My father. The bedrock of my life. A man of quiet strength, unwavering integrity. That’s who I thought he was. That’s who he taught me he was. Every memory, every cherished moment, built on that foundation. This year, his big milestone birthday was approaching, and I wanted to make it special. I knew he had a small wooden box, tucked away in the back of his study closet, where he kept old sentimental odds and ends – childhood report cards, my first finger painting, dried flowers from my mother’s wedding bouquet. Maybe there’s an old photograph I can use for a collage, I thought, smiling at the idea.
I found the box easily enough, a faint layer of dust coating its surface, a sign of how long it had been untouched. I ran my fingers over the smooth, worn wood. Inside, nestled beneath a bundle of letters from my grandmother, was an envelope I didn’t recognize. It was thin, cream-colored, with a delicate script that wasn’t my mother’s, and certainly not my father’s practical scrawl. My breath caught, just a little. Curiosity. A flicker.
It wasn’t a letter, but a card. An old birthday card, from many, many years ago. The date stamped on the back was from a year well before I was even a thought, or so I’d always believed. But as I opened it, the familiar scent of aged paper filling the air, a line of text made my heart stop.
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“Happy Birthday.” it began, in that elegant, unfamiliar hand. “I think of you always. I hope they are happy, wherever you took them. Tell them I love them.”
My world tilted.
“Tell them I love them.”
A child.
Who was ‘them’? Who was ‘I’? The signature was just a faint, almost illegible ‘E’.
E.
Who was E?
My father had no siblings. No secret family members. My mother was his only wife, their love story legendary in our small town. My mind raced, trying to fit this foreign piece into the neat puzzle of my family history. It didn’t fit. It couldn’t. It felt like an alien artifact, dropped into my perfectly ordered life.
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I put the card back, carefully, as if its secrets might unravel if I jostled it. The smile I’d worn just moments before had vanished, replaced by a cold knot of dread in my stomach. I couldn’t shake the words: “wherever you took them.”
It sounded… sinister. It sounded like he had taken a child. And the person writing was asking for news, yearning for them.
Over the next few days, I watched him. My father. The man who taught me how to ride a bike, who patiently helped me with calculus, who held my hand at my grandfather’s funeral. He seemed the same, yet to me, he was a stranger in plain sight. Every laugh, every gentle word, felt like a performance. Was it all a performance?
My mother was oblivious. Her sweet, trusting nature, a stark contrast to the storm brewing inside me. I wanted to ask her, but how? “Mom, did Dad have another child he took away from someone?” The words were monstrous.
I started digging. Discreetly at first. Old photo albums from the attic. Birth certificates, old family documents. Anything that could shed light on a hidden past. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest my father had any connection to a person named ‘E’ or a mysterious child. His life, according to the documents, was an open book. But the card. THE CARD. It was undeniable. It existed.
An old woman wearing a maroon cardigan | Source: Midjourney
The date on the card haunted me. It was dated a few years after my parents married, but before I was born. My parents had struggled to conceive. I knew that. My mother had spoken about the heartache, the doctors, the silent prayers. And then, one day, I was there. Their miracle baby. My miracle baby.
I went back to the box. The card was still there. I took it out again, my fingers trembling slightly. This time, I looked harder. Tucked away beneath the card, almost invisible against the velvet lining, was a tiny, faded baby shoe. Soft, white, knitted. And inside, embroidered in the smallest blue thread, a single, capital ‘E’.
My blood ran cold.
It wasn’t just a card. It was a tangible link to a secret. A baby. ‘E’.
A secret baby.
My mind raced again, faster, more frantic. The “tell them I love them.” The “wherever you took them.”
It wasn’t just a child. It felt personal.
Could it be… no.
A happy little girl | Source: Midjourney
It couldn’t be.
I remember my father, when I was little, telling me stories. Stories of how special I was, how much they wanted me. Always “they.” My mother echoed it. “Our special gift.”
