Chapter One The Woman in the Mirror  

The problem wasn’t that I saw a woman in the mirror.

The problem was that she wasn’t me.

At first, I thought it was exhaustion. I had spent too many hours staring at old photographs, trying to restore faces that time had nearly erased. My eyes were tired, my head was aching, and the apartment was unusually quiet.

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, studying my reflection.

Same eyes. Same hair. Same familiar features.

Then I smiled.

My reflection didn’t.

I froze.

For a brief moment, the woman in the mirror simply stared at me. Her expression was calm, almost amused, as though she knew something I didn’t.

I blinked.

She smiled back.

I stepped away from the mirror, telling myself it was nothing. A trick of the light. A tired mind playing games.

But the uneasiness followed me into the bedroom.

On my desk lay an old photograph I had found earlier that afternoon. It showed two women standing side by side in front of a white house. They looked identical.

Not similar. Not vaguely alike.

Identical.

The same eyes, the same mouth, the same shape of the face. Even the way they held their heads seemed perfectly matched.

I turned the photograph over.

There was a handwritten message on the back:

To the woman who took my life… I hope you’re happy with it.

I read it again.

Then a third time.

There was no date. No name. Nothing to explain who had written it or why.

I looked more closely at the two women.

One of them was wearing a small ring on her right hand.

My stomach tightened.

I knew that ring.

It had belonged to my father.

He had been dead for years.

I turned the photograph toward the light, examining the background. The white house seemed familiar, though I couldn’t remember ever seeing it. Then I noticed something that made my fingers go cold.

My father was standing in the doorway.

He was looking directly at the camera.

I stared at his face, unable to understand how he could possibly be there. The photograph seemed old, older than I had expected, but there was no mistaking him.

I had spent years believing I knew everything there was to know about my family.

Apparently, I didn’t.

My phone rang.

The sudden sound made me flinch.

An unknown number appeared on the screen.

I answered without speaking.

For several seconds, there was only silence. Then a woman’s voice came through, quiet and unmistakably tense.

“You’re looking at the photograph, aren’t you?”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Who is this?”

A short pause.

“I’m the original.”

I frowned. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re looking at something that belongs to me.”

I glanced at the photograph again.

“Who are you?”

The woman’s voice dropped to a whisper.

“I’m the woman with the original face.”

Before I could ask another question, she spoke again.

“Listen carefully. Don’t go to the police. Don’t tell anyone you’ve found it.”

“Why?”

But the call ended.

I stood motionless, the phone still pressed against my ear.

Then I looked down at the photograph.

The woman on the right was wearing a coat I recognized.

My coat.

The one hanging in my wardrobe.

I brought the photograph closer, my heart beating faster.

There was something else.

A ring on her finger.

My ring.

I turned toward the bedroom mirror.

My reflection stood perfectly still.

But this time, I didn’t smile.

Neither did she.

A faint line appeared across the glass, as though someone had written on it from the other side.

I stepped closer.

Three words emerged through the mist:

DON’T TRUST YOUR MEMORY.

I reached out and touched the glass.

It was cold.

And for the first time in my life, I couldn’t remember whether I had ever truly seen my own face.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the photograph. Two identical women. My father’s face in the doorway. The ring that should have been mine.

And those three words written across the mirror:

DON’T TRUST YOUR MEMORY.

By morning, I had convinced myself that there had to be a reasonable explanation. Perhaps the photograph had been altered. Perhaps the woman on the phone was playing some cruel game.

But there was one thing I couldn’t explain.

How had she known I was looking at it?

I made coffee and sat at the kitchen table, placing the photograph in front of me.

I examined every detail again. The house. The two women. My father standing behind them.

Then I noticed something I had missed the night before.

A small mark beneath the photograph’s lower edge.

A date.

I stared at it for a long moment.

I had been a child in 1998. My memories of that year were vague, scattered fragments: a garden, a yellow dress, my mother’s voice calling my name.

And a girl.

I remembered a girl standing beside me.

I couldn’t remember her face.

The thought made me sit upright.

I closed my eyes, trying to bring the memory into focus. I could almost hear the sound of children laughing. I could almost feel someone’s hand holding mine.

Then came a voice.

A girl’s voice, very close to my ear:

“You promised you wouldn’t forget me.”

My eyes snapped open.

The kitchen was empty.

I reached for my phone and searched through my old family photographs. Most were stored in digital folders, poorly organized and rarely opened.

I found one labeled Childhood.

There were dozens of pictures inside.

