Who is a child without roots? No one. A ghost that accidentally found a physical shell.”
“Does that mean you always felt like a ghost?” Mikhail asked as he prepared his coffee in my stylish kitchen.
I looked at him—my only friend who knew the whole truth.
My first cry didn’t move her heart. All that continued in the memory of my adoptive parents was a note pinned to a cheap blanket: “Forgive me.”
Lyudmila Petrovna and Gennady Sergeevich—an elderly childless couple—found me early one October morning.
They opened the door and saw a baby. Alive, crying. They had enough civility not to send me to an orphanage, but not enough love to truly make me theirs.
“You’re in our home, Alexandra, but remember—we’re strangers to you, and you to us. We’re just fulfilling a human duty,” Lyudmila Petrovna repeated everyday.
Their apartment became my restriction. I was given a corner in the hallway with a fold-out cot. I ate separately—after them, finishing their refrigerated leftovers.
My clothes were from flea markets, always two sizes too big.
At school, I was an outcast. “Foundling,” “stray,” “nameless”—my classmates muttered.
I didn’t cry. Why bother? I stored it up. Strength. Rage. Resolve. Every shove, every sneer, every cold glance became fuel.
At thirteen, I started working—handing out flyers, walking dogs. I put the money in a crack between the floorboards. Lyudmila Petrovna found it once while cleaning.
“Stealing?” she asked.
“I knew it. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…”
“It’s mine. I earned it,” I replied.
“Then you’ll pay. For food. For living here. You’re old enough.”
By fifteen, I worked every spare minute outside school. At seventeen, I was accepted to a university in another city.
I left with just a backpack and a box—the only thing connecting me to my past: a newborn photo taken by a nurse before the unknown mother took me from the hospital.
“She never loved you, Sasha,” my adoptive mother said at parting.
“And neither did we. But at least we were honest.”
In the dorm, I lived in a room with three friends. At night, I worked at a 24-hour store. My classmates laughed at my worn clothes. I didn’t hear them.
Life is unexpected. Sometimes it provides you a chance where you least predict it. In my third year, destiny smiled—our marketing professor gave us a project: develop a strategy for an organic cosmetics brand.
I didn’t sleep for three days, trying hard to complete assignment. When I finished the presentation, the room fell silent.
A week later, my professor burst into the office:
“Sasha, investors from Skolkovo saw your work. They want to talk.”
Instead of payment, they provided me a small share in the startup. I signed with a trembling hand—I had nothing to lose.
At twenty-three, I bought a spacious apartment in the city center. I brought only my backpack and that box with the photo.
“You know,” I told Mikhail the day we met at a conference, “I thought success would make me happy. But it only made me lonelier.”
That’s how I told my story to the only person who knew it all. Mikhail wasn’t just a friend—he was a private detective. He offered help. Two years of searching.
Irina Sokolova.
47 years old. Divorced. Survives on odd jobs. No children. “No children.”
That line burned more than anything. I saw her photo—a gray face worn down by life.
“She’s looking for work,” Mikhail said. “She cleans apartments. Are you sure about this?”
“Absolutely.”
The plan was simple: Mikhail posted a job ad on my behalf. He interviewed her in my office, at my desk, while I watched via hidden camera.
A week later, Irina began working.
I saw her enter my life with cleaning rags and lemon-scented solutions. The one who had been everything to me, yet chose to be nothing.
I watched her clean my floors, sprinkle my expensive trinkets bought to impress.
Two months. Eight cleanings. She appeared and disappeared, leaving only the smell of citrus and spotless surfaces.
We barely spoke. I was always “too busy” or “on an important call.” But I saw her—every move, every breath.
Every time she left, I took out that baby photo and gazed at the tiny face, looking for answers. Why? What was so wrong with me that she couldn’t love me?
The answer came unpredictedly.
One day she paused by my bookshelf, where a silver frame held my graduation photo.
She brought it closer, squinting, as if trying to miss something long forgotten.
“See something familiar?” I asked.
“Alexandra Gennadievna… I didn’t mean to… I was just dusting.”
“You’re crying,” I said.
“It’s nothing… dust. It irritates my eyes. Happens often.”
“There’s something about you…” she said. “You remind me of someone. From long ago.”
“Irina Mikhailovna, twenty-five years ago you left a child at someone’s door. A girl. With a note: ‘Forgive me.’”
She looked up
“This… can’t be,” she muttered.
“You’ve destr0yed my dreams. I always imagined asking you: why? Why didn’t I even deserve a chance? What was so awful about me?”
“You… don’t understand… I was so young. The baby’s father left when he found out. My parents kicked me out. I had nothing—no home, no money, no support. I didn’t know what to do…”
“So you take me away?” My voice shook.
“I thought it would be better for you. That someone else could give you what I couldn’t. A home, food, love…”
She lowered her head, sobbing.
“Forgive me… if you can. Or at least… let me…”
“Let you what?” I asked.
“Stay near you. Get to know you. Even if it’s just as your cleaner. Just don’t send me away.”
“No,” I said softly. “I don’t want retribution. But there’s nothing to forgive either. You made your choice then. I’m making mine now. I realize you. And myself.”
I brought the photo of newborn me to my eyes.
“You made it,” I muttered. “You made it on your own.”
A few days later, I called her.
I invited her to meet again. To start a new life.
