With trembling hands, I picked it up.
It said: I know what I saw. Don’t pretend it’s not true.
My heart skipped a beat. I leaned in closer to the door. “What do you think you saw?”
No answer. Then, another note slid out.
If he comes back tonight, I’ll tell everyone—especially Dad—what happened in the garage.
My hands began to shake. She must have seen us two nights ago. She wasn’t supposed to be home.
That night had seemed normal. After dinner, I kept glancing at the clock.
“I’m heading to Jessica’s to study!” Penelope had called. “Back by nine!”
“Text me when you get there,” I replied, barely thinking.
The moment she was gone, I rushed to the garage—not to do pottery, but to pace. I was nervous, unsure if I should even go through with it.
Three days before, I’d gotten a strange text: I found you. My name is Adam. I think I’m your brother.
I thought it was spam and ignored it. But then another message came: I have Mom’s letter to me. And a photo of her holding me the day she gave me up. You look just like her.
My mom had told me about this on her deathbed—that when she was seventeen, she had a baby boy her parents made her give up. She never even got to hold him. She’d spent years trying to find him, but the records were sealed. Eventually, she gave up, married my dad, and had me.
I hadn’t told Sam about the texts. I wasn’t ready. I needed to make sense of it myself.
At 7:30 p.m. sharp, headlights flashed across the garage windows. I heard a car door close and then a soft knock on the side door.
I opened it—and there he was. He looked about forty, with salt-and-pepper hair and Mom’s eyes.
“I almost didn’t come,” he said nervously.
“I almost canceled,” I replied.
We stood there in silence for a few moments before he pulled out a photo—an old adoption paper and a picture of our mom holding him as a baby.
“I didn’t know about you until last year,” he said. “When I started digging into my birth records, I found out I had a sister. It took months to find you.”
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