I Was Ready to Pass Sentence When I Realized the Woman in the Dock Was My Carbon Copy

She never came.

I prayed for a sibling.

I grew up quiet, careful, and “good,” because being good felt like the safest way to exist in my childhood home.

But one memory never quite fit.

When I was a teenager, I snooped in my father’s desk while my parents were at the grocery store.

My childish curiosity led me to find an old photo tucked beneath tax documents.

A little girl stared back at me, her head tilted the same way mine always tilted in pictures.

But one memory never quite fit.

She had the same eyes, mouth, and even the same tiny scar above the eyebrow that my parents told me I had gotten from falling off my bike.

My stomach turned.

On the back, in my mother’s handwriting, was one word:

CHRISTAL.

That night, I held the photo out with shaking hands and asked, “Who is she?”

My mother froze as if I had slapped her. My father snatched the photo and said, “Nobody.”

My stomach turned.

I said, “She looks like me.”

He didn’t blink.

“That’s just your imagination.”

My mother whispered, “Put it away,” and then they hid it and pretended it never existed.