I dreamed of being a mother more than anything else in the world. After many years of suffering and loss, my prayers were answered, and my family grew beyond my wildest dreams. But 17 years later, one quiet sentence from my adopted daughter broke my heart.
I sat in my car in the car park of the fertility clinic and watched as a woman walked out holding an ultrasound photo.
Her face glowed with joy, as if she had been given the whole world.
I was so devastated that I couldn’t even cry.
At home, my husband and I tiptoed around each other, choosing our words carefully, as if we were choosing which floorboards to step on in an old house.
I was so devastated that
I couldn’t even cry.
A few months later, when my next fertile period came around, the tension returned to our home.
‘We can take a break.’ My husband put his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs making small circles.
‘I don’t want a break. I want a baby.’ He didn’t argue. What could he say?
The miscarriages came one after another.
Each time it seemed faster and colder.
The third happened when I was folding baby clothes I had bought on sale. I couldn’t help myself.
I was holding a jumpsuit with a duckling on the front when I felt the familiar, terrible warmth.
My husband was patient, but the losses were taking their toll on our relationship.
The losses were taking their toll on our relationship.
I saw the quiet fear in his eyes every time I said, ‘Maybe next time.’
He was worried about me, worried about my pain, worried about what all these desires were doing to both of us.
After the fifth miscarriage, the doctor stopped using encouraging words. He sat across from me in his sterile office with cute pictures of babies on the walls.
‘Some bodies just… don’t work,’ he said softly. ‘There are other options.’
That night, John slept, and I envied him because I couldn’t find peace anywhere.
I got out of bed.
Sitting alone on the cold tiled floor of the bathroom, leaning against the bathtub, I looked at the seams between the tiles and counted the cracks.
It was the darkest moment of my life.
I was desperate, drowning, and so I grabbed onto anything that could end my suffering.
For the first time in my life, I prayed out loud.
“Dear God, please… if you give me a child… I promise I will save one too. If I become a mother, I will give a home to a child who doesn’t have one.”
The words hung in the air, and I felt… nothing.
‘Can you even hear me?’ I said, sobbing.
I never told John about this. Not even when I received an answer to that prayer.
Ten months later, Stephanie was born, screaming and pink and angry at the world.
She came into the world a fighter, demanding, living in a way that took your breath away.
John and I burst into tears, hugging each other tightly, surrounding our little girl with all the love we had waited so long to share with her.
Joy overwhelmed me, but the memory sat right there with it.
I had made a promise in prayer about this child, and now I had to fulfil it.
A year later, on Stephanie’s first birthday, while the guests were singing and the balloons were touching the ceiling, John and I went into the kitchen.
I put the adoption papers in a folder that I had decorated with wrapping paper. John smiled and raised an eyebrow when I handed it to him with a ribbon-adorned pen.
‘I just wanted to make it pretty. To welcome the new member of our family.’
We signed the adoption papers.
Two weeks later, we brought Ruth home.
She had been left on Christmas Eve, near the main Christmas tree, with a blank note.
She was tiny, quiet — completely different from Stephanie.
I thought this difference meant that the girls would complement each other perfectly, but I didn’t consider how much more pronounced their differences would be than I had imagined when they grew up.
Ruth explored the world as if trying to figure out the rules before anyone noticed she was breaking them.
I noticed right away that Ruth didn’t cry unless she was alone.
‘She’s an old soul,’ my husband joked, gently rocking her in his arms.
I held her closer.
I never would have thought that this precious child would grow up to break my heart.
I never would have guessed that this precious child
would break my heart.
The girls grew up knowing the truth about how Ruth was adopted. We put it simply:
‘Ruth grew in my heart, and Stephanie grew in my tummy.’
They accepted it as children accept the fact that the sky is blue and water is wet. It just was.
I loved them both equally intensely, but as they grew older, I began to notice friction between my girls.
I began to notice friction between my girls.
They were so different… like oil and water.
Stephanie attracted attention without even trying. She walked into rooms as if she owned them and fearlessly asked questions that made adults feel uncomfortable.
She did maths problems and attended dance classes as if they were handing out medals.
She was determined and resolute to be the best at everything.
Stephanie attracted attention without any effort.
Ruth was cautious.
She studied moods like other children memorised words. She learned early on how to disappear when she became too much, and how to make herself small and quiet.
At some point, caring about their equality began to seem to me not quite equal.
The competition was subtle at first. Little things that you could almost miss if you didn’t pay close attention.
The competition was subtle at first.
Stephanie interrupted. Ruth waited.
Stephanie asked. Ruth hoped.
Stephanie assumed. Ruth pondered.
