A young man and his wife adopt an orphan boy who looks exactly like him, which causes people to raise eyebrows then his mom opens up.
“Honey, he looks just like you. It’s uncanny!” John’s mother, Christine, exclaimed the first time she met her son and his newly-adopted boy, Jimmy.
John and Emily, his wife, had fallen head over heels with the boy when they set eyes on him when they visited the local orphanage. It took some processing, but the two were finally allowed to take him home after some time.
The couple had been trying to conceive ever since they got married, which was after their graduation from NYU, but they had no luck.
A week after they adopted Jimmy, they took him to Christine’s place so she could meet the latest addition to the family. Everything was going great, and the boy seemed to be adapting to life with them.
“My thoughts exactly. I think that was partially why we felt a connection with him. At the same time, I think it’s a little odd, no?” John told his mother after she commented on how similar they looked. They sat sipping beer and watching Emily running around the yard with their boy and Luna, the family dog.
“I guess it was meant to be. I’m glad you adopted him, son. I’m very proud of you because some people find it hard to take in grown kids,” his mom said, giving him a pat on the back and smiling at the peaceful scene before her.
“Yes, well, we were told he had once been adopted but the adoptive parents got cold feet at the last minute and returned him — no one had attempted to adopt him since then,” John said. “It was quite sad listening to his history. Why would anyone do that?” he finished.
“That does sound terrible,” his mom replied. “I can’t believe they did that. I wonder what happened to his birth parents?”
“They were yet to complete the paperwork for the adoption so they were allowed to return him. If the case had been otherwise, it would have been considered a crime. According to the director at the orphanage, the birth mother vanished after giving him up. It should have been an open adoption, you know when the biological parents are involved in the process.
“But that didn’t happen. She just handed over the child and was gone before they could even ask for his name. They tried to reach her when Jimmy was returned, but they were having trouble reaching her,” John said, shaking his head.
The boy’s life had been a hard one, but not anymore. That’s now in the past. Jimmy was home now, and John intended to make him glad he was.
“Then it’s for the best that it was you and Emily who finally took him in. Still, I find it quite unusual that he looks so very much like you,” his mother said, then suddenly frowned. “I wonder….”
“What’s that?” John asked, staring at his mother’s face, trying to read her expression.
“No, it’s probably nothing. Don’t worry about it. Let me go spend some time with my grandson too,” the older woman said, ending the discussion before she rushed off to join Jimmy and Emily.
John was concerned as he watched his mom go. What was running through her mind? What is she not telling me?
Ryan stared at his mother in concern, scratching his chin. What was she thinking? What wasn’t she saying? he wondered while watching his happy family. Could the boy be related to him in any way? Maybe, they were linked by a distant relative with particularly strong genes. “I should look into it,” he thought, then resolved to ask his mom more later on.
The time they spent at his parents’ went well. After running around with the family dog, Jimmy had fallen asleep on the couch, and when they were ready to leave, Emily carried him to the car while John stayed back to speak to his mom. Before he spoke, he made sure he was holding her gaze.
“Mom, is there something you’re hiding from me? About Jimmy? I need to know what you were thinking about back there,” he questioned, crossing his arms as he awaited an answer.
The older woman could not meet his eyes as she answered. “Oh, boy. I suppose my poker face is no good,” Christine said, then she took a deep breath.
“Look, I can’t be sure, and I want to be wrong. I just… years ago, Anna came by to talk.”
“Anna? My former girlfriend?” John asked, his mind racing.
“Yes. It had been a few months after you left, she came here and told me she was pregnant. Of course I didn’t believe her — her belly was flat and you guys were done. It was quite dramatic. You told me you were not in speaking terms so I feared she was trying to trap you into taking her back, so I told her to get lost and forget about us,” she revealed.
John’s hand flew to his mouth. “Mom!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe this. Why did you keep this a secret?”
“She never returned. After some days passed I decided it had been a lie or that she had left town. I’m so sorry. But I don’t think Jimmy can be that child. It’s too much of a coincidence,” Christine told her son, hoping she was right.
“If she had indeed been pregnant right after our split … it could very well be Jimmy. He’s about the right age,” John pointed out, running a frustrated hand through his long dark hair.
Anna had been the only lady John had a romantic relationship with before he met Emily, but their relationship had ended when he was admitted into a college in New York. Anna had not been enthusiastic about leaving San Antonio, Texas.
He had gotten some calls from her while in school, but he just ignored them. He would not get into a long-distance relationship. Now that he thought back, he realized she might have been calling to inform him about the child.
“What will you do if he’s really Anna’s son?” his mother wondered, concern and guilt written all over her face.
“I’ll do my best to get to the bottom of this,” John told Christine with a serious voice.
“Don’t fret too much, Mom. I think she attempted to let me know what happened all those years ago, but I didn’t return her calls. We both turned our backs on her. But now we’re going to do what’s right.”
He hugged his mom then walked to his car, where his wife and son were waiting. Later that night, he spoke to Emily about what he had learned.
“I never thought… I mean the resemblance is quite uncanny but I just wrote it off as a coincidence. What do we do now?” she asked.
“I have no idea. I don’t even know where to begin. I suppose the orphanage may be able to give us more information. After all they called it an open adoption,” John mumbled, uncertain.
“That’s it!” Emily exclaimed suddenly, then she got up from their bed and quickly dug through some of the folders they kept on their desk. One contained everything they had on Jimmy, including his birth certificate.
“Here, it is! Anna Matthews. I saw the name when they handed us the papers, but I suppose you didn’t,” Emily stated, giving the paper to John and sitting next to him. “He could really be your birth son. Oh Lord!”
“Wow,” John took a deep breath as he stared at his ex-girlfriend’s name on Jimmy’s birth certificate. “It must be true then. Except she found a new guy immediately after, it fit the timeline.”
Emily advised him to get a DNA test to confirm his suspicion, but she also let him know it didn’t matter to her as they had already adopted the boy legally.
“Of course. Still it would be nice to know,” John agreed.
The DNA test confirmed that Jimmy was indeed John’s child, and that meant Anna had not been lying all along.
When they tried to track her down, he learned that she passed away in a car crash a few months after she gave Jimmy away for adoption. The orphanage could not reach her, and they tried after Jimmy was returned.
The DNA test result made it easier for John and his wife to complete Jimmy’s adoption. Later, when he became a teenager, John told him everything that happened and begged his forgiveness for not being there for Anna.
Jimmy, who had been raised with love, did not think twice about forgiving the man who had, together with his wife, made his life complete and fruitful. Still, John never stopped marveling at the fact that he had somehow “adopted” his own child.
