All these years, I'd ignored my own flesh and blood and swallowed a stranger's lies instead.
Pushing Emma away again and again, even doubting she was really mine.
I raised my hand and slapped myself across the face.
"Mom was wrong… Mom was a fool."
Emma rushed forward and caught my hand. Her tears fell onto the back of it.
"Mom, I don't care if you yell at me. I'm only scared you'll stop wanting me."
My eyes burned as I pulled her into my arms.
"I'm sorry, Em. I blamed you for nothing. It was all Mom's fault."
"From now on I'll only trust you. I won't listen to anyone else."
Emma let out a breath against my ear and smiled. "It's okay, Mom. We're family. No scammer's going to break that with a few words."
But when I closed my eyes,
all I could see was the blind girl's face, impossible to shake.
So much sadness written across it, so much hurt.
Her face had been ruined, yet something about her still felt so familiar it ached.
A few days later, the blind girl found me again.
"Mom, what happened? Do you believe I'm your daughter now?"
She wrote the words on paper, her hand shaking with urgency.
I stared at her coldly. "Enough!"
"How long are you going to keep lying to me?"
"My daughter is safe at home. She hasn't left my sight in ten years. She has a happy family now, and she's pregnant."
"You honestly don't think a lie like that sounds ridiculous?"
My fury startled her.
She stood frozen for a long time, then without a second of hesitation, pulled two strands of hair from her own head and held them out to me.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
I already knew.
But she still wrote it down.
"If you don't believe me, I'll go with you for a DNA test."
When the results came back, I stood there holding the report and my hands wouldn't stop shaking.
I couldn't think straight.
Right there in black and white—the blind girl's DNA matched mine. She was my biological daughter.
I'd also had them run a fingerprint comparison while they were at it.
The fingerprints were a perfect match for Emma Sullivan.
My eyes went red on the spot. "What the hell is going on?"
The blind girl wept as her pen tore across the paper.
"Mom, just listen to me. Please, just listen."
"The day after the national college entrance exam, I went to summer camp—and someone grabbed me. They put someone else in my place."
"I never came back. For ten years, the person living beside you as Emma Sullivan has been a fake."