“Mom… he was in your belly with me.
Five-year-old Miguel said it with a certainty far bigger than his small body, pointing toward the old fountain at Plaza Miranda, in the heart of Quiapo, Manila.
Ana Reyes felt the air lodge painfully in her chest. She tightened her grip on her son’s hand, as if the world itself might snatch him away, and followed the direction of that tiny finger.
There—among balloon vendors, jeepney horns, and circling pigeons—a barefoot boy was selling candies from a battered cardboard box. His shirt was stained, his shorts torn, his skin darkened by the sun.
But it wasn’t the poverty that froze Ana in place.
It was his face.
The same chestnut curls.
The same eyebrows.
The same nose.
The same unconscious habit of biting the lower lip when concentrating.
And on his chin—a small birthmark.
Identical to Miguel’s.
“That’s him,” Miguel insisted, tugging at her blouse. “The boy from my dreams. We play together far away. Mommy… he was with you. With me.”
Ana swallowed hard.
For a second, time folded inward—pulling her back into a white hospital room, harsh fluorescent lights, voices muffled as if underwater. An incomplete memory. A strange sensation she had buried for years.
She had told herself it was just childbirth trauma. Anesthesia. Fear.
But now…
Now there were two boys staring at each other like they had found something they had lost long ago.
“Miguel, don’t say nonsense,” she murmured, trying to sound firm. She failed. Her voice cracked. “We’re leaving.”
“No, Mom. I know him.”
Miguel let go and ran.
Ana tried to scream—but no sound came out.
The street boy looked up just as Miguel reached him. For a moment, they stared at each other in silence, as if recognizing something no one else could see.
The barefoot boy extended his hand.
Miguel took it.
They smiled the same way—same curve of the mouth, same slight tilt of the head. Like reflections.
“Hi,” the street boy said softly, his voice gentler than his life allowed.
“Do you dream about me too?” ….
“Yes!” Miguel answered, excited. “Every night!”
Ana approached slowly, her legs weak.
She watched them compare hands, touch each other’s hair, laugh with a trust that doesn’t grow in a single afternoon.
“What’s your name?” Miguel asked.
“Paolo,” the boy replied, shrinking slightly when he noticed Ana.
“And yours?”
“Miguel. Look… our names are almost the same.”
Ana felt a sharp blow to her stomach.
“Excuse me, Paolo,” she said carefully, like stepping on thin ice.
“Where are your parents?”
Paolo looked down and pointed to a nearby bench.
There, a thin woman in her fifties slept hugging a plastic bag. Her clothes were dirty, her face exhausted, like life had weighed more on her than it should.
“Auntie Liza takes care of me,” Paolo murmured.
“But sometimes she gets sick.”
Ana pressed her lips together.
This wasn’t coincidence.
But another part of her—the part that had survived postpartum depression—wanted to run. To protect the life built on unanswered questions.
“Miguel,” she said, gripping his hand too tightly. “We’re going. Now.”
Miguel turned, tears in his eyes.
“I don’t want to leave. I want to stay with my brother.”
The word brother fell like thunder.
Miguel had never asked for a sibling. Never mentioned one.
“He is not your brother,” Ana said too quickly. “You don’t have a brother.”
“Yes, I do!” Miguel cried. “He talks to me every night!”
Paolo stepped closer and gently touched Miguel’s arm.
“Don’t cry… I don’t like it when we’re separated either.”
Ana picked Miguel up, ignoring his protests, and walked away fast.
But even from a distance, she felt Paolo’s gaze—and saw, or imagined, a tear slide down his dirty cheek.
That night, Miguel repeated over and over:
“Why did you leave my brother alone, Mommy? Why?”
Ana drove with trembling hands.
And with every mile, the missing pieces of her memory screamed louder.
The next morning, Miguel refused to eat.
“I want to see my brother.”
Ana stopped running.
“We’re going back,” she said.
At the plaza, Paolo sat alone with a piece of stale bread. Auntie Liza was gone.
Miguel ran and hugged him like reclaiming part of himself.
Ana’s husband, Daniel, stared in disbelief.
“They’re identical.”
Paolo whispered, “Auntie Liza went to the hospital last night.”
“When were you born?” Ana asked.
“The night there were fireworks,” Paolo replied.
Ana went pale.
“Miguel was born on New Year’s Eve.”
At the hospital, missing files were discovered.
One faint note, almost erased:
“Multiple gestation.”
Only family had access.
Daniel’s mother.
Doña Elena Reyes.
Elegant. Controlling.
The woman who “handled the paperwork” while Ana was unconscious.
At Doña Elena’s mansion in Makati, her smile collapsed when she saw Paolo.
“They were twins,” she confessed.
“One was weak. I thought I was protecting the family.”
“You stole my son,” Ana said, shaking.
They left without looking back.
Paolo and Auntie Liza came home with them.
The healing was slow.
Paolo hid food. Ate fast. Hid under the bed when he broke a vase.
“You won’t throw me away?” he whispered.
Ana lay on the floor beside him.
“Never. You’re my son.”
They moved to a smaller house in Quezon City.
A garden replaced luxury.
Years passed.
Doña Elena returned—not powerful, but human.
“Can you forgive me?” she asked Paolo.
He thought carefully.
“You have to love me now.”
She cried and nodded.
One night, eating pizza on the floor, Paolo smiled.
“It’s the best pizza ever.”
“Why?” someone asked.
“Because it’s the first time I’m eating with my whole family.”
And when asked how he knew his brother existed, Miguel said simply:
“Because my heart felt empty.”