Thirteen years ago I adopted my late husband’s secret twin daughters after his fatal car accident exposed his double life. I gave them everything, but at sixteen, they locked me out of their home. A week later, I learnt the shocking reason for their action.
The morning Andrew died began as usual. The sun had just started peeking through the window, casting everything in a soft golden light that made even my shabby countertops look almost magical.
It was the last normal moment of my life for a long, long time.
When the phone rang, I almost didn’t answer it. Who calls at 7:30 in the morning? But something, perhaps intuition, made me pick up the phone.
‘Is it Ruth?’ A man’s voice, formal, hesitant.
‘Speaking.’ I took another sip of coffee, still watching the vapour dance.
“Ma’am, I’m Officer Matthews with the police department. I’m sorry to inform you, but your husband was in a car accident this morning. He didn’t survive.”
The mug slipped from my hands, shattering on the linoleum. Coffee splattered over my bare feet, but I barely felt it. ‘What? No, that’s…no…not my Andrew!’
‘Ma’am…’ The officer’s voice softened. “There’s something else you need to know. There was another woman in the car who also died…and two surviving daughters. The records in our database confirm they are Andrew’s children.”
I slid down the kitchen cabinet to the floor, barely catching a glimpse of coffee soaking into my dressing gown.
The room swirled around me as ten years of marriage shattered like my coffee mug. ‘Children?’
“Twin girls, ma’am. They’re three years old.”
Three years. Three years of lies, business trips, and late-night meetings. Three years of another family living parallel to mine, just out of sight. This jerk was living a completely different life while I was agonising with infertility and going through two miscarriages.
“Ma’am? Are you still there?”
‘Yes,’ I whispered, though I wasn’t sure I was. Not really. ‘What…what’s going to happen to them now?’
“Their mother had no living relatives. They’re in foster care now, until…”
I hung up the phone. I couldn’t bear to listen any further.
The funeral took place in black robes and pitying looks. I stood like a statue, accepting condolences from people who didn’t know whether to treat me as a grieving widow or a despised woman.
But then I saw two tiny figures in matching black dresses holding hands so tightly that my knuckles turned white. My husband’s secret daughters.
One had her thumb in her mouth. The other was picking at the hem of her dress. They looked so lost and alone. Despite the pain of Andrew’s betrayal, my heart squeezed.
‘Poor things,’ Mum whispered beside me. “Their foster family couldn’t make it today. Can you believe it? No one came to pick them up except the social worker.”
I watched as one of the twins stumbled and her sister picked her up, as if they were two parts of the same person. Something shivered in my chest.
‘I’ll take them,’ I heard myself say.
Mum turned to me, shocked.
“Ruth, honey, you can’t be serious. After what he did?”
“Look at them, Mum. They’re not guilty of anything, and they’re alone.”
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‘But…’
“I couldn’t have children of my own. Maybe… maybe that’s why.”
The adoption process was a nightmare of paperwork and questioning looks.
Why would I want my cheating husband’s secret children? Was I mentally stable enough? Was this some form of revenge?
But I kept fighting, and eventually Carrie and Dana became mine.
Those early years were a dance of healing and pain. The girls were sweet but wary, as if expecting me to change my mind. I caught them whispering to each other late at night, making plans for ‘when she’d chase us away.’
It broke my heart every time.
‘Are we having macaroni and cheese again?’ – Seven-year-old Dana asked one night, wrinkling her nose.
‘That’s what we can afford this week, sweetie,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice light. ‘But look – I put you more cheese, just the way you like it.’
Carrie, always the more sensitive one, must have heard something in my voice. She nudged her sister with her elbow.
‘Macaroni and cheese is my favourite dish,’ she declared, though I knew that wasn’t true.
When they turned ten, I realised I had to tell them the truth. The whole truth.
I’d rehearsed those words hundreds of times in front of the bathroom mirror, but sitting on the bed and looking at their innocent faces, I felt like I might throw up.
‘Girls,’ I began, and my hands trembled. ‘There are some things you need to know about your father and how you became my daughters.’
They sat cross-legged on my faded blanket, mirroring the attention.
I told them all about Andrew’s double life, about their birth mother, and about that horrible morning when I got the call. I told them how my heart broke when I saw them at the funeral and how I knew then that we were meant to be together.
