Somewhere Out There

By: Mary McSwain Steele, Allan Schildknecht

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The long-awaited sequel to Betty: A Memoir continues a story that waited seventy-eight years to be told.

In 1947, a young nursing student made a heartbreaking choice to place her newborn son for adoption. She carried that secret in silence for a lifetime, revealing it only in a whispered confession to her daughters as she was dying.

For fifteen years, Mary and Susan searched for the brother they never knew. Life sometimes pulled them away —careers, families, cancer—but the promise they made to their mother kept them returning to the search again and again. They followed every lead, submitted multiple DNA tests, and prayed for answers that never came.

Just when hope was fading, an unexpected 11-word text changed everything.

Somewhere Out There tells the remarkable true story of siblings separated by circumstance, and the extraordinary events that brought their stories full circle. Told by Mary McSwain Steele and Allan Schildknecht, the book traces the parallel paths of a sister and brother who spent decades unaware of one another’s existence. What unfolds is a deeply moving memoir of loss, resilience, and identity, reminding us that it’s never too late to heal what was broken, keep a promise, or fulfill a wish.

And that closure sometimes comes when we least expect it.