Five Years Later, My Twins Stood Before Him, and When His Mother Came, the Color Faded from Her Smile

At the moment when my five-year-old twins stared fearfully at an unfamiliar man in the shopping center, I realized that the past had caught up with me.

It was Saturday, four o’clock in the afternoon, in Indianapolis. In front of the toy store, the children’s noise, the smell of roasted almonds, and the metallic rumble of the escalator mixed together. I held Evan’s left hand and Miles’s right. Both were talking to me at the same time.

“Mom, we’ll only look at the giant robot,” Evan told me.

“Only look?” I raised an eyebrow. “Last time, only looking brought three dinosaurs home with us.”

“They were lonely,” Miles answered seriously.

I laughed. It was then that I saw him.

A tall man stood at the entrance of the department store, and it seemed as though all the noise had stopped around him. First I noticed his expensive coat, then his dark hair, tired eyes, and sharp facial line.

Graham Holloway.

Five years disappeared in one second.

He did not look at me. He was looking at the children. First at Miles, then at Evan. Both boys had the blond hair they had taken from me, but their eyes… gray, with a cold blue tint. Exactly like Graham’s.

Evan squeezed my fingers more tightly.

“Mom, why is that man looking at us?”

Graham looked at me then. Astonishment, fear, and something that I had never heard in his voice five years earlier appeared on his face—regret.

“Audrey?” he barely uttered.

“Do not come near the children.”

“They…”

“You already know the answer.”

He took one step forward, but I pulled the boys back. The small wooden star attached to the bag, which Miles had drawn for me that morning, struck my wrist. It was an ordinary thing, made to distinguish the children’s bags, but at that moment I gripped it as if it were a shield.

“Five years ago you told me that our future could not withstand your family,” I said quietly. “Why are you surprised now that life continued without you?”

Graham could not take his eyes off the boys.

“My mother told me that the children were no longer there.”

My breath froze.

“What did you say?”

“She told me that you had lost them. That at the hospital… that you yourself did not want to see me.”

Miles lifted his head.

“Mom, how does he know our names?”

I could not answer. At that moment, the sharp sound of a woman’s heels rang out behind me. I recognized the perfume immediately—the heavy, sweet scent of white lilac. Five years ago I had smelled that same scent when Graham’s mother came to our apartment and put a check on the table.

Vivian Holloway.

“Graham,” she said, as though she were an actress who had arrived late onstage. “What are you doing here?”

Her gaze moved to the boys. First astonishment appeared on it, then such fear that her face suddenly went pale.

“This is impossible,” she whispered.

“Did you tell him the same thing?” I asked.

Vivian pressed her lips together.

“Audrey, there is no need to make scenes in this place.”

“You made the scene five years ago. I am only seeing its ending now.”

Graham turned to his mother.

“What does this mean?”

“Let’s go home,” she said quickly.

“No. You will answer me right here, now.”

People slowly began looking at us. The boys stood at my sides, the white soles of their sneakers reflected on the shopping center’s polished floor.

Vivian took a phone out of her bag.

“I’ll call a lawyer.”

“Why do you need a lawyer if you have done nothing wrong?” I asked.

Her hand stopped moving on the phone.

That night five years ago, when I told Graham about the pregnancy, he first smiled at me, then told me that there was one condition in his father’s will: if he married me, the family would lose two million dollars. I thought he had made his choice.

Now, for the first time, I thought that perhaps he had never heard the whole truth.

Graham leaned toward me.

“Audrey, please. Give me one chance, just once, to explain.”

“You should have explained when you left me alone at the hospital door.”

“I was there?”

His question sounded so strange that my heart began beating quickly.

“You yourself told me that you would not come anymore.”

“Did I not call even once? Did I not send a letter?”

“No.”

Vivian suddenly extended her hand and grabbed Graham’s arm.

“Enough. This woman has her own purpose.”

“What purpose?” Graham freed his arm. “The children are mine, aren’t they?”

At this question, the noise of the shopping center seemed to disappear completely.

I heard only Miles’s breathing and the light tapping of the small wooden star on my bag.

“You must prove that,” I said.

“I will prove it.”

“And if the truth turns out to be heavier than you think?”

For the first time, his eyes moved to me.

“Then I will do everything.”

Vivian gave a short laugh, but the laugh stuck in her throat.

“You can do nothing, Graham.”

There was such certainty in these words that I realized she still had something hidden.