Me at birthday parties. Me in the garden. Me standing beside my mother.

And then I found it.

A photograph of two little girls sitting on the floor.

One was me.

The other looked exactly like me.

I enlarged the image until the details became blurry. The girl beside me was wearing a yellow dress.

I recognized it.

Not because I remembered owning it, but because I remembered my mother once telling me that the dress had been lost.

I looked at the date.

October 1998.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move.

I had spent my entire life believing I was an only child.

So who was the girl sitting beside me?

And why had no one ever told me about her?

My phone vibrated.

A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen:

You finally found her.

A second message followed:

Now find out which one of you was allowed to go home.

I read the message until the words began to blur.

Now find out which one of you was allowed to go home.

I wanted to call the number back, but it was already unavailable. Whoever had sent the messages had made sure I couldn’t reach them.

I returned to the photograph of the two little girls.

There was something unsettling about it. Not just their identical faces, but the way they sat beside each other. Neither was smiling. Both were looking directly at the camera, as if they had been told not to move.

I turned the image over, hoping to find a name or a date written on the back.

There was only a faded inscription:

Eileen and Eileen. October 1998.

I dropped the photograph.

Two girls with the same face.

Two girls with the same name.

I picked it up again, trying to convince myself that I had misunderstood the handwriting. Perhaps one of the names was something else. Perhaps the photograph belonged to another family.

But the handwriting was unmistakable.

I recognized it from the letters my mother used to leave on the kitchen counter.

It was hers.

I called her immediately.

She answered after the fourth ring.

“Eileen?”

“Mom, I need to ask you something.”

There was a brief silence.

“What is it?”

I looked at the photograph.

“Did I have a sister?”

Nothing.

Not a surprised gasp. Not a confused question.

Just silence.

“Mom?”

“Where did you get that idea?”

“I found an old photograph. There are two little girls in it. They look exactly alike.”

Her breathing changed.

“Listen to me,” she said quietly. “You need to stop looking through those old things.”

“Why?”

“Some memories are better left alone.”

“Who is the other girl?”

My mother didn’t answer.

“Was she my sister?”

Then, in a voice I had never heard from her before, she said:

“Not everything you remember happened the way you think it did.”

The call ended.

I stood there, staring at my phone.

My mother had not denied it.

She had not even tried to explain it.

She knew.

And whatever she knew, she had spent years hiding from me.

I returned to the photograph and studied the two girls again.

This time, I noticed something strange.

One of them was holding a small object in her left hand.

I zoomed in.

It was a silver key.

A familiar shape. A narrow handle with a tiny engraved letter.

The letter M.

I knew that key.

It belonged to my father’s old study.

A room I had been forbidden to enter as a child.

I had always assumed it was because he kept important documents there.

Now I wondered what he had been hiding.

And whether the other Eileen had ever been allowed to leave that room.

I put the photograph into my bag.

There was only one place I could go next.

My father’s house.

The house I had not visited since his funeral.

The house where, perhaps, someone had been waiting for me to remember.

The house looked smaller than I remembered.

Its white walls had faded, the garden had become overgrown, and the windows were covered with a thin layer of dust. Yet something about the place remained unchanged.

It still felt as though someone was watching from inside.

I stood at the front door for several minutes before taking the key from my bag. My father had given it to me years ago, shortly before his death. He had told me to keep it somewhere safe, though he had never explained what it was for.

The lock turned with a dry click.

The door opened.

The smell hit me first. Old wood, dust, and something faintly familiar that I couldn’t quite identify.

I stepped inside and switched on the lights.

Nothing had moved.

The photographs still lined the hallway. My father in his office. My mother beside him at a formal dinner. Family pictures from birthdays and holidays.

I walked past them slowly.

Then I stopped.

A photograph near the staircase caught my attention.

It showed my father sitting in his study, one hand resting on the shoulder of a little girl.

I moved closer.

The girl was facing away from the camera, but I recognized the dress.

Yellow.

The same yellow dress from the photograph of the two girls.

I took the frame down and examined its back.

There was a handwritten note beneath the date:

Some things must remain separate.

My father’s handwriting.

I felt a chill move through me.

The study was at the end of the hallway.

Its door was closed.

I tried the handle.

Locked.

I took the silver key from my bag, the one I had found in the childhood photograph. It was smaller than the keyhole, but the shape seemed almost identical.

I pushed it in.

It turned.

The lock opened.

For a moment, I couldn’t bring myself to enter.

Then I stepped inside.

