Thomas and Elaine Cole.
I brought flowers.
I had complicated feelings about people I had never met.
Gratitude.
Jealousy.
Pain.
But the available evidence said they had believed the adoption was
legitimate.
They raised my son when I had been told he was dead.
I touched Elaine’s headstone.
“Thank you for loving him.”
That was all I needed to say.
PART 46 — MY MOTHER
Forgiving my mother was harder.
I do not know whether I ever fully did.
She believed she was solving a crisis.
She believed money, medical risk, and my unstable marriage justified
making a decision for me.
They did not.
Love does not make every act committed in its name loving.
I can understand her fear without calling her choice acceptable.
PART 47 — PAUL
Paul was dead.
I could not question him.
That anger remained unresolved.
His role appeared throughout the surviving records and letters, but
there were gaps we could never fill.
