"The Face in the File"
There is a story that I believe the world should know about. So here I am, retelling it just as I lived it. Come in, though I warn you, your views about a parents and children just might change. I am telling this story with nothing omitted. It is, as I lived it.
It was the summer of my thirteenth year when I discovered something that changed the course of my life forever. I had gone to the library archives to find some pictures of a missing urchin for my social studies junior high exit project.
I found myself looking at the missing children newspaper clippings. Suddenly I was looking at a photo that looked strikingly familiar. I looked more closely to discover with a jolt that the little girl in the photo looked just like... me. A younger version of course, but still me. I recognized the unruly hair, the high cheek bones, and the crooked teeth. The only thing missing was the crescent shaped scar that I had, had since babyhood. The name on the clipping said Lila James, my name was Lily Parker.
One single idea came to mind. Was there another person out there who looked just like me, and had been when only a toddler, kidnapped! A sister, or twin maybe... Impossible I shook my head, "I'm an only child I thought to myself." The name though... the name was so much like my own that it confused me. A long lost twin, with such a similar name? A lost sister, with almost identical features, with such a similar name? Or was it all a coincidence? But, a nagging feeling was tugging at the back of my brain. Was it possible that I did have a sister, maybe even a twin out there that my parents had never told me about.
I resolved to question my parents the minute I got home.
After leaving the library with no success with my schoolwork, but taking the clipping, I returned home and promptly forgot about it. I had my exit project to work on.
A few weeks later I again found the clipping at the bottom of my bag. I took it downstairs to dinner to ask my parents. I confronted my parents after dinner when we were about to turn the TV on to my mother's favorite show.
I turned to them, took out the clipping, and asked straight out if I had a sibling of any kind. They said no, as always. I had asked the question before, in vain hopes of discovering I had a sibling.
After my parents had replied the customary no, I brought out the clipping. "Then explain this," I said to them. They took the clipping, looking at it together. My mother gasped, and my father's back stiffened. "Where did you get this," he asked, sounding mad.
"The library," I told him innocently; "I was doing research." My parents were, all the while exchanging glances with ashen faces.
Why were my parents acting so weird?
When I was done my father said, I little too quickly; "We know nothing about this. Put it away."
Why were my parents acting like this? There has to be more here than they are telling me, I thought.
I put the clipping away dutifully, resolved to study it more tomorrow.
When I looked more closely at the clipping I found that it said that Lila Jame was missed by two parents.