I moved to a crumbling farm I’d inherited, hoping it would bring me the peace I had always longed for. But when my neighbor copied my yellow fence, I had no idea it was just the beginning of something much bigger and more personal.
I grew up in a foster family. They were kind, patient, and tried their best. They always packed my lunch, clapped at my school plays—even when I stood at the back, hidden in a cardboard tree costume.
But there’s a difference between kindness and love. Love is more than warm meals or polite applause. It’s about knowing where you come from.
No one ever told me about my biological parents. The papers were blank. They asked for complete confidentiality—no names, no birthdays, no stories. Just empty spaces where something huge should’ve been.
I used to dream that maybe my parents were spies, or rock stars, or lost in some jungle somewhere. Anything was better than thinking they didn’t care.
I had to grow up fast. By 15, I was handing out flyers outside strip malls. At 16, I walked dogs for people who barely remembered my name. By 18, I was pouring coffee for grumpy regulars who tipped me with nickels and gave unsolicited life advice.
“You should marry rich, sweetheart. You’ve got kind eyes,” one said.
By 19, I had a crooked name tag and a memorized list of drink orders at the local café. After that came more jobs—caregiver, mail carrier, gardener. At one point, I even collected roadkill off the highway. Don’t ask. Seriously, don’t.
I knew how to survive, but it felt like bad luck was stitched into my DNA.
By 27, I thought I’d made it. I had landed my dream office job—a stable paycheck, weekends off. It felt like winning.
And then, I got sick.
Six months of tests, countless doctors’ visits, and all they could say was, “Could be stress.” Yeah, no kidding.
At 30, I became a nanny. I was accused of stealing money from the family I worked for, even though I didn’t. I was fired. I stood outside the building with one suitcase, my emergency fund shoved in my jacket pocket, my eyes empty with a thousand-yard stare.
That’s when my phone rang.
“Ellie? It’s Jake, your father’s attorney,” a warm voice said.
“My who?”
“Your father, Henry. He passed away recently. You’ve been named the sole heir of his farm. It’s about 30 kilometers outside of town. You can pick up the keys tomorrow.”
“A farm?” I repeated. “A father?”
“Biological,” he said gently. “I’ll explain more in person.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. A father? A home? For the first time in my life, something was mine.
When I arrived at the farm, I just sat there for a moment, staring at the house, the fields, the silence. A single question buzzed in my mind, like a fly I couldn’t swat away.
Why did he leave all of this to me?
The house looked worn down. The paint was peeling, and weeds overtook the yard. But then I saw the barn. It was spotless. The red paint gleamed, and the doors stood straight and strong. It looked proud.
I walked inside, the scent of hay filling the air. The floor was swept, and neat stacks of hay lined the walls. Fresh eggs sat in a basket, as though someone had just collected them. A bucket of water in the corner looked so clean I could’ve drunk from it.
The animals were calm—chickens pecked at the straw, a large brown-and-white cow blinked at me without fear. But the dog… now that was odd. He sat by the door, staring at me as if he had been waiting for me.
I crouched down. “Come here, boy…”
He trotted over, licking my hand like we were old friends.
“Okay, weird,” I muttered, looking around. “Who’s been feeding you?”
It had been a week since my father passed. So, who had been taking care of everything? Must have been the neighbors.
I dropped my bag by the door and took a look inside the house. Dust floated lazily through the sunlight. On the wall, a single photograph hung—a man in his 50s, eyes warm and kind. My chest tightened, a strange ache forming. That man was my father.
I sat down on the floor, looking at the room. I didn’t know this place. I didn’t know him. But strangely, I didn’t feel scared. I stayed.
Each morning, I woke up with a sense of purpose. I fixed the fence, painted the porch, and learned how to collect eggs without getting pecked. It was like a switch inside me had flipped. I just knew what to do.
“Farmer Mode ON,” I whispered to myself.
But just when I thought I was getting comfortable, Linda, my neighbor, showed up.
At first, I thought she was just shy. Then I thought she was a bit odd. But then, she started copying everything I did. That’s when things started getting weird.
“What the…?”
I froze, spoon halfway to my mouth, staring across the property line.
Just yesterday, I had painted my fence yellow—the only can of paint I found in the shed. It wasn’t much, but the fence looked cheerful.
And there it was, across the property line: Linda’s fence. It was the same shade of yellow.
“Maybe it’s just a coincidence,” I muttered to myself.
The next day, I built a new mailbox. It was wooden, with a sloped roof and a carved bird perched on top. I was proud of it. It took me all afternoon and three Band-Aids to finish.
“Great job, Ellie,” I said, admiring it.
The following morning, I stepped outside to find Linda’s mailbox. Same shape. Same roof. Same bird.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned, clutching my coffee cup.
I waved to her when I saw her outside, but she never waved back. She just scurried into her barn like I had caught her doing something illegal.
And then came the daisies. They were my favorite flowers, so I planted them in a perfect curve by my front steps.
