
Here’s a shorter version of your story that preserves its emotional depth and narrative arc:
“Who is a child without roots? No one. Just a ghost in a borrowed shell.”
“Did you feel like a ghost?” Mikhail asked, stirring coffee in my sleek kitchen.
He knew everything.
My life began with a cry that didn’t move her. My birth mother left me with a note: “Forgive me.”
An elderly couple, Lyudmila and Gennady, found me on their doorstep one October morning. They raised me, not with love, but duty.
“You’re in our house, Alexandra, but not in our hearts,” Lyudmila often said.
My world was a hallway cot, leftovers, and secondhand clothes. At school, I was “foundling,” “stray.” I didn’t cry. I hardened.
By thirteen, I worked—flyers, dog-walking—hiding money in the floor. When Lyudmila found it, she demanded I pay for my stay.
At fifteen, I worked nonstop. At seventeen, I left for university with a backpack and a baby photo—the only link to my past.
At twenty-three, I had my own apartment. But success didn’t bring joy—only silence. Then came a marketing project. Investors saw my work. I got a stake in a startup.
That’s when I met Mikhail, a private detective and the first to hear my full story. He helped me find her: Irina Sokolova. Forty-seven. Divorced. “No children.”
We set a plan. I posted a job ad. Mikhail interviewed her while I watched. A week later, she started cleaning my home.
For two months, she came and went—never suspecting who I was.
Then, one day, she lingered on my graduation photo.
“You remind me of someone,” she said.
“Irina,