At school events, teachers praised Stephanie’s confidence and Ruth’s kindness. But doesn’t kindness seem quieter? It’s easier to overlook when confidence is standing nearby, waving its hand cheerfully.
Teachers praised Stephanie’s confidence and Ruth’s kindness.
Loving them both equally began to seem unfair when the girls did not experience love equally.
How could they? They were different people with different hearts, different fears, different ways of measuring whether they were enough.
In adolescence, their rivalry became fierce.
Stephanie accused Ruth of being ‘overprotected.’ Ruth reproached Stephanie for ‘always wanting to be the centre of attention.’
As teenagers, their rivalry intensified.
They fought over clothes, friends, and attention.
‘It’s just normal sister stuff,’ I reassured myself. ‘It’s fine.’
But there was something deeper beneath the surface. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
Sometimes, in the silence after the shouting and closed doors, it felt like there was something toxic lurking beneath the surface of our family, like an abscess waiting to burst.
They fought over clothes, friends, and attention.
The night before prom, I stood at Ruth’s door with my phone in my hand, ready to take pictures.
‘You look beautiful, darling. That dress suits you so well.’
Ruth clenched her teeth. She didn’t look at me, but I felt something change between us.
‘Mum, you’re not coming to my prom.’
I smiled, confused. ‘What? Of course I’m coming.’
I felt something change between us.
She finally turned to face me. Her eyes were red, her jaw clenched, her hands trembling slightly at her sides.
‘No, you’re not coming. And after the ball… I’m leaving.’
‘What?’ I swear, my heart stopped. ‘You’re leaving? Why?’
She swallowed hard.
‘Stephanie told me the truth about you.’
The room grew cold.
‘After the ball, I’m leaving.’
‘What truth?’ I whispered.
Ruth’s eyes narrowed to slits. She had never looked at me like that before…
‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’
‘I don’t know. What did Stephanie tell you?’
Her voice trembled when she finally spoke.
‘What did Stephanie tell you?’
“That you prayed for Stephanie. You promised that if God gave you a child, you would adopt another. That’s why you took me in. The only reason you took me in.”
I sat down on the edge of her bed, my phone still in my hands, forgotten.
‘Yes,’ I said calmly.
‘I prayed for a child and made that promise.’
Ruth closed her eyes. I thought she was hoping I would tell her it was all a lie.
‘So I’m just a bargain. Payment for your real daughter.’
‘I thought she was hoping I would tell her it was all a lie.’
‘No, dear, that’s not it…’ I began, and her eyes flew open.
‘I don’t know how Stephanie found out about this, but let me tell you the truth about that prayer. I never told you about it because it happened at the most difficult time in my life.’
I told her about that night when I sat on the bathroom floor, grieving my fifth miscarriage, and the desperate, irresistible prayer that came from the depths of my soul.
“Yes, Stephanie was the answer to that prayer, and yes, the promise I made stayed with me, but I never saw it as some kind of debt obligation.”
“I never saw it as some kind of debt obligation.”
‘When I saw your photo and heard your story, I immediately began to love you. The promise did not create my love for you. My love for Stephanie taught me that I had even more love for you, and the promise showed me where to direct it.’
Ruth listened. I knew she was. I could see her processing it, trying to fit the new information into the story she was telling herself.
But she was 17, she was vulnerable, and sometimes being right doesn’t matter when someone is already in pain.
Being right doesn’t matter when someone is already in pain.
She went to prom alone after all, and didn’t come home afterwards.
I waited all night.
John fell asleep on the sofa around three, but I couldn’t relax. I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my phone, hoping it would ring.
Stephanie was the first to break down. She came into the kitchen at dawn, her face swollen and red from crying.
She didn’t come home after that.
‘Mum,’ she said. ‘Mum, I’m sorry.’
She told me how she had overheard my conversation with my sister a few months ago when I was talking about prayer, about promises, about how grateful I was that God had given me both girls.
She also said that she twisted it and used it against Ruth in an argument, that the words were meant to hurt, to win.
‘I never thought she would actually leave. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean any of it.’
I hugged my noisy, angry, broken daughter and let her cry.
The days dragged on. John kept saying she would come back. That she just needed time. I wanted to believe him.
On the fourth day, I saw her near the front window.
She was standing on the porch with her overnight bag, hesitating.
I opened the door before she could knock.
I opened the door before she could knock.
She looked tired.
‘I don’t want to be your promise,’ she said. ‘I just want to be your daughter.’
I pulled her close and hugged her tightly.
‘You always have been, baby. You always have.’
Then she started crying. Not the careful, quiet tears she had learned to shed, but the rough sobs that make your whole body shake.
I pulled her close and hugged her tightly.
What will happen next to these characters? Share your thoughts in the comments.