The next morning, Linda had the same daisies, planted in the same curved line, with the same stones around them.
I stood there, staring at her yard.
Is she copying me on purpose?
I tried to brush it off until yoga.
One sunny morning, I rolled out my mat and began stretching. When I looked over, Linda was wobbling in the exact same pose.
“Are you serious?” I muttered.
That was it. I marched across the yard and knocked on her wooden gate.
“Hey, Linda! We need to talk!”
The door creaked open slowly. She stood there, silent. Her dark eyes were wide, almost fearful.
“Why are you copying everything I do? What do you want from me?” I demanded.
She didn’t say a word. She stepped back, nodding slightly, motioning for me to come inside.
And that’s when I saw them.
Letters. Dozens of them, scattered across her table. All addressed to me.
“What are these?” I asked.
She picked up the top letter with trembling fingers and handed it to me. I opened it.
“My dear Ellie,” it began.
“I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know if you’d even want to listen, but I am… your mother. I lived near your father. We were never officially divorced, but we lived apart. When you were born, I was… different. I have autism. Life overwhelmed me. Your father decided it would be best if a stable, loving family raised you. But I always knew about you. And when he died, I took care of the farm.
And then you came… I didn’t know how to approach you, so I started doing what you did. It was my way of being close.”
I read it again. And again.
“You…” I looked up at her.
She stood still, barely breathing. I picked up another letter, older this time. A photo fell out. It was a picture of a younger Linda holding a toddler, both smiling.
“Is this…?” I asked, my heart pounding.
“That’s my daughter. Ellie.”
“Me?” I whispered.
“My daughter,” she repeated softly. “You’re Ellie.”
Something inside me snapped. Without thinking, I turned and ran—back to my yard, past the daisies, past the mailbox.
And I cried. I didn’t know how to fix anything, and I didn’t know if I was ready for it.
A few days passed.
I stayed inside, doing nothing. No reading. No coffee. No gardening. I just lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, hoping the shadows would give me some answer.
I wasn’t sick in the way a doctor could fix. It was an ache deep inside my chest. It was the kind of ache that made everything feel both weightless and heavy at once.
I thought that knowing the truth would bring me peace.
But instead of closure, I found a mother. And somehow, that unraveled me more than all the years of wondering.
Then, one morning, I opened the door to find a stack of thick envelopes, tied with string, sitting quietly on my doorstep.
I took them inside, hands trembling. Each envelope was marked with a year. One letter for every year of my life. Thirty letters.
I read the first. Then the second. Then all of them.
Each one was handwritten with care. Some had drawings. Others had dried petals inside. Every letter was full of emotion, sorrow, wonder… and love.
So much love.
Linda had written to me every year—for birthdays, for first days of school I’d never told her about, for a college she didn’t know I’d never finished. She imagined it all, sending her wishes into the empty space where I should have been.
I cried over every single letter. Sobbed. Because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel forgotten.
On the third morning, I opened the door again.
The flowerbeds had been watered. The animals were fed. The yard was freshly swept.
A folded note sat under a jar of homemade jam on my porch.
“Saved the milk in my fridge. Love, Mom.”
Mom.
I stared at that word, a single word that felt real for the first time.
For the first time, I knew I had a mother—quiet, complicated, and awkward, but someone who showed love in her own way.
And then I understood. It wasn’t her who had failed me. It was life. It was the way everything had broken apart before either of us could fix it.
Dad’s guilt lingered in the land, in the silence he left behind. But now, I had the power to rewrite the ending.
I made a decision. I stepped outside, barefoot as always.
Linda was in her yard, wobbling in a half-hearted yoga pose, her sunhat almost falling off her head. She was trying.
My heart ached. I walked to the fence.
“That’s… the warrior pose. I’m not a fan either,” I said.
She froze, then slowly turned, a small, shy smile on her face.
“You’re doing great,” I added. “But no more hat.”
She took it off, smoothed it out, and placed it on the grass. Then, she moved into a tree pose. She wobbled and fell over sideways.
I laughed. For the first time in days.
“Okay,” I said, stepping closer. “Let’s make a deal. I’ll show you a pose, and you try it. But no more copying my mailbox.”
She nodded, barely whispering, “Okay.”
“You’ll do better if you relax your fingers,” I said.
And we stood there, together, under the same sky, finally on the same side of the yard—still a little clumsy, but no longer alone.
Later, we made tea at my place. I pointed to the photo in her letter.
“That photo… that’s you?”
She nodded. “And my daughter Ellie. It’s you and me.”
“I’ve read all the letters. Thank you, Mom,” I said, squeezing my teacup.
She looked up, a soft smile forming. “Can I try that one pose tomorrow? The one with the leg in the air?”
I nodded. We smiled, and then we laughed. It felt like life was beginning to find its color again.
And that yellow fence? It didn’t seem so strange anymore. Maybe it was the beginning. Just like us.