My best friend's parents

Sally and I have been best friends since we were in year one together. We were next to each other in roll call as both of our last names begin with “t”. We shared everything — dolls, sandwiches and secrets, the way little girls do. We told each other everything and promised to be best friends forever and to never keep a secret.

We loved visiting each other’s homes and from the time we were young we would imagine ourselves being part of each other’s family. To me, Sally’s hippy parents seemed liberal and exciting, allowing Sally to do whatever she pleased and encouraging her in any dream she chose to express. My parents were the complete opposite. For them, bringing up children was all about rules and discipline. Sally, so used to complete freedom, actually loved coming to my house where we had to say grace before eating dinner and had daily chores set out in a roster. When we grew older we would laugh, certain that we had been switched at birth. It was hilarious to us that we seemed to be in the wrong families.

One day in high school I was staying overnight at Sally’s house, studying for an English exam we had the next day. I needed a new pen as the ink in mine had run out and Sally directed me to her parents’ study to get another. True to form, her parents’ study was as messy as any teenager’s room. I looked all over the desk for a pen but could not find one. Without thinking, I began to look in the drawers but all I could see were files containing papers. Sticking out of one of the files was a piece of paper. It looked like a birth certificate. I pulled it out and looked closer. It was for a baby named Jane Shutle, born on the same date as Sally. Puzzled, I looked further only to be shocked to my core when I found the adoption papers that told me my friend Sally was really Jane and her parents weren’t her biological parents.

Swallowing tears I stuffed the papers back in the file and shut the drawer. Sally was adopted! She really was from another family! But however much we had both joked about our parents, I knew that Sally loved hers, as I did mine, dearly. I didn’t know why her parents had chosen not to tell her she was adopted, but I could never tell her I knew their secret. That secret was now mine too.

We are now adults starting our own families and I only hope that one day Sally’s parents can tell her the truth. It breaks my heart that I must keep this secret from my closest friend.