“Helen, were you connected to Maplewood House?”
Mom looked at me.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then something in her expression changed.
It was as though thirty years of avoiding one conversation had finally ended.
“I worked there,” she said.
I stared at her.
“As a nurse.”
“What?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Emma, there’s something I should have told you years ago.”
My heart started pounding.
“I tried many times. I really did. But every time I thought I was ready, I became afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
She took a shaky breath.
Then she said the words that changed everything I thought I knew about my life.
“You weren’t born to me.”
I couldn’t speak.
The normal sounds of the hospital continued outside the room.
Carts moving.
