Egor and Yana Smirnov had been married for 15 years. Our home was filled with harmony and understanding, but it was also filled with a quiet, persistent emptiness. For years, we tried everything to have a child. Exams, different clinics, even a trip abroad to a famous specialist. Everyone just threw up their hands. “Unexplained infertility,” they called it.
And then, one day, a miracle happened. Yana got pregnant. Nine months later, Kristina was born.
Seven years later, the sun was shining through the white curtains of our kitchen in the quiet suburbs. Yana had been standing at the stove for an hour, carefully stirring chocolate batter. Today was special. Kristina was turning seven. The aroma of cocoa and vanilla filled the air.
“Good morning, my love,” I said, leaning against the doorframe.
She turned, wiping her hands on a towel, a smudge of flour on her cheek. “You’re up early. Couldn’t sleep?”
“Knowing today is such a big day? Impossible.”
We spent the morning decorating her cake together—a tradition we’d cherished every year. Fifteen years of marriage had taught us to move in unison, a silent dance of flour, sugar, and love.
“Remember her first birthday?” Yana asked, whipping cream. “She was so scared of the candle she cried.”
“And her third,” I laughed, “when she ate half the cake with her hands while we were greeting guests. She was covered in chocolate from head to toe.”
While Kristina slept upstairs, we decorated the living room with balloons. Suddenly, I stopped, holding a pastry bag.
“You were whimpering in your sleep again last night,” I said gently.
Yana froze. The smile slipped from her face. “I had that dream again. The little boy… he calls me ‘Mom,’ and I follow him through a crowd, but he just keeps slipping further and further away.”
Her voice trembled. I put down the bag and hugged her. “Honey, it’s just a dream. You’re still worried about what the doctors said years ago, that we were supposed to have a boy. But look at Kristina. She’s our miracle.”
She nodded against my chest, wiping a tear. “I know. It just… feels so real sometimes.”
“It’s just your subconscious playing tricks,” I assured her. “We waited so long, your brain is still processing it all.”
The timer dinged, breaking the tension. The cake was perfect.
Kristina woke up soon after, her bare feet pattering down the wooden stairs—music to our ears. We quickly hid the cake. She appeared in the kitchen, sleepy-eyed in her kitten pajamas.
“Happy birthday, baby!” we shouted.
Her face lit up. “Yay! I’m seven today!”
She was our world.
The party that afternoon was perfect. Friends, family, laughter. Kristina was a princess in her pink sequined dress. Watching her blow out the candles, surrounded by love, I felt like the luckiest man alive.
The First Day of School
Summer flew by. August ended, bringing the cool hints of autumn. September 1st arrived—Kristina’s first day of school. She had been waiting for this day all month.
I woke up early. Yana was already awake, looking anxious.
“Good morning, love,” I whispered.
“Oh god, look at the time!” she jumped up. “Egor, I have to go. A client changed the meeting time to this morning. It’s a huge deal, we could finally afford that sea vacation Kristina wants.”
I was disappointed, but I understood. Yana was a successful realtor, and clients could be demanding.
“I’ll try to make it to the lineup,” she promised, kissing me. “You do her hair. You’re better at ponytails anyway.”
I made pancakes—Kristina’s request—and helped her get dressed in her new navy blue uniform.
“Papa, will school be scary?” she asked, looking at herself in the mirror as I tied her white bows.
“It’s normal to be nervous,” I said. “Remember when you learned to ride a bike? You were scared, but then it was fun. You’re smart and kind. You’ll make friends.”
We drove to the school. The yard was chaos—hundreds of parents and children, flowers, balloons, loud music.
“Wow, so many kids,” Kristina whispered, gripping my hand.
We found her teacher, Nina Viktorovna, a kind young woman. Kristina shyly hid behind me.
Then, the crowd shifted. I let go of her hand for just a second to adjust my camera. When I looked back, she was gone.
“Kristina!” I called, panic instantly seizing me. I pushed through parents, looking for her white bows.
I saw her a few meters away, standing by a tree, looking lost.
I rushed over and grabbed her hand. “Kristina, don’t run off like that! It’s easy to get lost here.”
The girl looked up at me.
“Mister,” she said, her voice quiet and confused, “I’m not Kristina.”
I froze. I stared at her. It was… Kristina. The same eyes, the same face shape, the same nose. But she was wearing a different dress—a black one—and her bows were satin, not lace.
“But… you look just like my daughter,” I stammered, my brain short-circuiting.
A woman appeared, grabbing the girl’s other hand and pulling her away from me. She had a boy with her, about the same age.
“Get your hands off my daughter!” she snapped.
“I’m sorry,” I said, still in shock. “I mistook her for mine. They… they could be twins.”
The woman looked at me, and for a split second, I saw pure terror in her eyes before she masked it with anger.
“Nonsense,” she hissed. “Don’t make things up, or I’ll call the police.”
She dragged the children away before I could say another word.
I stood there, stunned. The resemblance was uncanny. Impossible.
“Papa! I lost you!”
