The sentence settled heavily between us.
“Who I truly am?”
Celeste reached into her handbag.
She removed a folded document and placed it on the table.
It was not a birth certificate.
It was an adoption record.
My name appeared beside the words legal guardianship transfer.
The birth mother’s name was redacted.
I stared at it.
“What is this?”
Celeste’s tears fell silently.
“I gave birth to a daughter,” she said. “But she died after three days.”
The world narrowed to the paper beneath my hands.
“No.”
“Your grandmother brought you to me two weeks later.”
“Whose child was I?”
Neither of them answered.
My heart began to pound.
“Whose child?”
Celeste whispered the name.
“Beatrice Mercer’s.”
I stopped breathing.
The terrace lights blurred.
Adrian caught my arm, but I pulled away.
