I did everything expected of me—handing out snacks, leading circle time, supervising the playground—but my eyes kept drifting back to the girls. I noticed details I had no right to notice.

The shorter one tipped her head slightly whenever she thought about something. The taller one pressed her lips together before speaking. Their mannerisms mirrored each other.

But what truly shook me was their eyes.

Both girls had the same unusual eyes—one blue, one brown.

Just like mine.

I’ve had that since birth. A form of heterochromia so rare that my mother used to joke I’d been made from two separate skies.

Eventually I excused myself and went into the bathroom. I stood gripping the edge of the sink for several minutes, staring at my reflection and forcing myself to breathe.

Memories flooded back: the eighteen-hour labor, the sudden emergency, the surgeries that followed.

When I woke up after giving birth, a doctor I had never met told me both babies had died.

I never saw them.

They told me my husband, Pete, handled the funeral while I was still unconscious, that he signed all the documents and took care of everything.

Six weeks later he sat across from me and handed me divorce papers. He said he couldn’t stay. That every time he looked at me he was reminded of what happened. That the complications were my fault and the girls were gone because of it.

I was shattered.

But I believed him. I believed all of it. Because what else could I believe?

For five years I woke up from nightmares of two babies crying somewhere in the dark.

The sound of laughter down the hallway pulled me back to the present, and I stepped out of the bathroom.

The taller girl spotted me instantly, as if she’d been waiting.

“Mom, will you take us home with you?”

I knelt down and gently took their hands. “Sweetheart, I think you’re mistaken. I’m not your mother.”

Her face immediately crumpled. “That’s not true. You are our mother. We know you are.”

Her sister gripped my arm even tighter, tears filling her eyes. “You’re lying, Mommy. Why are you pretending you don’t know us?”

They refused to accept my explanation.

For the rest of the week they stuck to me like shadows. They chose the seat beside me at lunch, stayed by my side during activities, and talked to me constantly with the openness children show when they feel safe.

And every single time they addressed me, they said “Mom.”