The Foundling.

She and I had known each other for a little over a year when she confided in me her belief that she was not the biological daughter of Mr. and Mrs. B., as most thought, but was instead, a foundling left on the door step of the B. family house not very long after her birth.

My first thought, upon hearing this, was one of automatic disbelieve……do mothers abandon their infants on door steps and would the authorities allow the finders to keep the child ? I set aside this disbelieve, considering that she was speaking of a different time and place. She was born in Mindanao in 1968 and it’s quite possible that such a thing as that could have happened then and there.

She told me that many times as she was growing up, Mr. B. would, in a joking sort of way, tell her friends that she was not his daughter. It was he that first mentioned that she was, indeed, a foundling although he always acted as if he was only playing and having fun. Sadly, one could never be certain whether the tale was true or just the product of a warped sense of humor.

At one point, I’m not sure at what age, she decided to take the matter up with Mrs. B. to determine if she was, indeed, a foundling. She told me that when she asked Mrs. B. for the truth, the woman could only cry and would not answer the question directly. She reasoned , quite correctly I think, that a biological mother would have not had any hesitancy in telling her child, immediately upon hearing that question, that they were mother and daughter.

People talk and she would hear the occasional story about her biological mother. She learned, from these rumors, the identity of the woman and would spy her from a distance though never getting the nerve to confront the woman face to face.

The woman is dead now, so the foundling would never be able to talk to her and find out the full story. Why was she abandoned? Who was her father? These questions would go unanswered.

Mr. and Mrs. B. had several other children; one daughter just a year older than the foundling ; the rest born afterwards. None of the B. children would be able to enlighten her.
The youngest of these "siblings" is a girl, twenty one years her junior. This girl is now nineteen.

I’m no longer in contact with these people, but I have seen recent photos (thanks to the Internet and Friendster). I was taken aback when I saw the most recent photos of the younger “sister”. Now that she has matured into a grown woman, the resemblance between the two women is very remarkable and striking.

How can they look so similar if there is no biological connection?

I, of course, have no evidence, but it seems logical to me that the reason for the physical resemblance between the two is because they share the same father. I suspect that Mr. B. is the father of the foundling.

Did he commit adultery 40 years ago ? Did the foundling’s mother choose to abandon the infant at the B. family house because Mr. B. was , after all, the father of the child?