My mother proudly showed me her modeling photo in a magazine when I was a child. Years later, I learned the dark truth... and had to make an agonizing decision

I was cleaning my third stepdad's garage when I found it, buried in a ratty box: a magazine I had seen only once, years before. 

I remembered it as a copy of Russian Vogue, but I could see now that what I was holding in my hands was no glossy style bible. It wasn't even really a magazine – it was more of a catalogue. 

There were no op-eds or fashion shoots. And the women in its pages were not advertising lipsticks or shampoo or clothes. They were advertising themselves.

And there, in a corner near the middle, was a photo of my mother. She looked to be around 17 years old, the same age I was as I held the catalogue, but I know she was a little older. Not by much. 

I read the inscription next to her photo. 'I am looking for a family and eternal love.' 

Until that point, I had always believed my mother was a model. I was seven and just learning English when I came home after career day at school and asked what her job was.

By this stage she was on her third husband, Chris – a man who I didn't understand was extremely violent towards my mother until a few months into their marriage. He was wealthy and we lived in a rich Houston neighborhood, so the parents of the kids at my elementary school had prestigious jobs.

She'd pulled out the catalogue proudly and, when I exclaimed, wide-eyed and awestruck, that she was a model, she did not correct me. I think, on some level, she wanted to fit in.

Suddenly, holding the magazine in my hands now, everything started to fall into place: This was why we came to the United States. My mother was a mail order bride. But what did that make me?

I'd always known how we came here – crossing the Mexico border with a man called Joe when I was three and a half and arriving in the United States undocumented.

I'd been in the back seat of a white SUV, and our white faces hadn't raised any questions as we were waved through the border without even showing our passports.

I don't remember much about Joe and mom didn't give many details on him, but I do remember he was old and could speak very choppy Russian. 

He took us through in his car, telling us that we'd keep trying to cross until they let us in. We made it on the fourth or fifth time. The first time, my mother kept a blanket over my head.

I hadn't thought much about how they'd come to meet. Mom was from a collapsed USSR. Joe was American. Did I think they'd just run into each other at a bar? Did I think they'd had a whirlwind romance? And as he never ended up marrying my mom, I hadn't thought about him much since.

A few months after he helped us cross the border, we left him without explanation.

Mom did this a lot. She didn't tell me many things, and the things she did tell me about our past didn't make me feel good. 

Now the magazine was in my hands, I wanted answers. But when I confronted her, she shut me down. 'You don't understand,' she told me. 'You'll never understand.' 

Her cheeks were pink, like she was ashamed. 

I was mad, I realized, because I wanted her to be respectable and strong. Not to rely on a man. Not to put her picture in a catalogue waiting for some guy to pay for her contact details. 

So many people, even my mom's American friends, told me I should avoid ending up like my mother, if I could. They called her a Russian wh***, and accused her of 'using' men to get what she wanted. They told me to act as American as I could. 

I always defended her. She had never married with the intention of getting a divorce, I had argued.

But what was this magazine? Now I felt they were right. 

One question my mother did answer was why she'd kept it for all those years. 'Because I look beautiful,' she told me, like it was a stupid thing to ask. Maybe it was. She was gorgeous. 

Years later, as a 28-year-old estranged from her mother, I would reflect on this conversation, and on all my unanswered questions. I wanted to know more about our past. 

The first thread I wanted to resolve was that of my family. My mother had told me my father had killed his own sister. And, somehow, the idea that a man she was with would kill his own sibling made sense to me. My three American stepdads had all been violent, either to me, her or both of us. So I'd stayed away for a long time. I knew my mom had worked for the mafia – perhaps my dad had too.

Now, knowing his name was Ivan, knowing his last name and his face, and knowing where he lived, I found him on Facebook and added him impulsively. He popped up on my 'suggested friends' first, but I had to verify it was him.

When he and I eventually started talking, I found out my mother had fabricated a lot about him – presumably because she took me from Russia without his permission and knew that if we reconnected she could be in legal trouble. 

My dad wasn't a killer. And he'd desperately tried to have a relationship with me. He showed me emails proving he'd written to my mom, telling her he would pay for my university. He'd begged her to let him talk to me.

I was shocked. I never knew he'd wanted me. And I could have really used a dad – my dad – during those lonely years, moving from place to place, escaping one man in search of another. Desperate for our green cards.

We'd been living in poverty, three of my mother's marriages having ended in divorce. A kaleidoscope of boyfriends and stepdads had run the gamut of father-figures. The worst locked me in closets for hours, made me watch scary movies so I'd want to sleep in their bed as they groomed me, or tried to isolate me from everyone in my life through strict rules and humiliating punishments.

When I was in third grade, I was forced to stay home for months after my head became infested with lice. Mom refused to treat it, using it as an excuse to keep me home instead, so I could watch my toddler sister and spare her the cost of a babysitter.

If my dad had known, things might have been different. Maybe I wouldn't have the lasting imprint of trauma stamped onto every day of my life.

If my dad had taken me back to Russia, I'd have grown up with my extended family. I'd have met my siblings, cousins and paternal grandfather, who passed away when I was 20. I never got to say goodbye. 

My beloved grandmother, who came to the US sporadically to raise my sister and me, is sick with cancer and I can't travel to see her. I have seen her three times since I became an adult, but soon, she won't be well enough to visit. 

I'll never get those years back, or have a relationship with the family we left behind. I can't see them now because Russia isn't safe for people like me who hold dual American citizenship. 

If I'd been raised with that huge family, perhaps I'd never have felt as alone as I did with my mother and the revolving door of stepdads who cycled through my life. 

However, I've been able to build a beautiful life for myself in adulthood because of the opportunities provided by the American citizenship we were eventually granted. I've been able to travel the world, get an American university degree, and meet and marry my husband. 

Had my mother not crossed the border over 30 years ago, my sister, who kept me going through some of my darkest moments, would never have been born. 

Did she make the right choice all those years ago?

Maybe the answer is she gave me the best life she could. 

Nine years ago I realized the best way I could honor my mother and the life she had given me was to protect my own mental health. My heart burst as I realized that meant I needed to cut off contact with her. 

It was an agonizing decision – one I like to think my mom knew all too well from when she decided to become a mail-order bride.

Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter: A Memoir From the Child of a Mail-Order Bride by Katya Suvorova is published by Alcove Press, September 29 and is available to pre-order