The room was exactly as I remembered it, except for the desk. Its surface had been cleared, leaving only a small wooden box in the center.

I approached it.

There was no lock.

Inside lay a collection of old documents, several photographs, and a thin black notebook.

I picked up the first photograph.

It showed two identical little girls standing in front of a building. Behind them was a sign bearing a name I had never seen before:

Morgan Behavioral Research Center.

I read it twice.

My father had never mentioned such a place.

I opened the notebook.

The first pages contained dates, short observations, and handwritten notes. Most of them were difficult to understand.

Then I found a page with my name:

Eileen Morgan — Subject A

Beneath it was another name:

Eileen Morgan — Subject B

My hands began to shake.

At the bottom of the page, my father had written a single sentence:

The success of the project depends on neither girl discovering the existence of the other.

I closed the notebook.

A sound came from behind me.

The study door creaked.

I turned.

No one was there.

But on the desk, beside the wooden box, lay a photograph I was certain hadn’t been there before.

It showed my father standing between the two girls.

And on the back, in handwriting that wasn’t his, were five words:

You were never the original.

I read the words again.

You were never the original.

The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the message felt strangely personal. Whoever had written it knew exactly what I would find in that room.

I placed the photograph beside the notebook and examined it more closely.

My father stood between the two girls, one hand resting on each of their shoulders. He looked younger than I remembered him, but his expression was unmistakable.

He wasn’t smiling.

Neither were the girls.

I turned the photograph over once more, hoping to find another clue. There was nothing except the message.

I returned to the notebook.

The entries became more detailed as I turned the pages. Some were written in a hurried hand, others carefully typed and attached to the paper.

One page contained a list of dates.

Another contained a series of observations about memory, recognition, and identity.

Then I found a sentence underlined twice:

A person’s sense of identity can be influenced by what they are allowed to remember.

I read it slowly.

My father had spent his life studying medicine and human behavior. I knew he had worked on research projects, but I had never imagined anything like this.

I turned another page.

There was a document marked with the same date as the childhood photograph: October 1998.

At the top were two names:

Eileen Morgan — Subject A

Eileen Morgan — Subject B

Beside each name were several handwritten notes.

Subject A: Responsive to familiar surroundings.

Subject B: Displays strong attachment to the other subject.

A third note had been added beneath them:

Separation remains necessary.

I felt my throat tighten.

Separation.

The word seemed to explain something, but not enough.

I searched through the remaining pages until I found a folded sheet tucked into the back cover.

It was a copy of an official-looking report.

Most of the text was faded, but one paragraph remained readable:

Following the completion of the initial observation period, the subjects were separated. Records concerning Subject B were transferred to a restricted archive under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Morgan.

I sat down.

My father hadn’t simply kept a secret about another child.

He had been responsible for separating us.

I looked at the photograph again.

Which girl had stayed with my mother?

Which girl had been taken away?

And which one had grown up believing she was an only child?

A sudden noise came from downstairs.

A door closing.

I stood up.

“Hello?”

No answer.

I moved toward the hallway, listening.

Then I heard footsteps.

Slow. Deliberate.

Someone was walking toward the study.

I reached for my phone, but before I could unlock it, a voice spoke from the other side of the door.

“Eileen.”

I stopped breathing.

It was a woman’s voice.

The same voice from the phone call.

“Don’t open the door,” she whispered.

I stared at the handle.

“Who are you?”

A pause.

Then she answered:

“I’m the girl your father took away.”

The footsteps stopped.

And for the first time, I understood that the woman in the photograph might not have been a stranger at all.

She might have been my sister.

I stared at the door.

The woman on the other side had just called herself the girl my father had taken away.

My sister.

The word felt unfamiliar, almost impossible.

“Open the door, Eileen.”

I stepped closer but kept my hand away from the handle.

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

A quiet laugh came from the hallway.

“You don’t. Not yet.”

“Then tell me your name.”

There was a pause.

“Mary.”

I closed my eyes.

Mary.

The name appeared nowhere in my father’s notes, yet something about hearing it made my stomach tighten.

“Why are you here?”

“Because you found the notebook.”

I glanced at the desk.

“How do you know about that?”

“Your father wasn’t very good at hiding things from the people who knew him.”

“Did you know him?”

“Better than you think.”

I finally reached for the handle.

Before I could turn it, she spoke again.

“There’s something you need to understand. Your father didn’t just separate us. He made sure we would grow up remembering different versions of the same events.”

I froze.

“What does that mean?”

“It means the memories you trust most may not belong to you.”

I opened the door.

