Jane's Choice
The envelope sat on the mahogany desk like a live grenade. Inside were the legal documents, the DNA results, and a handwritten confession that rearranged thirty years of Jane’s history into a work of fiction. The woman she called "Aunt" was her mother. The man she called "Father" had paid for the silence. The "truth" she had built her identity upon was a carefully curated set of stage lights and painted backdrops. Jane stood by the window of her small apartment, watching the city breathe. For three days, she had felt the ghost of Young Goodman Brown hovering at her shoulder. He whispered of the darkness in the woods, of the "pink ribbons" of her own life fluttering down to the dirt. He urged her to see the rot in every smile she encountered at church, the hidden agendas in every "I love you" from her family. "It’s all a performance, Jane," the bitterness hissed. "If they lied about your birth, what else is a lie?" S...