The papers that had been meant to make him family.
Suddenly they looked absurd.
Because the man we had been planning to adopt had just told me he had already been my family before I was born.
My husband stood.
“Abby, sit down.”
“I can’t.”
I looked at Walter.
“How?”
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his phone.
“Two years ago, I took an ancestry test.”
My heart began beating harder.
“I wasn’t looking for you specifically,” he said. “Not at first.”
“What were you looking for?”
“My daughter.”
I stared at him.
“Her name was Kate.”
My breath stopped.
I had heard that name once before.
Years ago.
In a document.
A tiny piece of information from my adoption records.
My biological mother’s first name.
Kate.
Walter watched my face.
“You know that name.”
I couldn’t speak.
He nodded.
“Kate was my daughter.”
My husband whispered my name.
I barely heard him.
Walter continued.
“She had a baby when she was nineteen.”
I looked at the adoption papers.
Then at Walter.
“A baby girl.”
My hands went cold.
“Me?”
Walter nodded.
“You.”
I sat down.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then I whispered the question that had lived inside me for most of my life.
