My mother slept on the couch because she didn’t want me alone.
Everywhere I looked, I found something Lily had touched.
Three years earlier, I’d miscarried a baby girl we planned to call Grace.
She didn’t want me alone.
I’d thought nothing could hurt worse than that.
Then I buried my husband and Lily.
***
For several weeks, I barely left the house.
Finally, Mom suggested I fly out to stay with her.
“Just for a while, Dora. You don’t have to decide anything else.”
I buried my husband and Lily.
I agreed because I was too tired to argue.
My flight was delayed two hours.
I bought coffee and found a quiet seating area away from the crowded gates.
I was staring into my cup when I heard a baby crying.
At first, I assumed a parent was nearby.
My flight was delayed two hours.
Then another baby joined in.
I walked between the rows of seats.
Near the far wall stood a double infant carrier.
Two tiny girls lay inside.
No adult was beside them.
Then another baby joined in.
I looked around.
“Hello? Is someone with these babies?”
Nobody answered.
A folded note rested on the blanket.
Please forgive me. I can’t take care of them.
I read it twice.
A folded note rested on the blanket.
Then I hurried to the nearest airport employee.
“Someone left two babies alone. Please call security.”
Within minutes, officers arrived.
***
One baby was crying hard. The other had gone quiet.
Within minutes, officers arrived.
A security officer checked on them while another asked me questions.
Where had I found them?
Had I seen anyone leaving?
Had I touched the note?
I answered everything I could.
Where had I found them?
The nearest camera’s view had been blocked by a maintenance cart, and no other footage showed a clear face.
Police and child-protection workers arrived later.
They took the babies into protective care.
By then, my flight was boarding.
I stayed.
No other footage showed a clear face.
***
For days afterward, I kept hearing those cries.
I contacted the child-protection agency to ask whether the girls were safe.
They couldn’t tell me much.
I understood.
But I asked whether there was a lawful way I could be considered as a foster parent.
I kept hearing those cries.
The woman on the phone explained that finding the babies didn’t give me any special claim.
There would be an investigation, assessments, and a process to determine what was best for them.
I said I understood.
Then I asked where to begin.
Finding the babies didn’t give me any special claim.
My mother worried I was making a decision too soon after losing Daniel and Lily.
“Sweetheart, are you sure?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I want to find out if I can give them a home.”
My mother worried I was making a decision too soon.
I attended classes, completed background checks and home inspections, and spoke honestly about my grief.
The twins remained in protective care while authorities searched for their family.
No parent was identified.
I spoke honestly about my grief.
After the required approvals, they were placed with me, and their adoption was finalized later.
***
The first night they slept in my house, I sat beside their cribs until morning.
I named them Lily and Grace.
Their adoption was finalized.
The names belonged to the daughters I’d lost, but I never expected these girls to become them.
They made that impossible anyway.
Lily was loud from the beginning and screamed whenever I put socks on her.
The names belonged to the daughters I’d lost.
Grace studied every toy as though instructions were hidden underneath.
At ten, Lily tried cutting her own bangs. She failed, and Grace laughed so hard she fell off her chair.
I learned which cough meant Grace needed a doctor and which one meant Lily was hoping to stay home from school.
At ten, Lily tried cutting her own bangs.
Some nights, after they were asleep, I still cried for Daniel and my first Lily.
But our house was noisy again.
And I was glad to hear it.
I still cried for Daniel and my first Lily.
***
When the girls were thirteen, Lily asked about her name.
“Did you call me Lily because you wanted your other daughter back?”
The question caught me off guard.
Lily asked about her name.
We were folding laundry.
Grace stopped matching socks.
I sat beside Lily.
“I chose your name because I loved it, and because I loved her, sweetheart.”
Grace stopped matching socks.
Lily looked down.
“Do you ever wish I was her?”
“No.”
She looked up.
“I wish I’d had the chance to know both of you.”
“Do you ever wish I was her?”
Grace leaned against my shoulder.
“And me?”
“You were named for a little girl I never got to meet.”
“The baby you lost?”
I nodded.
“You were named for a little girl I never got to meet.”
Grace thought about that.
“Well, I’m pretty good at being me.”
I laughed and hugged her.
