Who is a child without a past or family? No one—just a shadow that happened to get a body.
“Did you always feel like that—like a ghost?” Mikhail asked, stirring his coffee in my fancy kitchen.
I looked at him—my only friend who knew everything. The man who helped me find her. The woman who gave birth to me, then threw me away like I didn’t matter.
My first cry didn’t touch her. All my adoptive parents had was a note pinned to a thin blanket: “Forgive me.” That one word was the only thing I ever got from the woman who claimed to be my mother.
Lyudmila Petrovna and Gennady Sergeevich, an older couple with no kids, found me one morning in October.
They opened their door and saw a baby wrapped in a blanket, crying. They didn’t send me to an orphanage, but they also never truly made me feel like their own.
“You live in our house, Alexandra, but don’t forget—we’re strangers to you, and you to us. We’re just doing the right thing,” Lyudmila reminded me every year on the day they found me.
Their apartment felt like a prison. I had a small space in the hallway with a fold-out bed. I ate alone, after they were done, usually finishing their cold leftovers.
My clothes came from flea markets, always too big. “You’ll grow into them,” my adoptive mom said. But by the time I did, they were already worn out.
At school, I didn’t fit in. Kids whispered things like “orphan,” “stray,” and “nobody.”
I didn’t cry—it didn’t help. I just kept it all inside. Turned it into strength, anger, and determination. Every push, insult, and cold stare made me tougher.
When I was thirteen, I started working—passing out flyers, walking dogs. I hid the money under the floor. One day, Lyudmila Petrovna found it while cleaning.
“Stealing?” she said, holding the crumpled cash. “I knew it. Just like your real mother…”
“It’s mine. I worked for it,” I told her.
She threw it on the table.
“Then you can start paying for food and rent. You’re old enough.”
By the time I was fifteen, I worked every free moment. At seventeen, I got accepted into a university in another city.
I left home with just a backpack and a box—the only link to my past. Inside was a photo of me as a newborn, taken by a nurse before my birth mother took me from the hospital.
“She never loved you, Sasha,” my adoptive mother said as I left. “And neither did we. But at least we were honest about it.”
In college, I shared a small room with three roommates. I lived on instant noodles and studied nonstop—only top grades, only enough to keep my scholarship.
At night, I worked in a 24-hour store. My classmates joked about my old clothes. I ignored them. All I could hear was the voice in my head: “I’ll find her. I’ll make her see what she gave up.”
Nothing hurts more than being unwanted. That feeling sticks with you, like tiny pieces of glass under your skin.
I looked at Mikhail and played with the gold chain around my neck—the one nice thing I bought after my first big success. He knew everything. He was the one who found my mother and helped me come up with the plan.
“You know this won’t give you peace,” Mikhail said.
“I don’t want peace,” I answered. “I want closure.”
Life can surprise you. In my third year of college, it did. Our marketing professor gave us a project—to create a strategy for an organic cosmetics brand.
I didn’t sleep for three days. I poured all my anger, pain, and drive into that project. When I presented it, the whole room went quiet.
A week later, my professor rushed into the office: “Sasha, some investors from Skolkovo saw your work. They want to meet you.”
They didn’t offer money, but a small share in a startup. I signed the papers with shaking hands. I had nothing to lose.
A year later, that startup took off. My share became more money than I ever imagined—enough to buy my own place, and invest in something new.
Everything changed. One smart investment led to another. Then another. At 23, I bought a big apartment in the heart of the city. I moved in with just my backpack and that old photo. No baggage. Just a fresh start.
“You know,” I told Mikhail when we met at a conference, “I thought success would make me happy. But it only made me feel more alone.”
“You’re carrying a ghost,” he said—and he was right.
That day, I shared my whole story with him. Mikhail wasn’t just a friend. He was a private investigator. He offered to help, and I said yes.
We spent two years searching. So many dead ends. So many wrong leads. But he found her—the woman who left me with one word: forgive me.
Her name was Irina Sokolova.
47. Divorced. Living in a rundown apartment on the edge of the city. She took odd jobs. No children. No children. That line hurt more than anything.
Then I saw her photo—her face tired and gray, nothing like the fire I’d fought to keep alive in myself.
“She’s looking for cleaning work,” Mikhail said. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
“I’m sure,” I said.
The plan was simple: Mikhail posted a cleaning job ad for me. He interviewed her—Irina—at my office, at my desk, while I watched everything through a hidden camera.
“Do you have a lot of cleaning experience, Irina Mikhailovna?” he asked her politely.
“Yes,” she said nervously, picking at her chipped nails. “Hotels, offices. I’m very thorough.”
“The employer is strict. She expects things spotless and always on time.”
“I understand. I really need this job,” she said, her voice rough and tired.
She sat with her shoulders hunched—used to being small, invisible. That look made my skin crawl.
