When Dad died, I returned to my hometown to take over the bakery my adoptive parents, Sid and Nancy, had left me. I was still unpacking when the doorbell rang. A courier handed me a plain white box, with only one message written across it: “Do not open until August 5th.” My heart skipped. That was my real birthday — a date only my late mother had known.

The next day was chaos: the bakery starter overflowed, the coffee machine broke, and customers poured in. Only that evening, over a bowl of cherries, did I remember the mysterious package. Inside was a velvet box holding my mother’s pendant — and a note: “I missed you all these years. Sorry I couldn’t find you sooner. Mom.”

I was still reeling when a knock sounded at the door. A woman stood outside, elegant, smiling. “Cindy,” she said. “It’s me. Your mother.” She claimed she had been in a coma when I was born, and that her sister — my “aunt” — gave me up. Though every instinct screamed she was lying, I let her in. She called herself Caitlyn and quickly began suggesting ways to “help” with the bakery and my legal documents.

The truth clicked: she wasn’t my mother. She was after something. When she produced adoption papers, I played along. Then I drove her to the cemetery and stopped at my real mother’s grave. Her mask cracked.

I revealed the will — the one she’d hidden. My mother had left everything to Caitlyn, but only if she adopted me as a child. She never had. Now, she wanted to fix that.

“Leave,” I told her. And this time, I meant forever.