“Then tell me the complicated truth.”
Natalya sighed.
“Your father didn’t lie. I did come to your house three years ago. I stood on your doorstep, saw his face when he opened the door. I saw the fear in his eyes. And yes, he sent me away. Told me to leave and not come back.”
Dasha felt something inside her break. So Natalya had been lying. In the café, looking her in the eyes, telling her beautiful story of a twenty-year search—she had been lying.
“Then why did you tell me you only found the information six months ago?”
“Because that’s also true.” Natalya leaned forward. “Listen carefully, Dasha. I came to you three years ago. But I didn’t know then that Olya was my sister. I didn’t even know she existed.”
“What? That makes no sense.”
“It does if you know the whole story.”
Natalya stood up, went to the desk, and took a thick folder from a drawer. She returned, sat back in the armchair, and placed the folder on her lap.
“Three years ago, I wasn’t looking for a sister. I was looking for information about my biological mother. About the woman who gave birth to us and died. I managed to find some documents in an archive—old, semi-decayed, but legible. And in one of them was a name. Not Olga’s, no. The name of the woman who adopted my sister. Raisa Pavlovna Komarova.”
“Grandma Raya…” Dasha whispered.
“Yes. I found her address—or rather, the address where she lived 30 years ago. I started digging further. Found out she had died 5 years ago. But she had a daughter, Olga, married to Alexander Terekhov. Residing at such-and-such address.”
“And you came.”
“And I came. But not to a sister. I didn’t know then that Olga was my sister. I thought she was Raisa Komarova’s daughter. Her biological daughter. I wanted to ask her about her mother, about what Raisa might have known about my adoption, about my biological family. Do you understand? I was looking for information, not relatives.”
Dasha tried to process it. Three years ago, Natalya came to them, thinking her mother was just the daughter of a woman who might know something, not knowing her mother was her twin.
“And then?”
“Then your father opened the door. He saw me, and…” Natalya paused. “His face, Dasha. I’ll never forget his face. He turned so pale, as if he’d seen a ghost. And I realized: he knew something. Something I didn’t. I started to explain who I was, why I had come. But he wasn’t listening. He just kept repeating, ‘Leave. Leave immediately. You’re not welcome here.’ And then he slammed the door.”
“He thought you had come to see Mom, as her sister. He knew about you, Grandma Zina told him before the wedding.”
“Yes, I realized that later. Much later. But at the time, I was confused. I didn’t understand why this man reacted so strongly to a simple question about his late mother-in-law.”
Natalya opened the folder and took out several sheets of paper—yellowed, with typewritten text.
“I didn’t give up. After that visit, I kept digging. I sent inquiries to archives I had previously ignored. And a few months later, I got a reply. This document here.”
She handed the sheet to Dasha. The girl took it, her hands trembling, and began to read. It was an extract from some register. Dry, bureaucratic language, dates, numbers, names. And one line that took her breath away: “Komarova, Raisa Pavlovna, b. 1955. Adopted minor Olga (Olga Nikolaevna), b. 1988, from Orphanage No. 3.”
“Adopted,” Dasha whispered. “Mom was adopted. This is… this is an official document.”
“Yes. And in the same orphanage, in the same year, another girl was adopted. Natalya. That’s me. We were taken on the same day, but to different families.”
Dasha looked up at Natalya.
“So you only found out Mom was your sister after that visit to our house?”
“Four months after. I received this document and realized: the woman I had gone to see was not Raisa Komarova’s daughter. She was an adopted child. Like me. And if we were both from the same orphanage, born in the same year, adopted on the same day…”
“You’re twins.”
“Yes. But by then, it had been almost half a year since my visit. I was afraid to go back. Afraid your father would turn me away again. Or call the police, as he threatened. I decided to find another way to contact Olya. I wrote a letter.”
“My father burned it,” Dasha said numbly. “He told me.”
Natalya nodded. Her face contorted with pain.
“I waited for a reply for two months. Then three. Then half a year. Nothing. I thought maybe Olya didn’t want to know me. Maybe she didn’t need a sister who appeared out of nowhere. Maybe she was happy with her life and didn’t want to change it. I tried to accept it. Tried to forget. But I couldn’t.”
“And then you started searching again?”
Comments are closed.