When Claire got straight A’s, there was cake.
When I won a regional essay contest, my mother said, “That’s nice, but don’t brag. It makes people uncomfortable.”
When Claire broke a vase, it was an accident.
When I dropped a glass at thirteen, my father said, “This is why nobody trusts you with anything valuable.”
When Claire got pregnant, my parents turned their house into a shrine of pastel balloons and silver rattles.
When my appendix burst, I became an inconvenience.
And now a stranger sat beside me with a twenty-six-year-old grief in his hands, telling me that maybe I had not been unwanted after all.
Maybe I had been stolen.
“How did you know I was here?” I asked.
Gerald wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“That part feels like something out of a book. I almost didn’t come to the hospital last night. My friend Owen had surgery yesterday. I stopped by to bring his wife some coffee. I was near the nurses’ desk when I heard a woman raising her voice.”
