– How did you know? – I asked quietly, penetrated by her words and sadness.
It all seemed like some Hollywood film to me, but Mary, the living, real Mary, was walking with me and holding my hand. I felt sorry for this girl, and after her words about the sincere parental love and care of the Smiths, I felt great respect for them, because not every family would agree to take someone else's child into their home and devote their lives to it.
«They are wonderful people! Mary got into a very good family. But it's so terrible: her birth parents abandoned her, abandoned her… How inhuman and low it is! How lucky I am to be born into my family! How much my family loves me!» – involuntarily ran through my mind.
– I was a troubled teenager, and when I was fifteen I was especially so: rude, rude, smoked, skipped school, got that stupid piercing because I thought it was cool. Once, when no one was home, I went through my mum's papers: she hides them from me on purpose, but one day I peeked where she hid them, and when everyone was gone, I took them out. And then I found out that I wasn't their real daughter, and they weren't my real parents, and that Harry wasn't my brother… You know, I didn't feel anything: no bitterness, no disappointment. It was just an emptiness. I couldn't get used to this new truth, and then I felt so sorry for my fate! But I put the documents back and didn't say anything to my parents. I remember locking myself in the loo and crying all day. And as I sat there, I realised that I couldn't and shouldn't resent the Smiths. I thought how lucky I was that they adopted me! What right had I to be angry with them? – Mary squeezed my hand hard, apparently agitated by her own story. – Since then , I've been eternally grateful to them, and I've never stopped loving them. On the contrary. For their sake I stopped truancy, smoking, rudeness, in general, I became a good girl and got in school quite a good certificate. By the way, I didn't go to college on purpose. I purposely didn't take off my earring from my nose to get rejected. I just didn't want them to pay that much money for me. I did it on purpose to be able to work.
A strong sympathy for this girl with such a difficult fate but a noble soul appeared in my soul.