Nicole’s scream froze me mid-step. “Mom! The storm shelter door is open!” It had been sealed for months. My groceries scattered, but all I could say was, “Inside—lock the door.” The shelter yawned in the yard like a warning. Then came a voice from below: “Hello?” I should have run. Instead, I waited. Footsteps climbed. A woman emerged—my face, my eyes, my dimple.
“You must be Lauren,” she said. “I’m Jessica. Please don’t call the police. Your husband said I could come.” My husband? At work. But then she handed me an envelope in my father’s handwriting. “I’m here because of him. And us. We’re twins.” Denial crumbled when she revealed letters, photos, two birth certificates. My parents had been too young, too broke.
They’d taken money for one baby. My mother’s letters dripped with guilt: I see her face in Lauren’s and break all over again. Jessica told me of her life—good parents, teaching, no children. I thought of my four upstairs. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. She smiled gently. “You didn’t know.”
Soon, she was inside, answering my kids’ questions, laughing the same laugh as mine. When Harry returned, he only said, “I wondered when you’d meet.” That night, fear gave way to a fragile truth: love didn’t divide. It multiplied.
