Every afternoon after school, a homeless woman would run after Clara and her friends, shouting, “Clara, my daughter! I found you!”
Clara’s family called the police several times, but the woman did no harm, only crying and begging.
On graduation day, as Clara walked out onto the school grounds, the woman appeared again – but this time she called out, “Mary… my child.”
Clara was stunned: Mary was the name of her twin sister who had died at birth.
Every afternoon after school, a homeless woman would run after Clara and her friends, shouting, “Clara, my daughter! I found you!”
Clara’s family called the police several times, but the woman did no harm, only crying and begging.
On graduation day, as Clara walked out onto the school grounds, the woman appeared again – but this time she called out, “Mary… my child.”
Clara was stunned: Mary was the name of her twin sister who had died at birth.
Winter always arrives early in Boston, with a chill wind blowing in from Massachusetts Bay, weaving through the leafless trees of the prestigious Phillips Academy. I pull up the collar of my cashmere coat and try to hurry to the shiny black Range Rover waiting at the curb.
But I know she’s still there.
“Clara! Clara, my girl!”
A hoarse scream pierces the quiet, solemn atmosphere of Beacon Hill. I shiver, not from the cold, but from the familiar shame and fear.
There she stands, next to the traffic light. Her ash-gray hair is messy, her eyes are sunken and dark, and her old, baggy clothes are a stark contrast to our neatly pressed uniforms.
“Clara! I found you! Don’t go! Please don’t go!”
My classmates start whispering. Some of them take out their phones to film.
“That crazy woman again.”
“Poor Clara, she’s being harassed every day.”
I ducked my head and sprinted toward the car. The door opened, and I slid in, slamming it shut, blocking out the noisy world and the wailing cries with soundproof bulletproof glass.
My mother, Eleanor Vance, sat in the driver’s seat. She didn’t look at me, her eyes still glued to the rearview mirror, where the woman was running after the car, stumbling and getting up, her arms flailing in desperation.
“I called Sheriff O’Malley,” Eleanor’s voice was icy, her hands gripping the steering wheel, veins visible under her carefully tended skin. “They’re going to have her committed to the state mental institution this time. We can’t let this affect your graduation next week.”
“She… she looks so haggard,” I mumbled, feeling an irrational pang of sadness rising inside me. “Is she really dangerous, Mom?”
“A crazy person doesn’t know,” Eleanor sighed, turning to stroke my hair, her eyes softening but still tinged with worry. “She’s obsessed. It’s maternal Erotomania. She thinks you’re her dead child. Don’t look at her, Clara. Don’t ever talk to her. It’s the only way to stay safe.”
I nodded, leaning my head against the window. The car drove away, leaving the woman collapsed on the cold pavement behind. But in my dreams that night, and the nights after, I still heard that voice. Not a scream of madness, but a call of heartbreaking pain.
The Vance family was a Boston icon. My father, Judge William Vance, was the iron man of the federal court. My mother was the president of the state’s largest charity. My life was a series of programmed perfections: private school, piano lessons, horseback riding, and soon Yale University.
But there was a scar in that picture of perfection that my family rarely mentioned. It was Mary.
Mary was my twin sister. According to my parents, Mary died shortly after birth from respiratory failure. I survived, but Mary did not. Every year on our birthdays, my mother lit another candle for Mary, and my father drank pensively in his study. The name Mary was a forbidden zone, a sacred pain.
I never doubted that story. Until graduation day.
Graduation day took place on a bright, sunny May morning. The school stadium was decorated with flags and flowers. Thousands of parents sat in the stands, expensive suits, luxurious wide-brimmed hats.
I stood on the podium, adjusting my bachelor’s cap. I was the valedictorian, the one who would be giving the farewell speech. My heart was pounding.
“And now, Clara Vance,” the principal announced.
The applause was thunderous. I stepped up to the microphone, took a deep breath. My parents sat in the front row of VIP seats, smiling proudly. My father gave me a thumbs-up, my mother wiped away tears.
I began my speech about truth and courage.
Suddenly, a commotion broke out at the entrance to the stage.
Screams rang out. Security guards were trying to restrain someone.
“Let me go! I need to talk to my child! Just once!”
It was her. The woman on the run.
The air was heavy. Silence fell over the vast stadium. All eyes were on the small, ragged woman struggling with two large security guards.
My father stood up, his face red. He signaled to the Sheriff standing nearby. “Take her away! Now!”
Eleanor stood up too, her face white, no longer elegant but filled with utter panic.
“Clara!” the woman screamed as she was dragged away. “Look at me, Clara!”
I stood frozen on the podium. What should I do? Continue my speech? Or run away?
The woman clutched the iron railing, her eyes staring straight at me. No longer mad. Only the urgency of a drowning person.
And then, she shouted another name. Not Clara.
“Mary… my child… my Mary…”
The name struck me like a bolt of lightning. The microphone in my hand fell
hit the floor, making a screeching sound that made the audience cover their ears.
Mary.
How did she know?
Only my family knew about Mary. Mary’s grave was in a private family mausoleum, with no name on the headstone, just the words “Baby Vance.” There was no public obituary. It was a family secret.
Why would a homeless woman call me Mary?
Curiosity overcame my fear. I stepped down from the podium, ignoring the Principal’s calls.
