"How long have you known?"
"Since I was eighteen."
I stared at him.
"Twenty years?"
He nodded.
I felt betrayed in a way I couldn't explain.
It wasn't only that they had hidden Elena.
They had hidden an entire part of my identity.
Every birthday I had celebrated.
Every family photograph.
Every story about my childhood.
There had been another person who should have been there.
Someone who looked like me.
Someone who knew me before I knew myself.
And everyone had decided I didn't deserve to know.
## The Hardest Question
When my mother finally came home, she didn't deny anything.
She simply sat at the kitchen table and cried.
I asked her the question I had been carrying all night.
"Why?"
She looked at me.
"Because your father thought he was protecting you."
"And you?"
She wiped her eyes.
"I was afraid."
"Afraid of what?"
"That if I told you, you would hate us."
