Never.
Not once.
“That’s impossible.”
“Your mother gave her up when she was seventeen.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Sarah—”
“No.”
I backed away.
“My mother never had another child.”
“She did.”
“You’ve known this for ten years?”
“Yes.”
I could barely hear my own voice.
“How?”
Joshua walked back to the desk and picked up the envelope.
“Emily found out the truth shortly before she died. She spent years trying to find your family.”
He handed me the envelope.
My fingers trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
Two young girls.
One was Emily.
The other was me.
I was maybe six years old.
Emily looked about twelve.
On the back, someone had written:
_She doesn’t remember me yet._
I sat down.
My mind flooded with fragments.
A girl at a family gathering.
Someone holding my hand.
A woman telling me to call her “Auntie.”
A memory I’d always assumed was a dream.
I looked at Joshua.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“Your mother wanted it buried.”
“And Emily?”
“She spent most of her life trying to understand why she’d been abandoned.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“What happened to her?”
Joshua’s eyes filled with tears.
“She had the boys.”
I looked toward the bedroom.
“Those are her sons.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she made me promise.”
“What did she ask you to promise?”
He took a breath.
“She was afraid the boys would be separated. She knew her health was getting worse. She had no family she trusted.”
“You.”
He nodded.
“She trusted me.”
“Why?”
“Because I helped her find you.”
My eyes widened.
“You knew where I was?”
“I found you years before we met.”
The room spun.
“Then our meeting wasn’t an accident.”
Joshua said nothing.
“Was it?”
He looked at me.
“No.”
That single word shattered something inside me.
I remembered our first meeting.
The coffee shop.
The way he’d already known my name.
The way he had said he felt like he’d known me forever.
The way everything between us had happened so easily.
I had called it fate.
Maybe it had been a plan.
“You chose me.”
“Yes.”
“You married me because of Emily.”
“At first, I approached you because of her.”
My eyes filled with tears.
“At first?”
He nodded.
“Then I fell in love with you.”
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me did.
But another part remembered ten years of mornings, anniversaries, arguments, laughter, sickness, vacations, quiet nights.
Were those moments real?
Or had they all grown from a lie?
“Then why did you suddenly want children?”
Joshua looked toward the hallway.
“Because I found out someone had discovered where the boys were.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I received a letter.”
He opened another drawer.
This time he pulled out a photograph.
It showed the twins.
Taken from a distance.
Outside the adoption agency.
My stomach twisted.
“When was this taken?”
“Three months before we adopted them.”
“Who took it?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at the picture.
The boys were holding hands.
Someone was watching them.
“You knew they were in danger.”
“Yes.”
“And instead of telling me, you manipulated me into adopting them.”
“I thought if I told you the truth, you’d refuse.”