“Clara! Come back here!” My father roared, no longer holding back. His voice was filled with menace.
I walked faster toward the security gate.
“Stop,” I said to the guard who was twisting the woman’s arm. “Let her go.”
“Miss Vance, this is an order from the Judge…”
“I said let her go!” I yelled, the sound echoing through the schoolyard.
The guard hesitated and let go. The woman collapsed to the ground, gasping for air. She looked up at me, tears streaming down her face, smearing the dirt on her face.
“Why did you call me Mary?” I asked, my voice trembling.
She shakily reached into her ragged coat. The sheriff pulled out his gun. “Watch out! She’s armed!”
“No!” She sobbed, pulling out a crumpled, yellowed piece of paper, carefully wrapped in several layers of plastic.
She held it out to me.
It wasn’t a weapon. It was an old, black-and-white photograph, taken at the hospital.
It showed a young woman, thin but smiling happily. She held two newborn babies in her arms. Two identical babies.
And in the corner of the photo, the date and names: Sarah Miller & twins Clara – Mary. St. Jude, 2005.
I looked at the woman in the photo. Those eyes. That smile. Younger and more alive, it was the same woman kneeling before me.
“They said Mary died…” I whispered, my mind reeling.
“No one died,” the woman—Sarah—sobbed. “They told me you both died after birth. They said your lungs didn’t expand. They wouldn’t let me see you. They gave me a fake cremation certificate.”
She grabbed the hem of my bachelor’s gown.
“But I didn’t believe it. I’ve been looking for it for 18 years. I work as a nurse, I’ve been digging through old files. And I found the receipt.”
“What receipt?”
“A sales receipt,” she said sharply, her eyes blazing with hatred as she looked at my parents, who were running toward me.
My father, Judge William Vance, rushed over and snatched the photo from my hand. “Enough! The drama is over! Arrest this crazy woman for forgery and disturbing the peace!”
“Can’t you look me in the eye, Judge Vance?” Sarah stood up. The haggard look was gone, replaced by the resilience of a mother who had experienced enough pain.
She turned to the silent crowd and shouted,
“In 2005, St. Jude Hospital in the suburbs was not a hospital! It was a market! Dr. Thomas—Mr. Vance’s best friend—was tricking poor single mothers like me into thinking their children were dead. When in fact, he was selling those children to rich, childless couples!”
The crowd gasped in horror. The camera phones were raised higher.
“Dad?” I turned to look at my father. I waited for a firm denial. I waited for him to say she was crazy.
But my father didn’t look at me. He looked at my mother. And my mother, Eleanor, was shaking, tears streaming down her face, washing away her thick makeup.
“William… we promised never to let this get out…” Eleanor whispered, but in the silence, everyone heard.
That was a death sentence for my faith.
“Where is Mary?” I asked, my voice breaking. “If I’m Clara… where is Mary?”
Sarah looked at me, the pain in her eyes as deep as the ocean. She reached up to touch my cheek but pulled back, afraid of dirtying me.
“Mary is me,” she said softly.
I was stunned. “What?”
“They only bought one,” Sarah said, her voice choking. “They just wanted a girl to carry on the family line. They chose you because you looked healthier. And the other child… the child’s real name was Clara…”
She swallowed, trying to hold back her tears.
“The other child was malnourished. Dr. Thomas said ‘defective’. He… he dumped her in the poor public foster system and erased her records so no one could trace her. The real Clara died of pneumonia at age 3 in a cold orphanage.”
I backed away, nausea rising in my throat.
The name Clara I’d carried for the past 18 years… was the name of my twin sister who died unjustly. And me… I was Mary. I was the lucky child who was ‘bought’, who lived in luxury, while my sisters were thrown away like trash.
And my parents—the people I call my parents—knew it all. They chose me like an item in a supermarket. They lit candles for “Mary” every year to ease their conscience, when in reality they were commemorating the child they had indirectly killed with their selfishness.
“Is that true?” I looked straight into Eleanor’s eyes. “Mom… did you leave her to die?”
Eleanor collapsed, covering her face and sobbing. “Mom wanted to take them both… but William said… William said one was enough trouble
n complicated… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
William Vance stood there, alone in the middle of the schoolyard. The majesty of a judge had disappeared, leaving only the image of a prudish trafficker. The sound of police sirens blared in the distance. This time, not to arrest Sarah.
I took off my bachelor’s cap and let it fall to the ground. I took off my graduation gown embroidered with the Vance crest and let it slide off my shoulders.
I walked toward Sarah—my real mother. She opened her arms, and I fell into her arms. She didn’t smell like Eleanor’s French perfume, it smelled of sweat, of dust, but it smelled of truth.
“I’m sorry, Mary,” she whispered in my ear, kissing my hair. “I’m too late.”
“No,” I said, tears soaking her shoulder. “I came just in time.”
I turned away from my foster parents, from the prestigious school, from the future that was planned. The police were handcuffing Judge Vance in front of hundreds of phones. This scandal would destroy their empire tomorrow morning.
But I didn’t care. I took my mother’s calloused hand.
“Come on, Mom,” I said. “Tell me about the real Clara.”
We walked away, leaving behind the false glamour, into an uncertain world, but at least it was our world.
