Chapter 1- The Life I Knew
I always thought home would feel warm, a place where laughter lived, where no shadow could reach. But my home… my little apartment in Visakhapatnam, India, with my mother, was different. Safe, yes—but quiet. Too quiet sometimes, as if the walls themselves were holding their breath.
Mother, Radha Sharma, was a force in her own gentle way. She worked long hours at a company downtown, her heels clicking on the tiles, papers clutched to her chest, but she always returned with a smile that made the whole apartment feel like it belonged to me. Sometimes, she would hum softly in the kitchen while cooking, her voice low and steady, filling the corners with a warmth I could never quite describe.
I loved those moments. I loved her.
I was thirteen, on the edge of that strange, precarious age where childhood and adolescence collide, when the world I knew fell apart.
It was a Monday evening. I was in the living room, hunched over my homework, when the phone rang. I thought it was Mother calling from work. Her number flashed on the screen.
“Hello?” I said brightly.
But the voice on the other end wasn’t hers.
“Riya… this is Inspector Ramesh from the local police station. I’m afraid there has been an accident. Your mother… she’s—”
The words stopped halfway, as if even the universe didn’t want me to hear. My stomach twisted. I dropped the phone, my books scattered across the floor, and I ran to the door, my legs trembling. The world was spinning faster than I could keep up with.
Mother. Gone.
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I remember nothing after that first wave of panic. Everything blurred: the ambulance, the hospital lights, the cold touch of hands I didn’t recognize holding me back from running into a room I wasn’t allowed to see. The only thing I remember clearly is the silence afterward. A silence so loud it roared in my ears.
The next days were a blur of questions, signatures, condolences, and paperwork. And then… the news that would change my life again.
Apparently, my mother had never told me about my father. No one had, in fact, until the police investigation revealed his identity.
Richard Miller.
An American. Rich. Distant. Unaware that I existed.
I had never seen him. I didn’t even know what he looked like. But suddenly, he was my father, and the law said he had to take responsibility for me.
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I remember the first time I saw him. The airport was busy, the scent of jet fuel mixing with perfume and anxiety. And there he was—tall, sharply dressed, hair perfectly combed back, glasses that made his blue eyes seem even colder. He looked… foreign, and yet, he looked important. Scary important.
He didn’t speak much. He didn’t smile much. His eyes were polite, but distant, scanning me as if I were a formality he had to deal with.
> “Riya… I mean… Rose,” he said, after a pause, fumbling slightly with my new name. “We’ll get along.”
I didn’t answer. I wanted to scream, to cry, to run back to my mother—but she wasn’t there. She would never be there. All I could do was nod, a fragile, trembling nod.
---
The plane ride was long. I stared out the window for hours, tracing the clouds, counting the rivers, the cities, the tiny lights that looked like the life I had left behind. Each mile took me farther from India, from the smell of spices, from my mother’s humming. Each mile brought me closer to a mansion I had never seen, to a woman called Clara, to a girl named Sophia, and to a world I didn’t belong to.
At night, I tried to sleep, but the hum of the plane, the strangers’ voices, and my own heartbeat made it impossible. I closed my eyes and whispered into the dark:
I won’t be small. I won’t be forgotten. I will survive.
Little did I know, survival would not be enough.
