“But she couldn’t?”
“It was a closed adoption.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
“People don’t just disappear.”
Walter’s eyes filled with tears.
“You did.”
The words were quiet.
But they broke something inside me.
He explained that Kate had believed I was growing up with the family who had adopted me.
She thought I had a bedroom.
A mother.
A father.
School pictures.
Christmas mornings.
She thought I was safe.
She didn’t know I had been moved into foster care.
She didn’t know how many homes I had lived in.
She didn’t know that by adolescence I had stopped calling anywhere “home.”
“She believed you were happy,” Walter said.
I stared at him.
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
Then he looked at me.
“I found something else.”
He went home.
I followed him.
He returned carrying a battered cardboard box.
I had seen it before.
I had assumed it was old family paperwork.
He placed it on the table.
Inside were photographs.
Letters.
Hospital records.
A tiny bracelet.
A photograph of a young woman holding a newborn baby.
I knew immediately.
My mother.
Kate.
She looked frightened.
Young.
Beautiful.
And completely unprepared for what life was about to demand from her.