A woman stood in the hallway.

She looked to be in her early thirties, with dark hair pulled loosely behind her head. Her face was pale, and her eyes moved quickly from me to the study.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then I noticed it.

The small scar above her left eyebrow.

I had the same one.

I touched my forehead without thinking.

She noticed the movement.

“Now you believe me?”

I couldn’t answer.

She walked past me and entered the study as though she had been there many times before.

Her eyes settled on the photographs.

“You found the picture.”

“Who are you?”

“I told you. I’m Mary.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

She turned toward me.

“I was the second girl.”

I looked at the notebook.

“Subject B?”

Her expression changed.

“So you found that too.”

“Why did my father do this?”

Mary lowered her eyes.

“Because he believed identity could be controlled. He thought that if he changed what we remembered, he could change who we became.”

I felt a cold sensation spread through my chest.

“Did he experiment on us?”

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she picked up the photograph of the two girls and held it between us.

“Look carefully, Eileen.”

I did.

“Which one do you think is you?”

“The girl on the left.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the side I always remember standing on.”

Mary looked at me for a long moment.

“That’s what he wanted you to believe.”

She placed the photograph on the desk.

Then she pointed to the girl on the right.

“That one was the first to leave the center.”

I stared at her.

“And the other one?”

Mary’s voice became almost inaudible.

“The other one was supposed to disappear.”

A silence settled over the room.

I looked at the photograph again.

Two identical faces.

Two names.

And a past that had been divided between us.

Then Mary reached into her coat and took out a small envelope.

“There’s one more thing,” she said.

She placed it in my hand.

“Your mother knows which girl came home.”

I looked up.

“Then why hasn’t she told me?”

Mary’s eyes met mine.

“Because she was the one who chose.”

I held the envelope without opening it.

My mother’s name wasn’t written anywhere on it, yet I knew it belonged to her. There was something familiar about the handwriting on the front.

A single word:

Eileen.

“What’s inside?” I asked.

Mary looked toward the window.

“Something your mother should have told you a long time ago.”

“Then why didn’t she?”

“Because some people would rather spend their entire lives protecting a lie than admit what they did to create it.”

I opened the envelope.

Inside was a folded letter, yellowed with age. The paper trembled slightly in my hands as I unfolded it.

The date at the top was October 1998.

I began to read:

Daniel,

I cannot keep pretending that this is going to end well. They are both my daughters. They both call me Mother. They both reach for me when they’re frightened.

You keep asking me to choose, as though one of them is a mistake that can simply be corrected.

I won’t forget what you’ve done.

But I cannot let them grow up together. Not while you continue this experiment.

I have made my decision.

One of them will come home with me. The other will remain under your supervision until you promise to end this.

I hope one day you understand what you’ve asked me to do.

— Helen

I read the letter twice.

Then I looked at Mary.

“Helen. That’s my mother’s name.”

She nodded.

“She wrote it the night we were separated.”

“Which one did she take home?”

Mary didn’t answer.

“Tell me.”

“She took you.”

I stared at her.

“Then you were the one left behind?”

“Yes.”

The room seemed to tilt around me.

I looked at the photograph of the two girls. One had been allowed to return to an ordinary home. The other had remained in a place where her father studied her memories and recorded her behavior.

“Why didn’t she come back for you?”

Mary’s expression hardened.

“She tried.”

“When?”

“Several times. But Daniel always found a reason to stop her. He told her I needed more treatment. He told her I wasn’t ready. Eventually, he convinced her that taking me away would make everything worse.”

I looked down at the letter.

“Did she believe him?”

“For a while.”

“And then?”

Mary turned away.

“Then she stopped asking.”

I wanted to defend my mother. I wanted to believe there was a reason, something that would make her decision easier to understand.

But the letter was still in my hands.

And it was written in her own words.

I folded it carefully.

“Why are you telling me this now?”

Mary reached into her coat again and pulled out a second photograph.

This one showed a little girl standing alone in a narrow room. She was wearing the same yellow dress.

On the back was a handwritten note:

Subject B — Final observation. November 1998.

I looked at Mary.

“Is this you?”

She nodded.

“Where was this taken?”

“At the center.”

I studied the photograph more closely.

Behind the girl stood a tall mirror.

In its reflection, another figure was visible.

A woman.

I moved the photograph closer to my face.

The woman looked like my mother.

But there was something written beneath the image.

A sentence I had never seen before:

The child who went home was not the child we intended to save.

My fingers went cold.

I looked at Mary.

“What does that mean?”

