Only one mother

Anda looked out the window and saw that the person who had just rung her gate bell was a stranger.
"Must be a neighbor," she thought.
They had recently moved into this house, and she didn't know all her neighbors yet. It was a small neighborhood of new homes, inhabited by young families with children. They were the only ones without kids.

She opened the door and called out:
"Who are you looking for?"
"Anda Baciu."
She walked toward the gate.
"That’s me."
The woman smiled.
"I’ve come on behalf of your sister."
Anda raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"I don’t have a sister," she said.
Glancing left and right along the street to make sure no neighbors could overhear, she threw the gate wide open and said curtly:
"Come inside; let’s not talk here at the gate."
"Your sister, Reli, reached out to us—we’re an organization that handles cases like this; I won’t go into the details."
"I think there’s been a mistake. Like I said, I don’t have a sister."
"Believe me," the woman said with a smirk, "we’ve investigated, and we have documentation proving that you are the sister Reli asked us to find."
"I’m an only child."
"Those aren’t your parents."
Anda stood up abruptly and said firmly:
"Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but this conversation ends here. I am convinced you are making a serious mistake. I am not the person you’re looking for."
"Yes, you are." "Believe me, we’ve conducted an investigation, and we can prove that we’re not mistaken. Reli is your sister, and those people you call your parents actually stole you from the hospital."
"Where did you get this information?" she asked, clearly annoyed—all pretense of politeness gone. "And what kind of organization with honest intentions barges into someone’s life like this?"
"We have all the information. We know who raised you; we know they’re very wealthy. We also know your husband is very wealthy—we know everything."
"It’s a pity you don’t know how to approach a subject like this."
"That’s not our line of work. Look, Reli is inviting you to a restaurant; your mother will be there too, so you can get to know each other."
Anda fell silent.
The woman gave her the address of a restaurant in town and the time set for the meeting, a satisfied smile on her face.
"I believe I’ve done my duty. Goodbye."
Anda remained where she was for quite a while after the woman left.

She hurriedly grabbed her keys, got into her car, and headed toward her parents' house.
"Mom, you won’t believe what happened!" she exclaimed, then recounted the story. Melania stared at her without blinking, then rose from her chair.
"I’ll be right back," she said, heading upstairs. She soon returned, carrying a file, which she placed on the table.
"Anda, it’s true—you were adopted."
"What?!"
"Yes. I couldn’t bring myself to tell you." Out of selfishness, out of an excess of love, for fear of losing you—perhaps a combination of all these. But I didn’t steal you from the hospital. Look, here are all the documents. You were fourteen months old when I adopted you; you had been abandoned at the hospital since birth. I couldn’t have children of my own, and we had come to terms with that—until a pediatrician, a colleague of your father’s, told him about you. You were about to be sent to an orphanage, but he couldn’t bring himself to let that happen. He had grown fond of you—just as we did the moment we first saw you. You looked like a little angel. Anyway, I adopted you, but I didn’t steal you. And I didn’t buy you, either. Your birth mother abandoned you at the hospital and signed a statement declaring that she lacked the means to raise you. She consented to your adoption, should anyone wish to take you in, stating that she would never look for you and would never make any claims.
Look, here are all the documents.
Anda took the file with trembling hands and read through it.
She closed it and looked at Melania.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m sorry. To us, you were everything that mattered in the world. I don’t know—I was afraid of opening a wound that might never heal.
I was wrong. I kept putting it off, hoping I would never have to tell you. Anda, I never wanted to keep you from knowing your mother—please, believe me.” - Don’t you find it strange that they want to meet me now, after thirty years?
They want us to meet at a restaurant. Will you come with me?
- Perhaps it’s not my place to be there.
- I’m not going alone.
- Why not invite them over to our place instead? They are, after all, your mother and sister.
- Let’s get to know each other first.

She hadn’t slept all night; she had paced around the house, talking to herself, turning the situation over in her mind from every angle.
- And how am I supposed to call a stranger "mother"? Maybe I should be feeling something—I don’t know—my blood should be boiling in my veins, my heart should be pounding hard enough to burst through my chest, I should be gasping for air. I have a sister. A sister with whom I share no memories, with whom I never shared a single toy or even a slice of bread. Maybe I’m selfish; maybe I’m a bad person. Perhaps I’ve had too good a life—no worries, no hardships—to be able to understand. But even so, these thirty years have erased any connection between us.
And as for her—the woman who brought me into this world—what kind of soul could she have had to abandon me like that?!
Maybe I take after her; maybe I have no soul either.
She didn’t know if she had found all the answers, but she did know that none of this had been her fault.

- Just be polite, Melania had told her.
They met in front of the restaurant. Anda looked at each of them in turn. Narrow forehead, square-shaped face, small black eyes—not a single feature resembled hers.

Reli wanted to hug her, to sit down, but Anda stopped her.
"Let’s sit down," she said.
She looked at Melania.
Melania was smiling, but Anda could see that her eyes were red from crying and that she hadn’t slept.
She turned toward the woman who had given birth to her and asked, with a smile:
"Do you know when my birthday is—the day you gave birth to me?"
The woman fell silent and looked at Reli, pleading for her help.
"Anda," Melania whispered, "let’s talk first—let’s see what they have to say."
"No, Mom. I didn’t sleep all night, trying to make sense of what happened to me. And now I understand. You’ve been crying and haven’t slept—you, a stranger who took me into her arms and raised me, the person to whom I owe everything I am today. As for *her*—the woman who gave birth to me but abandoned me in the hospital like trash, and who now comes to turn my life upside down—not out of love, but for some reason I have no desire to know—she doesn’t even know the day she gave birth to me. I don’t think I want this circus to continue any longer; it’s pointless.
I don’t know what you’re after, Reli. Look—here are the documents proving that you’re lying. Or perhaps that *you* were lied to. I wasn’t stolen from the hospital; I was left there by the woman who gave birth to me. I’m sorry, but your mother is not my mother. I have only one mother: the woman who raised me." It was a sunny day in May, just as sunny as yesterday—the day he had turned thirty.