“You certainly are, princess.”
Grace thought about that.
***
By eighteen, Lily worked at a bookstore and had an opinion about everything.
Grace could spend an afternoon repairing one broken radio.
They were close, but they didn’t always agree.
Lately, though, they’d been whispering together.
They were close.
Whenever I entered the kitchen, their conversation stopped.
One evening, I caught Lily closing her laptop.
“Planning a bank robbery?!” I teased.
“Very funny, Mom.”
Their conversation stopped.
Grace gave her a look.
I didn’t press.
They were adults now.
They deserved privacy.
But a week later, they came into my bedroom while I was getting ready for bed.
I didn’t press.
Grace held her phone with both hands.
Lily looked unusually pale.
“Mom,” Grace said, “please don’t be mad.”
I put down my hairbrush.
“What happened?”
Lily looked unusually pale.
Lily sat on the edge of my bed.
“We’ve been looking for our birth mother.”
I knew this day might come.
“You’ve been searching?” I asked.
I knew this day might come.
Grace nodded.
“We requested the information we could access and took DNA tests.”
“DNA tests?”
“A close relative matched with us,” Lily admitted. “She said her sister gave birth to twin girls around the time we were found. Everything fits.”
“We requested the information we could access.”
I looked at both girls.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Grace rubbed her thumb along the edge of the phone case.
“We didn’t want you to think you weren’t enough.”
I looked at both girls.
I reached for her hand.
“You don’t have to protect me from wanting answers about yourselves.”
Lily picked at a loose thread on the bedspread.
“Even if we want to meet her?”
“Even then.”
“You don’t have to protect me from wanting answers about yourselves.”
Grace turned her phone toward me.
“We found our birth mother. Here’s her picture.”
The woman stood outside a café.
She was older than I remembered, with shorter hair.
But the small mole beside her mouth was unmistakable.
The woman stood outside a café.
I gripped the dresser.
“No. Not her. This can’t be happening!”
My knees buckled, and I sat heavily on the bed.
“Mom!” Lily reached for me.
Grace pulled the phone back.
“Do you know her?”
My knees buckled.
I stared at the screen.
“Her name is Mara.”
Lily went still.
“How do you know?”
“She worked at a café near your sister’s school.”
Grace frowned.
“Our sister?”
“Her name is Mara.”
“My first Lily. The morning she died, she dropped her paper flower at the café. Mara picked it up and tried to straighten its bent stem for her.”
Neither girl spoke.
***
Mara had been visibly pregnant when I’d last seen her.
Neither girl spoke.
I remembered how tired she’d looked.
Once, I’d overheard her asking the café manager for every extra shift he could give her before the babies arrived.
***
Lily watched my face.
“What is it?”
I remembered how tired she’d looked.
“I remember her being pregnant.”
“With us?”
“I don’t know for certain. But the timing fits.”
Grace showed me messages from the woman whose DNA matched them as a close maternal relative.
“I remember her being pregnant.”
The girls had checked what they could against the records available to them, though we still needed Mara herself to confirm the connection.
They hadn’t spoken to Mara herself.
Her sister hadn’t told her about them yet.
We still needed Mara herself to confirm the connection.
I handed back the phone.
“Then we need to think about what happens next.”
Lily stood abruptly.
“I know what I want.”
“What?”
“I want to ask her why.”
“I know what I want.”
Grace looked at her.
“Lily…”
“No. She left us at an airport. I want to hear her explain that.”
I understood her anger.
I’d once stood beside those empty seats myself.
“She left us at an airport.”
Grace folded her arms.
“I want answers too. But I don’t know if I’m ready to meet her.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight,” I said.
Lily paced toward the window.
“She was nice to your daughter.”
“I don’t know if I’m ready to meet her.”
I looked up.
“What?”
“You said she picked up her flower.”
“Yes.”
Lily pressed her lips together before continuing.
“She could be kind to somebody else’s little girl. So why couldn’t she keep us?”
“You said she picked up her flower.”
I had no answer. I wouldn’t invent one.
***
The next afternoon, Grace received another message from the aunt.
She read it twice before bringing me the phone.
“She told Mara about us,” Grace said.
I had no answer.
