“Paula, you’re not our daughter. We adopted you. Your parents died when you were young and we took you in. I thought that it was time you knew.”
My dad, or the man I thought was my dad, sat across from me, hands clasped and a grim look on his face. You’re not our daughter. The words repeated over and over in my mind, but I couldn’t make sense of it. How could I not be?
“You’re joking, right?” I asked, adding a nervous chuckle to break the atmosphere. I just turned sixteen, so my parents must be trying to pull a prank or something to get my mood up. That must be it. A prank. Somehow.
But the curt “No” that my mom gave me said otherwise. The pieces were starting to fit together in my head. The absence of any baby pictures with either of my parents. Their furtive looks whenever they mentioned my childhood. It all made sense. But it couldn’t - I still didn’t understand.
“I need to be alone,” I said, standing up and leaving to my room. Both my parents knew better than to follow me. I curled up on my bed, and with no idea what else to do, I cried.
It was about an hour later when I heard a knock on my door. “Come in,” I said, wincing at how weak my voice sounded. My dad came in and peered at me with kind eyes through his spectacles. Suddenly, I became aware of my red, puffy eyes - proof of my tears.
“Oh, Paula,” he said in a calm, soothing voice, though I could sense a flood of barred emotions behind it. “Nothing’s going to change. Your mom and I love you, and always will.”
“I know.”
Slowly, he crossed my room, leaned in, and put his arms around me. I hugged him back, stuffing my face into his shoulder, my tears threatening to spill again. This was the man that raised me, treated me as his daughter. It didn’t matter that he wasn’t my father by blood - in the end, I still loved him.