The first baby was placed in my arms. She had dark hair and the tiniest fingers I had ever seen. I named her Valentina.
The second baby was carried away before I could see her face.
A doctor returned several minutes later and told me she had not survived.
I cried until I had no strength left.
For years, I carried the grief of the daughter I had never been allowed to hold.
Valentina became my reason to live.
I waited tables during the day and studied at night. When she slept, I made bracelets, bags, and small accessories to sell online. At first, I received only one or two orders each week.
Then one photograph of my handmade jewelry went viral.
Orders began arriving from across the country. I hired two women to help me. Then ten. A tiny online store became a brand, and the brand became an international company.
Six years later, I bought our first house.
Ten years later, I owned stores across Mexico.
By the time I was thirty-five, I had more money than the frightened girl who had been thrown into the street could ever have imagined.
But success did not heal everything.
Every birthday reminded me that there should have been two girls sitting beside me.
And every time I looked at Valentina, I wondered what her twin might have looked like.
Twenty years after my parents rejected me, I decided to return.
I told myself I was going back to show them that I had survived without them. I wanted them to see the woman they had abandoned.
I arrived in a black Mercedes and stopped outside my childhood home.
The house looked smaller than I remembered. The gate was rusted, the walls were cracked, and weeds covered the yard where I had once played.
I walked to the front door and knocked.
A young woman opened it.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
She looked almost exactly like me.
She had my eyes, my cheekbones, and the same small mark above her left eyebrow that Valentina had carried since birth.