For the first time since she had arrived, she seemed afraid.

“It means,” she whispered, “that your mother may have taken the wrong girl.”

I couldn’t stop looking at the sentence:

The child who went home was not the child we intended to save.

I read it again, hoping the words would somehow change.

They didn’t.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

Mary took the photograph from my hands.

“It means Daniel had a plan. And your mother didn’t know everything about it.”

“You’re saying she took the wrong child?”

“I’m saying she believed she had made the right choice.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Mary placed the photograph on the desk.

“Your father never told anyone the entire truth. Not even your mother. He divided the information between different people, making sure no one could understand what he was doing without the others.”

I looked at the notebook.

“Then how do you know?”

“Because I found some of his records after he died.”

“Where?”

“At the research center.”

I stared at her.

“You went back there?”

Mary nodded.

“Several years ago. I wanted to know why he had kept me there. I thought I would find answers.”

“And did you?”

“Not the ones I expected.”

She reached for the notebook and turned to a page near the middle.

There was a diagram drawn in black ink. Two circles were connected by a series of lines. Beneath them, my father’s handwriting appeared:

Identity Transfer — Phase Two.

I felt my stomach tighten.

“What is this?”

“His final project.”

“Identity transfer?”

Mary looked at me.

“He believed that memories could be separated from the people who experienced them. He wanted to create two individuals who would each carry parts of the other’s identity.”

I shook my head.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“It didn’t make sense to me either. Not until I found the photographs.”

She pointed to the diagram.

“Look at the dates.”

I followed the lines.

The first date was October 1998.

The second was November 1998.

The third was marked simply:

2024 — Final Selection.

I looked up.

“Final selection of what?”

Mary didn’t answer.

Instead, she opened another section of the notebook.

There was a list of names:

My father’s name.

My mother’s name.

Mary’s name.

And mine.

Beside my name, someone had written:

Primary Identity — Unconfirmed.

I felt the room grow smaller.

“Why would he write that?”

Mary closed the notebook.

“Because he never believed the experiment was finished.”

A sudden vibration came from my phone.

A new message.

Unknown number.

I opened it.

There was no greeting, no explanation.

Only a photograph.

It showed my mother standing outside the research center.

She looked younger, perhaps in her late thirties.

Beside her stood a little girl in a yellow dress.

I enlarged the image.

The girl’s face was partly hidden, but I could see enough.

She was holding my mother’s hand.

And my mother was looking at her with an expression I had never forgotten:

Love.

Then I noticed the date printed beneath the photograph:

November 1998.

I looked at Mary.

“Who sent this?”

She stared at the screen.

“I don’t know.”

Another message appeared:

Ask your mother which daughter she buried.

For a moment, the room went completely silent.

I looked at Mary.

She looked back at me.

Neither of us spoke.

Because suddenly, the question wasn’t which girl had gone home.

It was whether the other girl had ever really died.

I read the message again.

Ask your mother which daughter she buried.

For several seconds, I couldn’t move.

My mother had never told me about a funeral. There had never been a sister whose death I remembered, no grave I had visited, no story about a child who hadn’t survived.

At least, not one I could recall.

I looked at Mary.

“Did you know about this?”

She shook her head.

“Your mother never told me.”

“Then why would someone send me this?”

“Because they want you to ask questions.”

“Questions? Someone is telling me that one of us might be dead!”

Mary looked away.

“Perhaps that’s exactly what they want you to believe.”

I stood up and began pacing around the room.

My thoughts were moving too quickly. Every photograph seemed to contradict the one before it. Every document offered an answer, only to create another question.

I needed to hear my mother’s voice.

I called her.

She answered almost immediately.

“Eileen?”

“Mom, I need you to tell me the truth.”

“What happened?”

“Did you ever bury a child?”

The silence that followed was unlike anything I had heard before.

Then she whispered:

“Where did you hear that?”

My heart began to pound.

“Is it true?”

“Come home, Eileen.”

“Just answer me.”

“I can’t explain this over the phone.”

“Then explain it in person.”

She took a shaky breath.

“Please. Come alone.”

The call ended.

I turned toward Mary.

“She’s hiding something.”

Mary nodded.

“She always has.”

I picked up my coat and the photographs.

Mary reached for my arm.

“There’s something you should know before you see her.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“If your mother tells you that one of us died, don’t ask her which one.”

“Why not?”

Mary looked directly into my eyes.

“Because she might not know.”

I stared at her, unable to understand.

“How could a mother not know which daughter she buried?”

