**Diary Entry 12th May**
When Emily came to in the hospital, she overheard a conversation not meant for her ears.
The first thing she felt wasnt painit was light. Blinding, sharp, white light searing through her eyelids, painting crimson blotches behind them. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the glare lingered. Then came the weight of her bodyleaden, uncooperative, every muscle and bone humming with a dull ache. Her throat was sandpaper-dry. She moved her hand and felt the cold plastic of an IV tube.
*Hospital. Im in hospital.*
Memory returned in jagged fragments, like a burnt photograph torn to pieces. Late evening. A cold, relentless rain turning Londons streetlights into smeared reflections. Wet pavement, slick as a serpents skin. The screech of brakes, sharp enough to freeze blood. Thennothing. A black, starless void.
Emily turned her head gingerly. The ward was smallthree beds, but the other two stood empty, sheets tucked with sterile precision. The windows thin curtain, the colour of faded vanilla, let in a stubborn beam of daylight. Shed been here at least overnight. Maybe longer. The gap in her memory yawned like a chasm.
The door was ajar. From the corridor came muted soundsfootsteps, the creak of a trolley, a muffled cough. And voices. At first, just background noise, but gradually, she caught the cadence. A familiar timbre. *Mum.* That was her voice.
*»I dont know how to look her in the eye,»* Mum whispered, her voice trembling with tears she fought to hold back. *»Shell crumble, Richard. Her whole world will.»*
*»You shouldve thought of that years ago,»* a man replied. Not Dadsimilar, but rougher. Uncle Richard. *»Twenty-three years of lies, Sarah. Twenty-three years shes believed you were her parents.»*
*»Dontnot now,»* Mum said, exhaustion thick in her voice. *»I cant bear it.»*
*»When *will* you bear it?»* Richard snapped. *»You built a house on lies. She thinks youre her blood. Thats not just a secretits a mountain of deceit.»*
Emily froze. Even the air in her lungs stilled. Her heart hammered, drowning out all other sound. *What?* *Lies?* It had to be delirium. The drugs. A nightmare.
*»We *are* her parents!»* Mums voice turned steel-hard, desperate with conviction. *»We raised her. Held her when she was ill. Taught her to walk, to read. Were her mum and dad. The only ones that matter!»*
*»Biologically? No.»*
Those two words hung in the antiseptic air like poisoned blades. The room tilted. No. It couldnt be true. A mistake. A cruel joke. Her parents*her real parents*were the ones whod baked with her, whose hands smelled of woodsmoke and paint, whod built her birdhouses and tied sailors knots. It had always been them.
*»You had no right»* Mum began, but her voice broke.
*»I had a right to know the truth about my niece!»* Richards voice rose, then dropped to a dangerous whisper. *»After the crash, they ran tests. Prepared for a transfusion. Thats when they saw it. You and James have type O blood. Hers is AB. Genetically impossible. They contacted the next of kinme. The one who filled out her forms.»*
*»You had no right to interfere!»*
*»I interfered with lies, not lives. Emily deserves the truth.»*
Emily shut her eyes, but tears escaped anyway, scalding tracks down her temples. *Not real. None of this is real.* Her world had cracked, and through the fissure seeped a cold, hollow void.
*»Richard, please,»* Mum sobbed openly now, each ragged breath a knife in Emilys chest. *»We meant to tell her. Swore we would. But the years passed, and the lie grew roots. How do you tell a child shes not yours by blood? A teenager searching for herself? Then uni, her first love We thought wed tell her after the wedding. But the wedding never happened. We were scared.»*
*»Terrified, you mean.»*
*»Yes!»* Mums cry was raw, almost feral. *»Terrified shed look at us like strangers. That wed lose her forever. We lived in the shadow of that liejust to keep her love.»*
*»Now the pain will be worse. And itll come from a hospital corridor, not you.»*
Silence. Thick, suffocating. Emily lay still, forcing shallow breaths past the lump in her throat.
*»Where did she come from?»* Richard asked quietly, his anger spent.
*»The maternity ward,»* Mum whispered. *»I couldnt the doctors said Id never carry a child. James and Iwe wanted a baby so badly. Then a nurse whispered about a girl. Left at birth. We didnt hesitate. We went. And when I held her»* Her voice shattered. *»She was mine. Not by blood, but by heart. We arranged the papers through a friend. No one wouldve ever known if not for the crash.»*
*»And the real mother?»* Richard hesitated. *»Did she ever?»*
*»She signed the papers and walked away!»* Mums voice was fierce with pain. *»She never even looked at her!»*
*»She was sixteen, Sarah. Anna Morris. A schoolgirl from a broken home. Got pregnantparents threw her out. Gave birth in a shelter and left. Two years later, she was gone. Overdose.»*
Emily bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. *Dead.* The woman whod given her life was dead. A girl with a shattered future. And she, Emily, had lived oblivious, a shadow of someone elses story.
*»Why dig it up?»* Mum wept. *»Why now?»*
*»Because Emily deserves to know where she came from. However bitter the truth.»*
Footsteps. Mum entered, adjusting the blanket, her touch now burning where it once soothed. *»Emily, love»* Her voice was love and despair spun together.
Emily opened her eyes. Mum paled, shadows bruising her face. *»Youre awake. Do you need anything?»*
*»I heard everything,»* Emily said softly. *»You and Uncle Richard.»*
Mum swayed, gripping the bedrail. *»GodEmily, Im so sorry»*
*»Is it true?»* Emilys voice cracked. *»About the blood? About me not being yours?»*
Mum covered her face, shoulders shaking. The answer was clear.
Richard appeared in the doorway, grief etched into his usually stern face. *»Im sorry, love. I never meant for you to find out like this.»*
Emily looked at Mumcrumpled, broken. *»How old was she? Anna?»*
*»Sixteen,»* Mum whispered. *»Alone. Gone by eighteen.»*
*»And my father?»*
*»We dont know.»*
Emily nodded slowly. *»Why didnt you tell me?»*
*»Because I was afraid!»* Mum collapsed to her knees, clutching Emilys hand. *»Afraid youd leave! But youre my daughternot by blood, but by every night I spent by your bed, every tear, every joy!»*
Emily studied her facethe love, the fear, the years written in every line. And she understood: a mother isnt just biology. Its choice. Its love.
*»I dont want to know more about her,»* Emily said. *»She gave me lifeand left. You chose me. Thats what matters.»*
Mum wept into her hands. *»Forgive me»*
*»Im not angry,»* Emily said, tears falling freely now. *»It hurts. But youre my parents. That wont change.»*
Richard slipped out, leaving themmother and daughter, bound not by genes but by twenty-three years of love.
*»Lets go home,»* Emily murmured, stroking Mums hair. *»Dads probably worried sick.»*
Mum nodded, a fragile hope flickering in her eyes.
And Emily realised: the truth had shattered her old world, but it had given her a new oneflawed, real, built on forgiveness and love.
**Lesson learned:** Family isnt just blood. Its the love that chooses you, and the choice to love in return.