The silence that followed seemed endless. Dana’s face turned pale, her freckles standing out like dots of paint. Carrie’s lower lip quivered.
‘So…so Daddy was a liar?’ Dana’s voice cracked. ‘He cheated on you?’
‘And our real mum…’ Carrie wrapped her arms around herself. ‘She died because of him?’
“It was an accident, honey. A terrible accident.”
‘But you…’ Dana’s eyes narrowed, something hard and horrible creeping across her young face. “You just took us away? Like… like some sort of consolation prize?”
‘No! I took you because…’
‘Because you felt sorry for us?’ interrupted Carrie, tears streaming. ‘Because you couldn’t have children of your own?’
‘I took you because I fell in love with you as soon as I saw you,’ I reached for them, but they both flinched. “You weren’t a consolation prize. You were a gift.”
‘Liar!’ Dana jumped up from the bed. “Everyone’s a liar! Come on, Carrie!”
They ran to their room and slammed the door shut. I heard the click of the lock and then muffled sobs and furious whispering.
The next few years were a minefield. Sometimes we had good days, when we’d go shopping or settle on the couch together watching films. But whenever they got angry, knives came into play.
‘At least our real mum wanted us from the start!’
‘Maybe she’d still be alive if it wasn’t for you!’
Each barb hit the target with surgical precision. But they were in their teens, and I put up with their tempers, hoping that someday they would understand.
Then came that terrible day shortly after the girls turned sixteen.
I came home from work and the key wouldn’t turn in the lock. That’s when I noticed a note taped to the door.
“We are adults now. We need our own space. Go and live with Mum!” – the note read.
My suitcase stood by the door like a coffin for all my hopes. I could hear movement inside, but no one answered my calls and knocks. I stood there for an hour before climbing back into the car.
At my mum’s house, I was thrashing around like a caged animal.
‘That’s how they act,’ she said, watching me make a path on the carpet. ‘Testing your love.’
‘What if it’s more than that?’ I stared at my silent phone. “What if they’ve finally decided I’m not worth it? That I’m just a woman who sheltered them out of pity?”
‘Ruth, stop it now.’ Mum grabbed me by the shoulders.
“You’ve been their mother in every sense for thirteen years. They’re hurting, yes. They’re angry at something none of you can change. But they love you.”
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because they act just like you did when you were sixteen.’ She smiled sadly. ‘Remember when you ran away to Aunt Sarah’s?’
I remember. I was so angry about…what? Over some little thing. I lasted three days before homesickness made me come back.
Another five days flew by.
I called in sick to work. I hardly ate at all. Every time the phone rang, I rushed to it, but was disappointed by another spam call or message from a concerned friend.
Finally, on the seventh day, I got the long-awaited call.
‘Mum?’ Carrie’s voice was thin and soft, like when she climbed into my bed during a thunderstorm. “Can you come home? Please?”
I drove back with my heart in my throat.
The last thing I expected was to see my house transformed. The walls were freshly painted and the floors gleamed.
‘Surprise!’ The girls emerged from the kitchen and smiled like they usually did when they were little.
‘We’ve been planning this for months,’ Dana explained, bouncing on her toes. ‘Working at the mall, babysitting, saving money on everything.’
‘Sorry about the mean note,’ Carrie added embarrassed. ‘It was the only way to surprise me.’
They led me into the nursery, which had now turned into a lovely home office. The walls were a soft lavender colour, and hanging by the window was a picture of the three of us, with tears in our eyes and smiles on our adoption day.
‘You gave us a family, Mum,’ Carrie whispered, her eyes moist. “Even if you didn’t have to do that, even if we were a reminder of everything that hurt. You still chose us, and you were the best mum in the world.”
I pulled my girls closer, inhaling the familiar scent of their shampoo, feeling their hearts beating against mine.
“You two are the best thing that ever happened to me. You’ve given me a reason to keep living. I love you more than you will ever know.”
‘But we know, Mum,’ Dana said, her voice muffled behind my shoulder. ‘We’ve always known.’
This piece is inspired by real events and people, but for creative purposes it was fictionalised. Names, characters and details have been changed to protect privacy and enhance the narrative. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or real events is purely coincidental and is not intended by the author.
