I froze as I studied it. Two little girls. One was me. The other looked older, maybe four or five.
And she looked exactly like me.
Below the date, my mother had written: “Anna and Lily.”
I stared at the words, my chest tightening.
I went through every album again, carefully, page by page. There were countless pictures of me, but not a single other photo of that girl. No Lily. Just one photograph, hidden, and a name that should have meant something but didn’t.
My mind raced through possibilities: a neighbor’s child, a distant cousin, a family friend. But none of it made sense. Family
That girl didn’t just resemble me. She was a part of my childhood I had no memory of.
The thought I kept pushing away finally surfaced: What if she was my sister?
And if she was, how could I not remember her at all?
Turning to My Aunt
It had always been just my mom and me. No extra bed, no second set of toys, no stories about “when you girls were little.”