But they never talked about how I came to be. Not in detail. “After many years of trying, God blessed us.” That was the narrative. A vague, beautiful, untraceable narrative.
I felt a dizzying surge of panic.
WHAT IF IT’S ME?
The thought slammed into me, a physical blow.
No. My parents… they were my parents. They were.
I called my mother. “Mom,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, “do you remember anything about before I was born? You know, the struggles, the doctors?”
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She chuckled softly. “Oh, honey, it was a long road. But we got you. And you were worth every tear, every prayer.”
“Did you… ever consider adoption?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
There was a pause. A long, unnatural pause.
“Why do you ask that, sweetheart?” Her voice was suddenly strained.
That pause. That was all I needed. I didn’t need to see her face. The truth, or a piece of it, was there in the sudden silence, the change in her tone. My father wasn’t the only one with secrets.
I walked into his study the next evening, the old birthday card clutched in my hand. He looked up from his newspaper, a gentle smile on his face. “Everything alright, sweetie?”
I couldn’t speak. I just held out the card.
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His eyes widened. The color drained from his face. His hand, holding the paper, began to tremble. He didn’t say a word, just stared at the cream-colored card, then at me. His perfect facade, finally, shattering.
He stood up slowly, walked to the window, his back to me. His shoulders shook once, then twice.
“I… I never thought you’d find that,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, broken.
“Who is E?” I managed, the words tearing through my throat. “Who is the child?”
He turned, his eyes red-rimmed, full of a pain I had never seen.
“Your mother… she desperately wanted a child,” he began, his voice barely audible. “We tried everything. And then… I met Evelyn.”
Evelyn. The ‘E’.
A smiling little girl standing on a porch | Source: Midjourney
“She was so young. So scared. She was going to give you up for adoption. A closed adoption.” He paused, taking a ragged breath. “I told her… I told her we would take care of you. Give you a good life. I promised her… I promised her she could see you, know about you, from afar.”
My heart pounded in my chest. He promised her.
“But then… when I brought you home… your mother was so happy. So utterly, completely in love. And I was too. I looked at you, and I knew I couldn’t risk anything disrupting that.”
He finally met my gaze, his eyes pleading for understanding.
“I cut Evelyn off. I changed the adoption details. I made sure there was no way she could find us. I erased her. I wanted you to be ours. I wanted you to be entirely ours, without any complications.“
The words hit me like a train.
He erased her.
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He cut her off.
“You… you mean… E… Evelyn… she’s my birth mother?” I whispered, the air thick with disbelief.
He nodded, tears streaming freely down his face. “She wrote me that card on my birthday, every year, for years, before I eventually changed my address and number, hoping to lose her completely. It was her only way to reach out, to ask about you.”
My head swam. My entire existence. A lie.
“So… you’re not…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“I’m your father,” he choked out, “in every way that matters. I raised you. I loved you.”
But the words from the card echoed, louder now, infinitely more devastating.
“I hope they are happy, wherever you took them. Tell them I love them.”
A little wooden box | Source: Midjourney
She had written that to him. On his birthday. The man who had cut her out of my life, who had hidden me from her.
And then, the final, gut-wrenching realization.
The faded baby shoe I found in the box, embroidered with an ‘E’.
It wasn’t for her baby, not from her to me.
It was from my father.
It was a memento HE kept. A relic of the mother HE had silenced, the life HE had stolen from me, so he could live HIS perfect lie.
He didn’t just hide his past. He built our entire family on a foundation of stolen love and deliberate, calculated silence.
And my mother, in her desperation for a child, had to have known. Or at least, suspected. That long, unnatural pause on the phone.
My perfect, unwavering father. My loving, gentle mother.
A homemade bracelet | Source: Midjourney
Suddenly, they were just two people who had conspired to steal a baby and bury a mother’s heartbreak.
And I was that baby.
I WAS THE SECRET.
My life wasn’t a miracle. It was a cover-up.
A life built on a lie, a betrayal so profound it reached back to my very beginning.