I turned. The real Kristina was running toward me. I hugged her so tight she squeaked.
“I’m sorry, baby. I won’t let go again.”
“Why were you talking to that girl?” she asked.
“I… I thought she was you. She looks a lot like you, doesn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Kristina said, unbothered. “Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Yana arrived just in time for the bell, breathless and apologetic. I didn’t tell her right away. I didn’t want to ruin the day.
But that night, I couldn’t sleep. The image of that other girl—and the terrified look in her mother’s eyes—kept replaying in my mind.
The Investigation
I became obsessed. For the next two weeks, I dropped Kristina off at school and then parked down the street, waiting. Watching. I needed to see that family again. I needed to know.
They never showed up.
I was late for work every day. My colleagues noticed. Yana noticed my distraction.
“Egor, are you okay? You seem… distant.”
“Just work stress,” I lied.
Finally, I had a crazy idea. The maternity hospital.
I told Yana I was helping a friend with repairs on Saturday and drove to the hospital where Kristina was born seven years ago.
The receptionist wouldn’t help me. “Confidentiality,” she said.
I tried bribing the head doctor, Stepan Igorevich. I put an envelope with a significant amount of cash on his desk. “I just need to know who else gave birth that day. I suspect… a mistake was made.”
He didn’t even look at the money. “Money doesn’t solve everything, Mr. Smirnov. Leave, before I call security.”
I was walking out, defeated, when an elderly orderly stopped me in the hallway.
“Egor Ivanovich,” she whispered, looking around nervously. “Wait.”
She handed me a crumpled piece of paper with an address.
“That day… my shift partner was Margarita Evdokimova. She quit right after your wife gave birth. She was very upset. Maybe she knows something.”
I drove straight to the address. It was a small house in the suburbs. Margarita was a woman in her sixties with tired, sad eyes. When I told her who I was, she turned pale.
“What do you want?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“I need to know the truth about the day my daughter was born.”
She let me in. We sat in her small kitchen. Her hands shook as she poured tea.
“Yes,” she finally said, staring into her cup. “I remember that day. Three babies were born. Two girls… and one boy.”
My heart hammered. “Were the girls… twins?”
She nodded slowly.
I felt sick. “What happened, Margarita? Why did you quit?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “The other family… the mother, she needed a son. Her husband… he was rich, powerful. He said if she didn’t give him a male heir, he’d throw her out on the street. She paid the head doctor a fortune.”
The room spun. I gripped the table to keep from falling.
“They switched them,” I whispered.
“Yes,” she sobbed. “You had a healthy baby boy, Mr. Smirnov. And they… they gave him to her. And they gave you one of the twin girls she actually birthed.”
“And you said nothing?!” I shouted, standing up.
“They threatened me! They said they’d accuse me of kidnapping! I have grandchildren, Egor Ivanovich. I was scared!”
I sank back into the chair, burying my face in my hands. My entire life was a lie.
“So… somewhere out there is my son,” I said, my voice hollow. “And I have… someone else’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
She shook her head. “No. I tried to forget everything after I left.”
The Choice
The drive home took an hour. It was the longest hour of my life. How was I going to tell Yana? How would she survive knowing we had a son out there, a son we’d never known, while raising another woman’s daughter?
But I couldn’t keep this from her.
When I got home, it was dark. Yana was waiting on the porch.
“Honey, you’re so late,” she said, hugging me. She felt me trembling. “What happened?”
“Yana… we need to talk.”
I told her everything. The girl at school. The hospital. Margarita’s confession.
She listened in silence, her hands pressed over her mouth, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh my god,” she whispered. “My dream… the little boy slipping away… it was real.”
“Yana, what do we do?”
We sat there on the porch for hours.
“We love Kristina,” Yana said fiercely through her tears. “She is our daughter. I don’t care about biology. I carried her. I nursed her. She’s ours.”
“I know. I love her more than anything.”
“But… our son,” she sobbed. “He’s out there. With people who… who bought him. Are they good to him? Is he happy?”
“I saw him,” I said. “At the school. He was with the woman. He looked… happy. Healthy. He was laughing with his sister.”
“We have to find him,” Yana said. “We have to get him back.”
“And do what, Yana?” I asked gently. “Destroy his life? He’s seven years old. Those people are his parents. He doesn’t know us. If we expose this, we ruin two families. Kristina will know she’s not ours. That boy will lose the only home he’s ever known.”
She stared into the darkness, the agony of the choice visible on her face. “How can we just… leave him?”
“Because we love them,” I said. “Both of them. If we truly love them, we have to protect them. Even from the truth.”
It was the hardest decision we ever made. We decided to do nothing.
We never looked for the other family again. We never told Kristina.
We live with the secret every day. It’s a heavy burden, knowing we have a son we will never know. But every time Kristina smiles at us, every time she calls us Mom and Dad, we know we made the right choice. We chose love over biology. We chose their happiness over our own need for closure.
Sometimes, Yana still wakes up crying from the dream. But now, when she holds Kristina, she holds her just a little bit tighter. And so do I.