The young woman holding the baby seemed strangely familiar, even though I had never seen her before.
At nine o’clock, Mom knocked softly.
“Claire, can I come in?”
I unlocked the door.
She entered carrying a large cardboard box that looked as though it had spent years hidden in an attic.
She placed it on my bed.
“Everything is in here,” she said. “Photographs, letters, hospital papers, and the documents from your adoption. You deserve the truth, even if it makes you hate us.”
I looked at the box.
“Start at the beginning.”
Mom sat beside me.
“Your biological mother’s name was Margaret Collins. She was twenty-six when she became pregnant with you. She was unmarried, and the man who fathered you disappeared when she told him she was expecting a child.”
“Did she love him?”
“I believe she did. But she eventually stopped waiting for him to return.”
Mom opened the box and handed me a letter.