Mary released my arm.

“Because Daniel never allowed her to see the face.”

The words settled between us.

I wanted to ask more, but Mary had already stepped toward the door.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Somewhere I should have gone years ago.”

“Mary!”

She stopped without turning around.

“Don’t let her show you just one photograph, Eileen. Ask for all of them.”

Then she left.

I remained in the study, holding the photograph of the two little girls.

For the first time, I noticed something I had overlooked.

The girl on the left was wearing a small bracelet.

The girl on the right wasn’t.

I looked at my own wrist.

I had worn that same bracelet for as long as I could remember.

A thin silver chain with a tiny engraved letter:

E.

I turned the photograph over.

Beneath the faded date, almost hidden by a crease in the paper, was another handwritten line:

The bracelet identifies the child who left.

I looked at the two girls again.

And suddenly, I wasn’t sure which one I was looking at.

The drive to my mother’s house felt longer than it should have.

I kept one hand on the steering wheel and the other wrapped around the silver bracelet on my wrist.

The letter. The photographs. My father’s notebook.

Every piece of evidence seemed to point in a different direction, yet they all led back to the same person.

My mother.

When I arrived, the front door was already open.

She was waiting for me in the living room, sitting beside the window. Her hands were folded tightly in her lap.

She looked older than I remembered.

Not because of the years, but because of something she had been carrying for too long.

“You’re here,” she said.

I placed the photographs on the table.

“I want the truth.”

She looked down at them.

For a moment, her face seemed to lose all expression.

“Where did you find these?”

“At Father’s house.”

She closed her eyes.

“I begged him to destroy them.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew one day you’d find them.”

I sat opposite her.

“Who was the other girl?”

My mother looked at me.

“Her name was Mary.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Was she my sister?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you tell me I was an only child?”

“Because your father insisted that you had to forget.”

“Forget what?”

She looked toward the window.

“That you were ever two.”

I waited.

She took a slow breath.

“When you were little, your father began working on a project at the Morgan Behavioral Research Center. At first, he told me it was about memory and childhood development. He said he wanted to understand how children formed their sense of identity.”

“And then?”

“Then he started treating you and Mary as if you were part of an experiment.”

I leaned forward.

“What did he do to us?”

“He separated you. He asked us not to use both names in the same room. He made us follow different routines. He kept records of everything.”

“Why?”

“He believed that if two children shared the same face, their memories could be shaped until one could be mistaken for the other.”

I stared at her.

“That’s impossible.”

“I thought so too.”

She reached for one of the photographs.

“लेकिन आपका पिता आश्वस्त था कि वह ऐसा कर सकता है।” (اعتذار، الجملة تداخلت لغوياً، التصحيح بالإنجليزية: "But your father was convinced he could do it.")

“But your father was convinced he could do it.”

I looked at the picture of the two girls.

“Which one did you take home?”

My mother began to cry.

“I took the child I believed was you.”

“Believed?”

She nodded.

“Your father had changed the labels on the records. He told me that the girl wearing the bracelet was Eileen.”

I looked down at my wrist.

The silver chain suddenly felt heavier.

“And was he telling the truth?”

My mother covered her mouth.

“I don’t know.”

I stood up.

“You don’t know?”

“I was terrified, Eileen. I had lost control of everything. Your father told me that if I questioned him, he would make sure I never saw either of you again.”

I turned away, trying to steady my breathing.

“Then what happened to Mary?”

My mother wiped her tears.

“Your father said she had died.”

“Did you see her body?”

“No.”

“Did you attend a funeral?”

She shook her head.

“Then how could you believe him?”

“Because he showed me a death certificate.”

I stared at her.

“Where is it?”

“I kept it.”

“Where?”

She pointed toward a small cabinet beside the fireplace.

“Inside the bottom drawer.”

I opened it and found a thin folder.

Inside was a single document.

The name was clear:

Mary Morgan.

But the date of death was missing.

And beneath the official stamp, someone had written a sentence in blue ink:

Identity not independently verified.

I looked at my mother.

“Who wrote this?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve never seen that handwriting before.”

I turned the paper over.

There was a small printed code at the bottom.

A reference number.

And beside it, a location:

Morgan Behavioral Research Center — Archive 07.

I slowly folded the document.

My father had never proved that Mary was dead.

He had only made everyone believe she was.

And somewhere inside that abandoned research center, there might still be a record of what really happened.

My phone vibrated.

A new message appeared:

You have the wrong death certificate.

A second message followed:

The dead girl was never Mary.