I wasn’t your biological father and I was afraid that after that, you wouldn’t even want to hug me. I formulated the horribly question. Now I realize how much I scared you.
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I looked at him a long time.
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You made me think you wanted to do something bad to me.
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His eyes were filled with tears.
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I know. And I have no excuse. I shouldn’t have touched you when you told me to stop. I’m sorry, Emilia.
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I was still silent. One part of me wanted to believe him, but another still remembered the feeling of his hands on my shoulders and that terrible fear.
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“I want to call my mother,” I said.
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Dad agreed.
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Call her.
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I formed the number with trembling fingers. The mother answered after the second call.
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Emilia? Are you okay?
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Her voice seemed uneasy.
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Mom, I’m in the woods with my dad. He told me I wasn’t your biological daughter. Is that true?
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At the other end of the line, there was silence.
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Then I heard a sigh.
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Emilia, where are you exactly?
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Answer me!
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My mom started crying.
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Yes, my dear. It is true.
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I felt my knees softened. I sat on a stone next to the path and squeezed my phone to my ear.
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Why did you never tell me?
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“Because we were afraid of losing you.
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But I am your daughter! How could I have lost you?
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My mother didn’t answer immediately.
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Let me come and get you, Emilia. We’re talking at home, all three. I promise you we’re not hiding anything anymore.
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I sent his location off his phone. Dad stayed on the bench, a few feet away, without trying to get close.
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I waited almost an hour. All this time, I’ve only changed a few words. When my mother arrived, I ran towards her and burst into tears.
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He held me in my arms so hard that I could hardly breathe.
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Forgive me, my dear. Forgive me for not having the courage to tell you.
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I went home with my mother. Dad came in our wake with his car. I didn’t feel ready to sit next to him.
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That night, we all sat down at the dining room table. My mother brought a large cardboard box, which I had never seen before. It was filled with old photos, letters and documents.
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“The time has come to know everything,” she said.
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I looked at her without saying anything.
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The mother took out a photo showing up in which she, Robert and a young brunette appeared. That woman was Ana.
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“Ana was Robert’s younger sister,” began my mother. She was twenty-two years old when she got pregnant with you. Your biological father left her life before you were born. Robert and I helped her as much as I could.
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I looked at the photo.
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And what happened?
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My mother wiped her tears.
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Ana had serious complications at birth. Doctors tried to save her but failed. You survived.
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I put my hand to my mouth.
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And then did you take me?
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Yes. We have started the legal procedures for adoption, and after everything ended, you officially became our daughter. We already had four years of marriage and we wanted a child very much.
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I started browsing the photos. In one of them, Robert was holding a baby. In another, my mother was giving me milk with the bottle. Then came my first days of kindergarten, the first day of school and all the anniversaries I remembered.
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My life was there in front of me.
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It was just her beginning than I thought.
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Why did you hide the truth from me? I asked again.
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Robert put his hands on the table.
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At first, I was telling ourselves that you were too small. Then, when you grew up, we feared that you would think we had lied to you all my life. And with each passing year, it became harder to find the right time.
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“But it wasn’t your decision to take this truth from me.”
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The mother agreed.
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You are right.
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For the first time, they didn’t try to defend themselves. They didn’t say they had done everything for my own good. They simply admitted that they were wrong.
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I spent a long time looking at a photo of Ana. He looked so much like me that it seemed to me that I could have heard his voice if I had looked at him carefully enough.
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Why did you take me to the woods? I asked Robert.
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He took the medallion out of his pocket.
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“Because there, next to that bank, Ana told me for the first time that she was pregnant. She was scared and didn’t know what to do. I sat next to her for almost three hours, trying to reassure her.
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He opened the medallion. Inside were two tiny photos: one with Ana and another with a baby.
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After you were born, I put your photo here. I kept the medallion all these years, because I wanted to give it to you when you were ready to find out the truth.
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I reached out my hand and took it.
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On the back was a sentence engraved:
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“Wherever you are, my love will go with you.”
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I started crying again.
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Did she write that?
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Robert agreed.
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Yes. Ana used to say that no matter what happens to her life, her child will never lack love.
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I squeezed the medallion in my palm.
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At that point, my mother pulled out of the box a white, sealed envelope.
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There is something else, Emilia.
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I looked at her surprised.
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What exactly?
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A letter from Ana. He wrote it before you were born. He asked us to give it to you when you’re old enough to understand.
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I took the envelope with my hands trembling. On the face was written, with a beautiful and rounded writing:
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“To my little girl.”
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I slowly unwrap the paper.
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“My dear Emilia,
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If you read this letter, it means that you have grown up and that you have started to ask yourself questions about the world you live in. Maybe one day you’ll wonder where you came from and who loved you before you could say the first word.
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I want you to know that I loved you from the moment I found out you were. I don’t know what you’re going to look like, what color your eyes will have or what kind of woman you’re going to become, but I know you’re already the most beautiful thing that’s happened to me.
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I’m scared, Emilia. I’m afraid of childbirth, the future and the fact that I’m not going to be a good enough mother. But I promise you I will do everything I can for you.
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If life ever separates us, don’t think you’ve been abandoned. Sometimes people leave unwittingly. But true love doesn’t go away with them.
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Be brave. Never be ashamed of who you are. And don’t let anyone tell you that you’re worth less just because your story started differently than the others.
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I love you more than these words can contain.
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Your mother, Ana.”
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When I finished reading, the paper was wet from my tears.
