I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Harold made me promise.”
“Harold is dead.”
“And promises do not always die with people.”
I closed my eyes.
“What happened the night I was born?”
A long silence.
Then Margaret said, “Rose needs to tell you.”
Three days later, I drove with Evelyn to the facility.
Willa wanted to come.
I said no.
I still didn’t know what we would find.
Rose was eighty.
Small.
Thin.
White hair pinned loosely at the back of her head.
When I entered the room, she looked at me once and began to cry.
Not gradually.
Immediately.
“Oh,” she whispered.
Her hands shook.
“Oh, my baby.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
I sat across from her.
“You’re Rose?”
She nodded.
“You’re my mother?”
Her mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
I wanted to feel something enormous.
Love.
Recognition.
Anger.
Instead, I felt numb.
“Why did you leave
