Chapter 1: The Birthday She Never Came Back
My favorite babysitter disappeared on my 13th birthday—12 years later, she appeared at my door and said, "Your dad thought he'd gotten rid of me.
It's time you knew the truth."
My mother d!ed when I was a baby, so Anna was the nearest thing I had to one.
Dad worked long hours, and Anna had looked after me since I was eight months old.
She remembered I hated crusts on sandwiches, stayed beside me through fevers, and never missed a school play.
She never missed my birthday either.
On my thirteenth, Anna said she'd bring my favorite chocolate cake and "a surprise you'll understand when you're older."
I waited by the window until the candles melted crooked.
She never came.
The next morning, I pleaded with Dad to call her.
"Don't," he snapped.
"Anna isn't coming back."
"Why?"
"I caught her st3aling from us.
I fired her."
I didn't believe him until he held up an empty cash envelope from his desk and said several hundred dollars were gone.
Anna's phone was disconnected.
Her apartment was empty.
Every letter I mailed came back unopened.
For years, I asked myself how someone who had tucked me into bed the night before could vanish without saying goodbye.
Dad always said the same thing.
"Some people aren't who you think they are.
Stop wasting your time on someone who doesn't want to be in your life."
In time, I stopped asking.
Twelve years passed.
On my twenty-fifth birthday, I returned home from work and saw a woman waiting on my porch.
She was older and thinner, with gray at her temples.
But I knew her eyes immediately.
"Anna?"
My knees almost buckled.
She was holding a little box wrapped in faded yellow paper covered with tiny white stars.
The same paper she'd used for my birthdays as a child.
"I never got to give you this," she whispered.
I stared at her.
"My dad said you st0le from us."
Anna's face hardened.
"Of course he did."
"What does that mean?"
She glanced toward the house, then stepped closer.
"Your dad thought he'd gotten rid of me."
A chill ran through me.
"Gotten rid of you how?"
Anna didn't answer.
She reached into her coat and pulled out a worn envelope.
My name was written across the front in handwriting I didn't recognize.
The postmark was twelve years old.
She placed it in my shaking hands.
"George, your father has lied to you since you were born."
"What is this?"
Anna swallowed.
"It's why he made me disappear.
Everything your father told you about your mother was a lie."
I stared at her.
"What?"
Anna looked at the envelope in my hands.
"There's one thing he never wanted you to find out."
She pointed at the seal.
"Open it."
My fingers barely worked as I slid them beneath the flap.
The moment I saw what was inside, tears ran down my face instantly.
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What did George discover—and how will his father react?
Comment “TRUTH” for Part 2.