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My mother hugged me. This time, I didn’t pull out. We both cried, without trying to say anything.
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Robert stayed in the chair with his eyes in the ground.
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After a few minutes, I looked at him.
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“Why did you say that my mother doesn’t have to know that you took me to the forest?”
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He sighed.
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“Because she wanted us to tell you the truth together, at home. I insisted that I take you to that place, convinced that it would be a special moment. I didn’t want him to know that I did this without consulting her.
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My mother looked at him with sadness.
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“Robert,” I told you so many times that we shouldn’t make the truth about Ana even bigger.
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He agreed.
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I know. I was wrong.
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I looked at both of them.
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I want you to understand something. It doesn’t hurt that you’re not my biological parents. It pains that you didn’t trust me to tell me who I am.
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My mother started crying again.
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You are right, darling.
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And I want something else, I continued. I don’t want there to be any more secrets about my family. If Ana had friends, if there are relatives or people who knew her, I want to know.
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Robert raised his gaze.
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We will tell you everything we know.
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In the following weeks, I began to discover the life of the woman who had brought me into the world. I met her best friend, a lady named Carmen, who was still living in Brasov.
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When he saw me, he started crying before I got to introduce myself.
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“God, Emilia… You’re Leit Ana.
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He hugged me and invited me into the living room. He released an old album, filled with high school photos, trips and family parties.
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I found out that Ana loved music, that she dreamed of becoming a teacher and that she used to write poems in notebooks with blue covers. He loved the field flowers and feared storms horribly.
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At one point, Carmen showed me a photo taken one summer next to a lake. Ana was laughing, with her wet hair stuck to her cheeks.
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“That was your mother,” he said. He always found a reason to laugh, even on hard days.
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I touched the photo with my fingertips.
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For the first time, Ana was no longer just a name in a letter. He was starting to become a real person with dreams, habits and memories.
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I also visited her grave. Robert and Margaret accompanied me, but stayed at a distance, leaving me to be alone for a few minutes.
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I laid a bouquet of white flowers and knelt next to the tombstone.
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“Hi, Mom, I whispered. – It’s Emilia.
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My voice broke.
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I’m sorry I came so late. I didn’t know where to look for you.
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I stayed there for a long time, telling them about myself. About college, about my friends and all the things I wish I had told her if she was alive.
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When I got up, I first felt that part of the void I didn’t even know I was wearing inside me was starting to fill up.
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It was a few months before I was able to talk to Robert again about that day in the woods without feeling afraid.
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One evening, we were both sitting on the terrace of the house. My mother was preparing dinner, and the sun went over the garden.
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Dad, I said softly.
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Robert immediately turned to me.
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Yes, Emilia?
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I noticed his eyes got wet. It was the first time that day that I called him again “Dad” without feeling it.
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“I want you to know that I’m still upset about the way you told me the truth.” You scared me so much.
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He has approved.
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I know. And I’m sorry.
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But I want you to know something else. The fact that you’re not my biological father doesn’t change all the memories we have together.
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Robert wiped his eyes.
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No?
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I smiled through the tears.
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No. You taught me to ride a bike. You took me on the first day of school. You sat next to my bed when I had a fever and you read my stories when I couldn’t fall asleep.
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He started crying.
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Emilia …
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“But from now on I want you to respect my limits. If I tell you that something scares me or makes me feel uncomfortable, you have to listen to me.
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I promise you.
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I got closer and hugged him. This time, I was the one who took the first step.
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Robert held me in his arms carefully, as if he was afraid of hurting me.
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I love you, my daughter, whispered to me.
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I love you too, Dad.
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A year later, when I turned twenty, I decided to go back to the woods. But this time I went with both my parents.
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We found the old bank, hidden among the trees. The wood was even more damaged than I remembered, and the grass had grown around its feet.
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I sat down and took the medallion off my neck.
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Inside we now kept three tiny photos: one with Ana, one with Robert and Margaret and one with me, taken on the day I turned twenty.
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My mother sat next to me.
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What are you thinking?
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I looked through the trees.
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“How much a man’s life can change in one day.
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Robert stood by the bench.
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If I could turn back time, I would tell you the truth differently, Emilia.
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I looked at him and smiled softly.
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I know, Dad. But we can’t change what happened. We can only be careful what we do from now on.
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My mother shook my hand.
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I stayed there for almost an hour, talking about Ana. Robert told me how they were arguing when they were kids, stealing the cakes from her plate and how she forced him to teach her to ride a bike.
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I laughed. I cried. And for the first time, that place was no longer frightening.
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When we got ready to go, I turned one last time towards the old bank.
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The year before, that’s where I thought I was losing the man I had the most confidence in. But I finally found out the truth about my family and discovered the story of a woman who had loved me before I was born.
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I understood then that the family is not only defined by blood. It is also defined by people who stay by your side, who raise you, who recognize their mistakes and who learn to respect you.
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Robert wasn’t my biological father.
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Margaret wasn’t my biological mother.
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But they were the people who had raised me and loved me every day of my life.
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And Ana, the woman I had never had the chance to meet, had forever a place in my heart.
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That evening, before I adored, I opened her letter again and reread the last words:
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“If your life ever separates us, don’t think you’ve been abandoned.”
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I touched the locket around my neck and smiled through the tears.
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I finally knew the truth.
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I had not been abandoned.
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I was loved by two mothers.
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And by a man who, though he had not given me life, had devoted nineteen years of his own life to be my father.
