Until last week.
It started with a sharp knock on the front door.
When I opened it, a woman stood there wearing designer clothes and surrounded by a cloud of expensive perfume.
She smiled as if greeting an old friend.
“Hello, Margaret,” she said. “I’m Alicia. We met on the plane 18 years ago.”
The memory hit me instantly.
My stomach dropped.
She was the young woman who had sat beside me.
The one who had told me the babies needed someone.
“I’m also the mother of those twins you took from the plane,” she added casually.
Behind me, Ethan and Sophie had appeared halfway down the staircase.
They froze when they heard her words.
“You abandoned them,” I said, my voice tight.
Alicia shrugged lightly.
“I was 23,” she said. “Terrified. Drowning in responsibilities I wasn’t ready for.”
She gestured toward the house.
“I saw you grieving. I thought you needed them as much as they needed someone. So I made a choice.”
“You set me up,” I whispered.
“I gave them a better life than I ever could have,” she replied.
Then she pulled a thick envelope from her purse and handed it to me.
“My father passed away last month,” she continued. “He left his entire estate to my children as punishment for what I did.”
She glanced toward Ethan and Sophie.
“All they need to do is sign this document acknowledging me as their legal mother.”
Sophie stepped forward slowly.
“And if we don’t sign?” she asked.
Alicia smiled thinly.
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