Lily stood beside her. “What did she say?”
“Mara knows we found her. She agreed to meet us, but she wants to explain everything herself.”
“Did she tell her sister why she left us?” Lily asked.
Grace shook her head.
“Her sister said it isn’t her story to tell.”
“What did she say?”
Lily walked to the window.
“So Mara gets to make us wait after eighteen years?”
“You don’t have to meet her,” I said.
Lily turned around.
“Yes, I do. I need to hear her say it.”
“You don’t have to meet her.”
Grace held the phone against her chest.
“I need to hear it too.”
I remembered Mara working through her pregnancy, asking the café manager for extra shifts, and looking more exhausted each week.
“I need to hear it too.”
Those memories gave me questions, but no answer.
Only Mara could tell my daughters why she’d left them.
***
That evening, Lily knocked on my bedroom door.
“Can I ask you something, Mom?”
Those memories gave me questions.
“Always, sweetheart.”
She sat beside me.
“If we meet her, will it hurt you?”
I put my book down.
“It might bring up some difficult memories.”
Lily stared at her hands.
“But?”
“If we meet her, will it hurt you?”
“But that isn’t a reason for you to go without answers.”
She leaned against me.
“I don’t want another mom.”
“You don’t have to know what you want from her yet, honey.”
Lily was quiet.
“I don’t want another mom.”
Then she said, “Grace wants to write to her before we meet.”
“That sounds sensible.”
“I don’t. I want to ask my questions face-to-face.”
“You can approach this differently, sweetheart,” I said.
She nodded.
“That sounds sensible.”
After a while, she went to find her sister.
I stayed on the bed, thinking about Mara’s face.
Then I remembered the envelope in my dresser.
Inside was the paper flower I’d found in Lily’s coat pocket when the hospital returned her belongings.
I remembered the envelope in my dresser.
I took it out.
Its stem was still creased where Mara had tried to straighten it.
For eighteen years, I’d kept it because it was one of the last things my daughter had touched.
I put the flower back in its envelope and went downstairs to Lily and Grace.
It was one of the last things my daughter had touched.
***
Two weeks later, we met Mara at a quiet café.
She studied me.
“Dora?”
Lily stiffened beside me.
Mara looked from Lily to Grace and sat very still.
Grace spoke first.
“We want to know why you left us.”
She studied me.
Mara gripped her coffee cup.
“Your father left before you were born. I had almost no money, and I didn’t know how to care for two babies alone. I panicked. I told myself that if I left you somewhere crowded, someone capable would find you and give you what I couldn’t.”
“Your father left before you were born.”
“Someone might not have,” Lily snapped.
“You’re right,” Mara said. “I told myself it was safe, but I couldn’t know that.”
“Did you ever look for us?”
“Someone might not have.”
“I called the agency once and asked whether the babies found at the airport were safe, but they couldn’t tell me anything. Years later, I met a kind man and built a life with him.”
Grace looked down at her hands. “Did you ever regret leaving us?”
“I met a kind man and built a life with him.”
Mara turned her coffee cup slowly.
“Every day. But the longer I waited, the more I convinced myself you were better off and that finding you would only disturb the life someone else had given you. It was easier to believe that than to face what I’d done.”
“I convinced myself you were better off.”
Lily pushed back her chair.
“That wasn’t fair.”
“No,” Mara whispered. “It wasn’t.”
The girls had the answers they’d come for. Grace looked at me and quietly asked if we could go home.
We left without promises.
“That wasn’t fair.”
***
Weeks passed.
Grace exchanged letters with Mara.
Lily wasn’t ready.
I respected both decisions.
One evening, Lily found me holding the old paper flower.
Lily wasn’t ready.
“Did our sister make that?”
I nodded.
“At school.”
Grace joined us.
“Can we see her picture?”
“Did our sister make that?”
I brought out the family album.
They studied a photograph of Lily grinning beside Daniel.
“She looks mischievous,” Grace said.
“She was.”
I brought out the family album.
Lily touched the photograph.
“Tell us about her.”
So I did.
I told them about the festival, the itchy coat, and the apple juice my first Lily always spilled.
Then Grace turned the page.
And together, we kept looking.
“Tell us about her.”
