Two days after moving in with his best friend, my eighteen-year-old son came home crying, clutching an adoption record.
“Mom, please don’t call Ben.”
The document led us to the hospital where I’d given birth to twins. My husband had told me one baby hadn’t survived—but archived records showed both boys were born alive.
While I recovered from severe bleeding, an adoption had been arranged using a consent form I’d never knowingly signed.
Ben, my son’s childhood best friend, was his twin brother.
His adoptive mother feared losing him, but I reassured her: “I’m not here to take your place.”
When Ben asked if he could have both of us, I said yes.
Eighteen years after believing I’d lost my baby, I finally had a chance to know him.