I turned 26 in March. At least, I thought I did. The caseworker who filled out my intake form in 1999 had guessed March based on my height and teeth. Before that, someone else had written September. My first foster mom celebrated it in July. I’d cycled through three birthdays and three last names, depending on which county handled my file. But none of them were really mine. The only thing I’d owned my whole life was a stuffed rabbit with one button eye missing.
I was three years old when they found me behind a gas station outside Reno. It was early morning, still dark, and a truck driver spotted me sitting near the dumpsters. I was wearing a gray hoodie three sizes too big, no shoes, and I wouldn’t let go of that rabbit. They said I didn’t cry or talk. I just sat there, squeezing that toy like it was the only solid thing in the world.
The police report said “suspected abandonment.”
I learned to read that word when I was seven, sitting in a social worker’s office. She was talking about my case on the phone. I sounded out the syllables slowly. Later, I looked it up: Abandonment: the act of leaving someone behind. I spent the next 19 years translating that into a simpler word. Unwanted.
Growing up in foster care taught me not to expect much. I learned to pack light, say thank you, and keep my favorite things in a backpack because I never knew when I’d have to leave. I bounced between six homes before I aged out at 18. By the time I hit my 20s, I’d stopped looking for answers. Whoever left me behind clearly didn’t want to be found. I convinced myself I was fine with that.
Then TikTok happened.
I started posting videos about foster care a year ago. Nothing fancy, just talking about what it was really like. My videos didn’t get much attention, but I kept posting. It felt good to speak the truth out loud.
One night in January, I was scrolling through old posts. I remembered driving through Nevada on a road trip five years ago and stopping at the same gas station where they found me. I’d taken a photo of it just to prove to myself I could stand in that spot and survive. On impulse, I made a quick video. I held up my rabbit.
“This is Hopper,” I said, squeezing his worn gray fur. “We’ve been together since I was three years old. Found behind a gas station in Reno, Nevada, back in 1999. If anyone remembers anything about that night or knows anything about a little girl who went missing around that time, I’d love to know. Even just the smallest detail would mean something.”
I posted it at 11 p.m. and went to bed.
When I woke up, my phone was exploding. The video had been shared thousands of times. My notifications were flooded with comments from people saying they remembered hearing about a toddler found in Reno. True-crime buffs were tagging each other.
Then I saw a message request from someone named Elena. “I think I know that rabbit,” Elena wrote. “Please message me back. This is important.”
My hands shook as I opened the DM. Elena had attached a photo. It showed a little girl, maybe two years old, sitting on someone’s lap. And in her arms was a gray stuffed rabbit with two button eyes.
I stared at that photo for a long time. My rabbit had lost his second eye years ago, but the shape was identical. The ears, the stitching, even the angle of his crooked smile were the same. “Who is this?” I typed back.
Elena’s response came immediately. “Her name was Isabela. She was my niece. She disappeared from a park in Phoenix 23 years ago. We never found her.”
I read the message three times before my brain could process it. Phoenix. A missing child. Twenty-three years ago. The timing matched perfectly with when I was found in Reno.
Over the next few days, we exchanged dozens of messages. Elena sent more photos. A birthday party. A Christmas morning. And in almost every single picture, there was that rabbit. “My sister Rosa made it for Isabela,” Elena explained during our first phone call. “She sewed it by hand. Rosa called it Conejito.”
I looked down at Hopper. “I’ve been calling him the wrong name this whole time,” I whispered.
“You’ve been keeping him safe,” Elena said gently. “That’s what matters.”
But Elena wasn’t the only one who noticed the connection. Within 48 hours, a true-crime podcaster named Jordan reached out. Jordan had been researching cold cases.
“I think I found something,” Jordan said. “Back in 1999, there were two separate cases logged in two different states. A toddler named Isabela disappeared from a Phoenix park in April, and an unidentified child was found behind a Reno gas station in July. Both reports mentioned a stuffed rabbit, but the cases were never connected because they were in different jurisdictions.”
I felt dizzy. “How is that even possible?”
“Paperwork errors happen,” Jordan explained. “If someone took Isabela from Phoenix to Nevada, and she was found months later, they might not have thought to cross-reference cases from different states. They probably assumed she was a local kid who’d been abandoned.”
Jordan posted a podcast episode about the connection. People started digging through old news archives. The pressure mounted until detectives in both Arizona and Nevada agreed to reopen the files.
Elena called me one evening in late February, her voice shaking. “The detectives want to do a DNA test,” she said. “Between you and my parents. Your biological grandparents, if this is real.”
My throat tightened. “What if it’s not a match? What if we’re wrong?”
“Then we’ll know,” Elena said softly. “But what if we’re right?”
The test took two weeks to process. I barely slept. I kept picking up my phone, then putting it down, afraid of what I might find.
When the call finally came, I was at work, stocking shelves at the grocery store. I saw Elena’s name flash across my screen and nearly dropped a box of cereal.
“It’s a match,” Elena said, and then she was crying. “Ava, it’s a match. You’re Isabela. You’re my niece. You’re Rosa’s daughter.”
I sank onto the floor right there in aisle seven. Twenty-three years of questions suddenly had an answer. I hadn’t been abandoned. I’d been stolen, lost in a system that failed to connect the dots, labeled as unwanted when the truth was that someone had been searching for me all along.
“Your grandparents want to meet you,” Elena said through her tears. “Whenever you’re ready. There’s no pressure, but they’ve been waiting so long.”
I looked down at the rabbit keychain on my work lanyard, the miniature version of Conejito I’d made years ago. “I’m ready,” I whispered. “I think I’ve been ready my whole life.”
Three weeks later, I stepped off a plane in Phoenix with Conejito tucked carefully in my carry-on bag. I insisted on taking an Uber to the meeting place. I needed those extra 30 minutes to prepare myself.
They’d chosen a small community room at a church. When I walked through the door, the first thing I saw was a long table covered with photo albums. The second thing I saw was faces that looked startlingly like my own. Elena stood near the entrance, smiling through fresh tears.
“Everyone,” Elena said softly, “this is Isabela.”
An older woman with silver-streaked hair stood up slowly from her chair. Her hands were trembling, and she looked exactly like the woman in the faded photos Elena had sent. My grandmother. She didn’t say a word. She just walked across the room and held me, finally completing a circle that had been broken for 26 years.