That same evening, after returning home, I placed a black folder on the kitchen table. For five years it had lain in the lowest drawer of my closet, under the children’s old blankets. In the folder were two hospital bracelets, one unopened letter, and a document whose existence Graham knew nothing about.

I put Miles to sleep, pulled Evan’s blanket over his shoulders, and opened the folder.

Before I could take out the first sheet, a heavy knock sounded at the door.

The second knock was stronger.

Graham’s voice sounded from behind the door.

“Audrey, I know you have those documents. Open the door before my mother does this…”

I opened the door only on the chain. Graham stood alone. Rain and fear were written on his face.

“Where is your mother?” I asked.

“In the car. She told me that if I came inside here, I would lose everything.”

“You have already lost what was most important.”

He looked at the folder.

“What is inside?”

“The answer to your five-year-old questions.”

“Audrey, I swear, I knew nothing about the children.”

“Then why did you keep silent when your mother told me that I had to marry another woman?”

Graham lowered his eyes.

“My father’s will was not only about marriage. It said that two million dollars would remain in the family fund if I did not produce an heir before I turned thirty. My mother told me that you had lost the children and that there was no point in returning.”

“The money in the fund grew for five years,” I said. “And someone is very afraid that now its real owners will be found.”

Outside, the headlights of Vivian’s car flashed against the window.

Graham lowered his voice.

“Tell me, are they my children?”

I opened the folder on the table, but had not yet taken out the sheet.

“We are going to the clinic tomorrow morning. You will hear the answer together with everyone.”

He nodded.

When I locked the door, the phone rang. It was an unknown number.

“If you publish the DNA result,” a woman’s voice said, “you will no longer be able to protect the boys.”

I fell silent.

“Who are you?”

In response, I heard only one sentence:

“Ask Graham why he did not open his father’s last letter…”

I called Graham immediately. It was six in the morning, and the city was still being soaked by the night rain.

“Where is your father’s letter?” I asked.

After a long silence, he answered me:

“With my mother. She told me that it was only about my wedding.”

“Bring it to the clinic today.”

Two hours later we were sitting in the white room of a private laboratory. The ticking of the clock could be heard on the wall. Evan and Miles were building wooden blocks in the children’s corner. Graham sat far from me, while Vivian stood at the door and nervously scratched the leather of her glove.

The doctor brought in two sealed packages.

“The results are ready compared with samples from both boys,” he said. “Mr. Holloway, are you ready?”

“No,” Graham answered. “But open them.”

The doctor took out the sheet and read aloud:

“The probability of paternity is ninety-nine point nine hundred ninety-nine percent. Both children are the biological children of Graham Holloway.”

Graham lowered his eyes. His fingers tensed on his knees so strongly that his nails cut into the skin.

“My children…” he said quietly.

Miles lifted his head.

“Mom, is this man our father now?”

Graham’s eyes lit up, but he could not answer.

I answered in his place:

“He is your father, but fatherhood does not begin only with blood.”

Vivian suddenly laughed.

“This test changes nothing. He will not receive the money.”

“Whom do you mean?” the doctor asked.

I took the second document out of my bag. It was a notarized statement by Graham’s father, Richard Holloway. It said that two million dollars were intended for his grandchildren and that the money was to be transferred into their name immediately upon confirmation of their birth.

Graham snatched the sheet from me.

“Why did I not see this?”

“Because your mother hid it,” I answered. “She also had the letter. Your father wrote to you that he knew about the pregnancy and wanted to accept the children into the family.”

Vivian’s face turned gray.

“This is fake.”

“No,” I said. “The original of the letter is with the lawyer. There is also a recording of your voice in which you ask the doctor to tell Graham that the pregnancy had been terminated.”

Graham slowly turned toward his mother.

“You knew?”

Vivian’s lips trembled.

“I was protecting our family.”

“You hid my children from me.”

“You had to preserve the money! If you married this woman, we would lose everything.”

“I have already lost everything,” he said. “Five years.”

At that moment my phone rang. Lawyer Nino told me that she had received a notification from the bank: they were trying to transfer two million dollars from the family fund.

Vivian closed her eyes.

Graham turned toward me.

“Audrey, please, do not take the children away from me.”

“No one is taking them from anyone. But you must decide for yourself whether you will be a father or only an heir who came in their name.”

He did not have time to answer. The laboratory telephone rang.

Nino said in a worried voice:

“The police told me that an unfamiliar woman was seen near your house. She already had the address obtained from the boys’ school…”