My Sister Adopted a Five-Year-Old Girl Who Looked Astonishingly Like Me. At First, Everyone Joked That She Must Be My Daughter. But Just Two Weeks After the Adoption, My Sister Came to My House in Tears and Said, “Sarah, I Found Out Who Emily’s Real Mother Is.”

I laughed. “Then let’s be sisters.”

A few months later, Linda told me she was pregnant. I hugged her, genuinely happy, although my own inability to have children made the news bittersweet.

Then she disappeared.

Her apartment was empty, her number disconnected, and nobody knew where she’d gone.

For twelve years, I’d wondered what happened to her.

Now her photograph was connected to Emily.

“Sarah,” Mary whispered, “what if she’s alive and wants her daughter back?”

I squeezed her hand.

“We don’t know anything yet.”

But that night, I couldn’t sleep.

The following morning, we visited the adoption agency.

Mrs. Brown, an older caseworker, examined Linda’s photograph.

Then she said something unexpected.

“This woman wasn’t Emily’s biological mother.”

Mary stared at her.

“But we were told—”

“The original records contained an error. Linda temporarily cared for Emily when she was a baby.”