CHAPTER 7 — THE PHONE CALL THAT CHANGED MY NAME
Three days after Maya was discharged from the hospital, my phone rang while we were unpacking boxes in our old apartment.
The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number.
"Mr. Arjun?"
"Speaking."
"My name is Dr. László Horváth from St. Stephen's Children's Archive."
"I believe we have found documents regarding your birth."
I froze.
The adoption papers.
I had almost convinced myself to stop thinking about them.
"What kind of documents?"
"There are records that were recently unsealed."
"You should come in person."
The next morning Maya insisted on coming with me.
When we arrived, the elderly archivist led us into a small room filled with dusty files dating back decades.
He carefully placed a worn folder on the table.
"My mother volunteered here years ago," he explained.
"Before she passed away, she asked us never to destroy these records."
Inside the folder were photographs.
A hospital bracelet.
A tiny knitted blue blanket.
Then...
A newspaper clipping.
The headline read:
NEWBORN BOY MISSING DURING HOSPITAL FIRE.
My hands began shaking.
The date matched my birthday.
According to the article, a fire had broken out in a maternity ward thirty-four years earlier.
Several newborns had been evacuated.
One infant was never officially identified afterward.
The authorities believed the child had died.
But another document told a different story.
A handwritten report described a volunteer firefighter rescuing an unidentified baby from the burning building.
The child had survived.
No relatives were ever located.
Six months later...
The baby had been legally adopted.
That baby...
Was me.
I looked at Maya.
Neither of us could speak.
Then the archivist quietly added one sentence that made my heart pound.
"We recently located someone who has been searching for that missing child for over thirty years."
"She believes she's your biological mother."
The meeting was arranged for the following afternoon.
I expected an elderly woman.
Instead, a graceful woman in her early sixties walked slowly into the room.
The moment our eyes met...
She burst into tears.
"My son..."
She reached into her handbag and removed an old photograph.
A young mother holding a newborn wrapped in the exact same blue blanket lying on the table before me.
"I never stopped looking for you."
Every year.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
She had visited police stations.
Hospitals.
Government offices.
She had spent half her life searching for a child everyone else believed was dead.
May you like
And now...
We were finally standing face to face.
