I remember the exact moment. It was a Tuesday. Or maybe a Wednesday. The days blur together when you’re living in a bubble of perfect happiness. My daughter, all sunshine and giggles, was drawing at the kitchen table. Sunlight streamed in, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air, a picture of domestic bliss I’d always dreamed of. She was humming a made-up tune, her small hands clutching a fat green crayon, creating what looked like a chaotic garden.
I was making her favorite snack, apple slices with peanut butter. Life felt… complete. After years of struggling, of feeling like a piece of me was missing, adopting her had filled that void. She was everything. My heart, my purpose, my entire world. My partner and I had gone through so much to bring her home, and every day since had been a miracle.
“Look, Mama!” she chirped, holding up her masterpiece. It was a drawing of our house. Our little family. Me, my partner, and her. But then she pointed to two stick figures, drawn somewhat awkwardly to the side of our family portrait. “And these are my other mom and dad!” she announced, beaming with pride.
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My hands froze mid-air, the knife hovering over the apple. The sound of her voice, so innocent, so full of joy, just echoed in my ears. Other mom and dad? A laugh caught in my throat. What? I tried to dismiss it, to process it. She was five. Kids say the wildest things. Imaginary friends, characters from a book, maybe some kids at daycare had mentioned their parents?
“Oh, darling,” I said, trying to keep my voice light, “who are these friends?” I leaned in, forcing a smile. My mind raced, searching for any logical explanation. No, no, no.
She shook her head, her braids bouncing. “Not friends, Mama. My other mom and dad! You know them!” She pointed to the stick figures again. One had long hair, like mine. The other had short hair, like my partner’s. And they were holding hands.
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A cold dread started to seep into my bones. It felt like someone had opened a trapdoor beneath me. My partner was due home any minute. I just needed to focus. “Sweetie, we’re your only mom and dad,” I said gently, trying to guide her back to reality. “Are these maybe people from a story?”
She looked confused, then shrugged. “No. They gave me this bear!” she said, holding up a small, well-loved teddy bear that had mysteriously appeared in her room a few weeks ago. I’d assumed my partner had bought it. I’d asked, and they’d just smiled, saying “A little surprise for our girl.”
My heart began to pound a frantic rhythm against my ribs. My partner. The bear. A surprise for our girl. That’s what they’d said. But the way she held it, the way she spoke about these “other” parents, it felt… real. Too real.
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The next few days were a blur of forced normalcy. Every innocent comment from her, every glimpse of that bear, sent a fresh wave of panic through me. She’d say things like, “My other mom likes strawberries, just like me!” or “My other dad plays the guitar when I visit.” Visit? Where was she visiting? And when?
I started watching my partner. Closely. Too closely. Every phone call, every late night, every secret smile. I grilled them gently, casually, about the bear. “Oh, that old thing?” they’d said with a dismissive wave. “Just picked it up from a little shop. Thought she’d like it.” Their eyes, usually so warm and open, seemed to flicker, just for a second. Was I imagining things? Was I going crazy?
The doubt gnawed at me. I couldn’t sleep. I’d lie awake, staring at the ceiling, replaying every interaction, every word. We had adopted her through an agency. A closed adoption, we’d been told. No contact with the biological parents. That was our agreement. That was what we had paid for.
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One evening, after she was asleep, I found myself in her room. The bear was tucked under her arm. I picked it up. It was soft, worn. On its paw, barely visible, were three small embroidered initials. Not ours. Not hers. A. C. L.
I felt a scream clawing its way up my throat. I stumbled out of her room, my legs weak, and went straight to my partner’s study. They were working late, as usual. Or so I thought.
“We need to talk,” I said, my voice barely a whisper, trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. I held up the bear, pointing to the initials. “Who are A.C.L.? And who are her ‘other mom and dad’?”
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They looked up, their face pale. Their jaw tightened. The blood drained from their face. A long silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating. I could hear my own frantic heartbeat.
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” they stammered, but their eyes wouldn’t meet mine. They kept looking away.
“DON’T LIE TO ME!” I exploded, the words tearing from my lungs. “Our daughter just told me she has other parents! She talks about visiting them! She has a bear with their initials! What the HELL is going on?!”
They finally looked at me, their eyes filled with a pain that mirrored my own. And then, the dam broke.
“Okay. Okay, you’re right. I should have told you. There are… other parents.” They took a deep breath, and what they said next made my world tilt on its axis. “Remember how we struggled for so long? How we thought we’d never have a child?”
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I nodded, tears streaming down my face. “Yes! That’s why we adopted!”
“I know,” they said, their voice cracking. “But before that… before us… I had an old friend. From college. We were together for a while. We talked about having kids. We tried. And then… she got pregnant. I broke it off with her for different reasons, before she told me. She chose to keep the baby. She eventually put the child up for adoption. And… and I found out. After. I knew I couldn’t just let her go into the system. And then I met you. And you wanted a child so badly.”
My head was spinning. What are they saying?
“So I… I found a way to get her. Through the agency. I pushed for that particular adoption. I helped arrange it. I made sure we got her. I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t risk you leaving me. She needed a family. We needed a family. I wanted to give her a good life.”
I stared at them, trying to piece together the fragments of what they were confessing. It wasn’t making sense. They knew her? They arranged it?
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“What do you mean, you ‘found a way to get her’?” I whispered, my voice hoarse. “Who is A.C.L.?”
They took a shuddering breath, their eyes pleading. “A.C.L. is Allison Carter Lewis. She’s the biological mother. She’s the ‘other mom’.”
I felt like I was going to vomit. “The biological mother? But… but the adoption was closed! And… and you just arranged to get her back? Why didn’t you tell me you knew her?”
They closed their eyes, a single tear escaping. “Because I was the other parent, too.”
My blood ran cold. The air left my lungs in a painful gasp. What?
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“She’s my child,” they choked out, looking at me, utterly broken. “Our daughter… is my biological daughter. And Allison, the ‘other mom,’ is her biological mother. I couldn’t have children with you. I told you that. But I could with her. I just couldn’t tell you. I loved you too much. I wanted a family with you. So I pretended to adopt her with you. I paid Allison to keep quiet, to just be the ‘other mom’ when she visited sometimes. I made sure Allison had a new partner, a kind man, so our daughter had an ‘other dad’ too, a family to visit, a place to understand where she came from, without us knowing the full truth.”
The silence that followed was deafening. The perfect life I thought I had built, the unconditional love I felt for my daughter, the sacred bond with my partner… it all shattered into a million irreparable pieces. The apple slices, the sunlight, the joyful hum, it was all a lie. A carefully constructed, devastating lie. My partner had lied to me about their infertility, about our daughter’s origins, and made me adopt their own biological child with another person, and then created an elaborate, secret arrangement for them to still be in her life.
A man searching through a closet | Source: Midjourney
I looked at them, this person I loved, this person who had been my entire world. And all I could feel was a profound, guttural scream of betrayal. My daughter had an ‘other mom and dad’ because one of them was standing right in front of me, confessing to a deception so deep, it had just ripped my universe apart. And I was the only one who didn’t know. Until now.
