If only they knew they had a granddaughter.
If they ever regretted the decision they made so many years ago.
For twenty years I never received a call.
Not a single letter.
Not a single news item.
Until one morning something unexpected happened.
While reviewing some documents in my office, I found an old photograph that had been stored inside a book for years.
In it, I appeared with my parents in front of our old house.
Behind the photograph was a phrase written in my mother’s handwriting:
“No matter what happens, this will always be your home.”
Those words left me completely paralyzed.
After so many years…
Why had he written that?
That same afternoon I made a decision that I had been putting off for too long.
It was time to return.
Without imagining that, upon crossing that door again, I would discover a truth capable of changing everything I thought I knew about my own family.
PART 2: on the next page.
Part 2: A return full of questions
All the way back to the village I felt a mixture of nervousness, curiosity, and fear. Twenty years had passed since I’d last traveled that road. The landscapes were still familiar, but I was no longer the same young woman who had left with a backpack full of uncertainty.
Now I drove my own car, had built a successful company, and could offer my daughter a life I had never imagined. However, deep down, a part of me still hadn’t healed from that wound.
When I arrived at the entrance to the village, everything seemed smaller.
The square where I played as a child was still there. The bakery still had the same wooden sign, and the church continued to mark the hours with its bells.
Some people were looking at me curiously.
It was clear that few could recognize that teenager who had disappeared two decades ago.
I parked in front of the old family home.
The paint was faded, and the garden no longer looked the same. The flowers my mother had so lovingly tended had been replaced by withered bushes. Even so, that place still stirred countless memories.
I took a deep breath before knocking on the door.
A few seconds passed.
Then I heard footsteps.
The door opened slowly.
She wasn’t my mother.
