When I was seven, my sister told me that a lady had left me in our house. She heard that her name was Marianne and that she would come back for me. "You need help to find her and I will help you," she told me with the firm conviction of an eight-year-old girl turned into a hero.
I remember that it took us a few days to try to find this lady, Marianne. But, we soon discovered that no one in the village was named that way and amidst laughter and games, we grew up, tackling new challenges, new stages and forgetting about the episode. We never talked about it again and I assumed it was a girl's joke to play detective.
Now, ten years later, a woman who said her name was Marianne showed up at my door. I was the one who opened it. I thought she was beautiful to look at, despite the wear and tear of the hard-living conditions she seemed to be wearing. She was asking about my mother. She looked a certain age and at the same time, she didn't. Something young was shining in her eyes. But what struck me was the extraordinary resemblance to me.
(End of five minutes)
I didn't invite her in, but I called my mother, who almost fainted when she saw her.
I helped my mother and the woman also prepared to hug her and between the two of us, we sat her down. I ran to the kitchen to get her a glass of water and when I came back, the woman was gone.
"What did the woman?" I asked amazed.
"I asked her to leave, to come back another time", she answered, looking for my eyes.
I was no longer a child, I was seventeen and I knew that my mother was hiding something from me. I didn't insist out of respect for her discomfort, but I felt, because of the restlessness in her eyes when she saw me, that whatever it was, it had something to do with me. I walked away, not very convinced because she asked me to leave her.
I went up to my room and phoned my sister to tell her what had happened. And then she reminded me of what she heard as a child.
"Wow, she did come back! She swore she'd come back for you and she did. Of course! Mom reacted that way because she wasn't expected to come back anymore.
"Don't fuck with me, Susie! This is not a game. Actually, Mom got sick and the woman disappeared."
"Mary, I better get out there. This is not a matter to be discussed on the phone."
I was shocked. My head was spinning, my world was falling apart. I wasn't who I thought I was. My mother, my father, and my sister were not my family or at least not the family I thought I had. I'm another woman's daughter. Why didn't they tell me the truth all these years?
When I came down, my "two" mothers were crying. My mother asked me to come over and solemnly said, "Mary, this is Marianne, your other mother."
I wanted to run, to disappear; but something was anchoring me to the ground. Those watery eyes stuck in me were cutting me off. Love stopped me. So I waited for the explanation.
"I didn't come to steal your life," Marianne mused. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay, that you were loved. But I didn't want you to forget me. Maybe it was selfish to alter your life, I shouldn't have come back, but I wanted you to know that I didn't abandon you. It was necessary to purge my guilt before the law. Now I know that you are well and I can live in peace."
A stressing silence reigned in the room. My mother looked at me in anguish, Marianne looked at me in lovely and I looked at them both, without saying anything. I ran back to my room, but now I wasn't carrying any bad emotion. I needed time and space to digest all that and they gave it to me.
Now, I'm here, waiting for Susie. She promised to help me find her when we were kids, now she's going to help me accept her and live with this reality. It's not easy to respond to life when it changes your questions.
In response to 
If you are interested, find out here
By Zeleira Cordero @zeleiracordero
24/02/2020
For your kind reading, THANK YOU
Banner Animated by 
