Chapter 142

Chapter 142
Kelly

Susan and I sat in my living room, both of us still shaken from the discovery. The photographs lay between us on the coffee table. Looking at it from afar, I still can’t wrap my head on how real this keep getting. I thought maybe after some time, this all fades and something like this never happened. But each passing minute told me otherwise, no matter how much I wanted to run from this, I couldn’t, it keeps dragging me back.

"When do you plan to confront her," Susan said, breaking the silence.  

I nodded, but I wasn’t naive enough to think we could just barge in and demand answers. Mrs. Kim had been in my life for years, and if she had been hiding something this big, she wouldn’t talk so easily.  

"We can’t just go in blind," I said. "She might deny everything."  

Susan frowned, her fingers tapping against her knee in thought. 

"Then we need more proof."  

"But how?"  

She hesitated. "Maybe through my adoptive parents. Or even old neighbors who lived closed to  Mrs. Kim’s in the neighborhood.  Someone must know something."  

The idea made sense. If Mrs. Kim had played a role in switching us as babies, she couldn’t have done it alone. There had to be traces of the truth somewhere, or so I think. 

"But we can’t take too long," I warned. "If she’s hiding something, she might try to cover her tracks once she realizes we’re acting suspicious."  

Susan nodded in agreement. "Then we start now."  

……..

We decided to begin where it all started, Mrs. Kim’s neighborhood. Since Susan had lived there most of her life, she knew a few older residents who had been around for decades. We drove together, a nervous silence stretching between us. The weight of what we were doing felt heavier than ever.  

"You sure you want to do this?" Susan asked as we parked near the street where she grew up.  

I exhaled slowly. "I don’t think I have a choice."  

The first person we visited was an elderly woman named Mrs. Turner, who live next to Mrs. Kim for nearly thirty years. She welcomed us inside with a warm smile, though her eyes moved with curiosity at our unexpected visit.  

"Susan, dear, it’s been so long! And you must be Kelly," she said, settling into her chair. "What brings you two here?"  

Susan glanced at me before speaking. "Actually, we were hoping you could tell us a little about Mrs. Kim… from years ago."  

Mrs. Turner’s brow lifted. "Mrs. Kim? What for?"  

I hesitated, carefully choosing my words. "We found some old pictures… pictures of Susan and me as babies. In her house."  

Mrs. Turner’s smile faded.  

Susan leaned forward. "Do you remember anything strange about Mrs. Kim back then? Did she ever mention anything about babies?"  

The old woman sighed, her fingers tightening around the armrest of her chair. 

"Well… I do remember one thing."  

Susan and I exchanged a glance.  

"When she first moved here, she used to take care of a newborn baby. A baby that wasn’t hers."  

My stomach dropped. "A baby?"  

Mrs. Turner nodded. "I assumed she was a nanny. But she never spoke much about it. One day, the baby was just… gone."  

"Gone?" Susan echoed, her voice shaking.  

Mrs. Turner gave a small, hesitant nod. "I asked her about it once, but she got defensive. Said the baby wasn’t hers to keep. I didn’t push her after that."  

I swallowed hard. "Do you remember anything else? Who did the baby belong to?"  

"I never saw the mother," Mrs. Turner admitted. "But I remember something odd, Mrs. Kim was visited by a woman a few times. She always came at night, always left quickly. I never saw her face."  

I felt my hands clenched into fists. A woman?  Could she  have been involved in the switch?  

"Do you think you’d recognize her if you saw her again?" Susan asked, voice hopeful.  

Mrs. Turner shook her head. "Too many years have passed, dear."  

We thanked her for her time and left, my mind spinning with the new information.  

……..

If Mrs. Kim had hidden one baby, there was a chance Susan’s adoptive parents knew something too.  

Susan’s relationship with them was good, no doubt. They loved her, but there had always been an invisible distance, one that now made more sense. We arrived at her home, and Susan took a deep breath before ringing the doorbell.  

Her mother, Margaret, answered the door, looking surprised to see us. 

"Susan? And Kelly?"  

"Can we talk?" Susan asked, voice tight.  

Margaret hesitated but eventually nodded, stepping aside to let us in.  

As we sat in their living room, Susan didn’t waste time. "Mom… was I adopted through normal channels?"  

Margaret blinked. "What kind of question is that?"  

"I need the truth," Susan pressed. "Did you and Dad get me from an agency? Or from someone else?"  

Margaret paled. "Susan—"  

"Mom, please."  

Her mother sighed, rubbing her temples. "I’m done have this stupid conversation with you"  

……..

The past few days had been filled with nothing but revelations, and yet, I still felt like we were chasing shadows. Every answer we got only led to more questions, and no matter how hard Susan pressed her adoptive parents, we weren’t getting the full story.  

I sat across from her at the small café near Belmont, stirring my coffee absently as she let out a frustrated sigh.  

“They keep saying the same thing,” she muttered, shaking her head. “Like someone told them not to leak the secret. It’s like they’re scared.”  

That made me sit up straighter. “Scared?”  

She nodded, rubbing her temples. “I don’t know, Kelly. Every time I ask them something specific, like how they adopted me, from who, they just keep repeating the same vague phrases. ‘It was meant to be,’ ‘It was God’s plan,’ ‘You were a blessing to us.’ It’s like they were coached on what to say.”  

I frowned, my fingers tightening around my cup. “And they never say something out of the ordinary? Not even once?”  

Susan hesitated. “Well… sometimes. When they don’t realize I’m paying attention.”  

I leaned in. “Like when?”  

She sighed. “The other day, I asked my dad outright if he knew who my birth parents were. He got quiet for a second, and then under his breath, he said, ‘Some things are better left buried.’”  

A chill ran through me. That didn’t sound like something a parent would say to their child about adoption. It sounded like a warning.  

“Did you press him?” I asked.  

“I tried, but he just shook his head and told me to ‘let the past go.’”  

Susan looked up at me then, her eyes sharp with something close to fear. 

“Kelly, what if they’re hiding something bigger than just my adoption?”  

I wanted to tell her she was overthinking, that maybe her parents were just struggling with the truth themselves, but deep down, I knew better. This wasn’t a simple adoption story. It never had been. Everything about me seemed to be so