“You’re hired on a trial basis,” Mikhail told her.
After she left, I came out. Her passport was still on the table. I picked it up. This was the ID of the woman who gave me life but not love.
“Are you sure you want to keep doing this?” Mikhail asked.
“More than ever,” I said.
A week later, Irina started working for me. I watched her walk into my life with her rags and lemon-scented cleaners. The woman who once meant everything to me, but chose to be nothing.
The first time we met face-to-face, I acted busy and barely acknowledged her when Mikhail introduced us.
She gave an awkward little bow. There was no recognition in her eyes—just fear of losing the job and that quiet, broken way of carrying herself.
I felt nothing. No emotion. Just cold curiosity.
I watched her clean my floors, dust my pricey decorations. Watched her wash my silk shirts and linen pants. I left big tips—not out of kindness, but so she’d keep coming back. I wanted the act to continue.
Two months passed. Eight visits. Irina became like a ghost in my home. She came and went, leaving behind the smell of lemons and sparkling surfaces.
We hardly spoke. I was always “too busy” or “on a call.” But I watched her—every little thing.
I saw how she paused to study the photos on my walls: me at the Eiffel Tower, at conferences, with business partners.
Sometimes she looked at my face a little too long—longer than a stranger should.
Did she notice something familiar? Did my eyes, my mouth, or the shape of my face remind her of anything? Did her body remember the child it once carried?
Mikhail said I was dragging it out.
“You’re hurting both of you,” he told me one night after she left.
Maybe he was right. But I couldn’t stop.
Every time she walked out, I pulled out that baby photo and stared at it, hoping to find answers. Why? What was so wrong with me that she couldn’t love me?
And then, one day, something happened.
She paused by my bookshelf and looked at my graduation photo in a silver frame. I stood silently in the doorway and watched her touch the glass with soft, trembling fingers.
She lifted the frame, squinting, like she was trying to remember something from a long time ago.
“Does it look familiar?” I asked, stepping into the room.
She flinched, the frame shaking in her hands. She looked guilty, like she’d been caught doing something wrong.
“Alexandra Gennadievna… I’m sorry… I was just dusting,” she said.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You’re crying,” I said. Not a question—just the truth.
She quickly wiped her face, like a child trying to hide it.
“It’s nothing… just the dust. It makes my eyes water. Happens a lot.”
I walked past her and sat down, my heart racing. A part of me wanted to run. But I stayed, my voice cold and sharp.
“Sit,” I told her.
She sat on the edge of the chair, hands clenched tight on her knees.
“There’s something about you…” she whispered, avoiding my eyes. “You remind me of someone I knew… a long time ago.”
That’s when I lost it.
“Irina Mikhailovna, twenty-five years ago you left a baby girl at someone’s door with a note that said, ‘Forgive me.’ That baby’s name was Alexandra. Irina, look at me. Look at my face.”
She looked up, eyes full of fear. Her hand covered her mouth to keep from crying out.
“This… can’t be,” she whispered.
I opened a drawer and took out the baby photo. I placed it in front of her.
“You’ve been in my dreams for years. I always imagined asking you—why? Why didn’t I even get a chance? What was so wrong with me?”
Her face crumpled, and she dropped to her knees.
“You don’t understand,” she cried. “I was so young. The baby’s father left me. My parents threw me out. I had no home, no money, no help. I didn’t know what else to do…”
“So you just gave me away?” My voice trembled.
“I thought someone else could give you what I couldn’t—food, a home, love…”
I let out a bitter laugh.
“Love? You thought strangers would love a child left on a doorstep? They raised me, yes. But they never loved me.”
Tears ran down her face. She reached for me but didn’t touch.
“I thought about you every single day for twenty-five years.”
“But you didn’t try to find me,” I said, my voice cold.
“I did. A year later, I went back. They said they didn’t know what I was talking about. That no baby had been found. I thought…”
“You thought I ended up in an orphanage. And you gave up.”
She lowered her head and cried.
“Please… forgive me, if you can. Or at least… let me stay. Be near you. Even if just as your cleaner. Please don’t send me away.”
I looked at her—broken, full of regret, worn down by life and her choices.
And suddenly, I felt light. Like a weight I’d carried forever had lifted.
“No,” I said quietly. “I don’t want revenge. But I don’t need to forgive you either. You made your choice back then. I’m making mine now. I’m letting go—of you and of the pain.”
I walked to the window. The city outside was loud and busy—full of life and new chances.
“Mikhail will walk you out and pay you for today. Please don’t come back.”
After she left, I sat down with my phone. I blocked her number.
Then I looked at the photo of me as a baby—small, alone, with a long journey ahead.
“You did it,” I whispered. “You made it all by yourself.”
A few days later, I called her.
I asked her to meet again. To try again.
I let go of the pain—and opened the door to understanding. Maybe even forgiveness.