The Envelope With My Name… And a Headline That Changed Everything
My hands trembled as I peeled back the tape.
Inside were items I’d never seen in my life:
- A baby blanket I didn’t recognize
- A hospital bracelet
- A sealed envelope with my name on it
I sat down hard on the attic floor and opened the envelope.
Inside was a brittle newspaper clipping, yellow with age.
The headline read:
“Local Hospital Fire Leaves One Infant Missing — Twins Separated at Birth?”
I read it three times before the words finally landed.
The article described a fire in a Des Moines maternity ward in September 1974.
During the chaos of evacuating babies, two premature twin girls were separated.
One baby was reunited with her parents.
The other was unaccounted for.
My vision blurred.
I felt like I was falling even though I was sitting still.
I had a twin sister.
A twin I never knew existed.
Paper-clipped to the article was a handwritten note:
“We couldn’t tell her. We searched for years but found nothing. Her real sister deserved peace. Emma deserved peace. God forgive us.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth to stop myself from crying out loud.
All those years believing I was an only child…
And she’d been out there somewhere.
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