Part 2
Aunt Elizabeth stared at us across her kitchen table.
Her hands were trembling so badly that the teaspoon in her cup rattled against the porcelain.
“Who is our father?” Linda demanded again.
Elizabeth looked at me.
Not at Linda.
Not at Susan.
At me.
“Mary,” she whispered, “before I answer, there’s something you need to understand.”
I leaned forward.
“No more explanations. No more excuses. We’ve spent our entire lives believing a lie.”
She nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
Then she reached into the pocket of her cardigan and removed a small silver key.
“I’ve been carrying this for thirty-two years.”
Susan frowned.
“What does it open?”
“A drawer in my bedroom.”
“Then why didn’t you bring whatever’s inside?”
Elizabeth looked down.
“Because I never believed this day would come.”
We followed her down the hallway.
Her bedroom was small and neatly arranged, with pale curtains, an old wooden dresser, and framed family photographs covering the walls.
She unlocked the bottom drawer.
Inside was a leather folder wrapped in a faded blue scarf.
Elizabeth placed it on the bed.
“Everything your mother couldn’t bring herself to tell you is in here.”
I opened the folder.
The first document was a birth certificate.
My name appeared at the top.
Mary Catherine Bennett.
But the date wasn’t 1963.
It was June 14, 1947.
I stared at the numbers.
“That would make me seventy-nine.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Yes.”
My heart began pounding.
I looked toward the mirror above her dresser.
I had spent sixty-three years believing I was younger than I actually was.
But the woman looking back at me had always seemed older than the dates on her documents suggested.
I’d blamed genetics.
Stress.
Years of hard work.
Anything except the truth.
Then I noticed another detail.
The birthplace was listed as a small town in Pennsylvania.
Not Ohio, where I’d always believed I was born.
“Who are my real parents?” I whispered.
Elizabeth sat on the edge of the bed.
“Your biological mother was a woman named Rose Bennett. She was my cousin.”
I looked up.
“And my father?”
“His name was Thomas Bennett.”
I waited.
“Where were they?”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“They passed away when you were young.”
I looked at the certificate again.
“Then how did I end up with the people I called Mom and Dad?”
Elizabeth took a deep breath.
“Your parents took you in when you were fourteen. At first, it was supposed to be temporary.”
“But they made me believe I was their daughter.”
“Yes.”
“And younger than I really was.”
She nodded.
I looked at Linda and Susan.
Both were pale.
Then Susan picked up a second document.
It was another birth certificate.
This one belonged to Linda.
Linda Rose Bennett.
Born September 22, 1961.
Beside it was an identical certificate for Susan.
Same date.
Same hospital.
Same mother’s name.
Mary Catherine Bennett.
My legs weakened.
I sat on the bed.
“The letter was right,” I whispered.
Elizabeth began crying.
I was fourteen when I moved into my adoptive family’s home.
And fourteen years later, at twenty-eight, I’d given birth to twins.
The numbers finally made sense.
But my memories didn’t.
I remembered Linda and Susan as babies.
I remembered helping change their diapers.
I remembered walking them to school.
Yet I’d always been told those were memories of being their older sister.
How could I have forgotten giving birth?
Elizabeth answered the question before I asked.
“After the twins were born, you became seriously ill.”
I stared at her.
“What kind of illness?”
“You developed complications after delivery. You spent weeks receiving medical care.”
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