Chapter 3

On the evening of the seventh day, I went to the apartment above the pharmacy to get my copy of my birth certificate.

The door stood ajar. Silas's voice came from inside.

"If she asks how you chipped your left front tooth, what do you say?"

"I was six. I was chasing a streetcar and fell on the steps."

"No. You were fighting with a neighbor's kid over a pinwheel."

Several sheets of paper lay spread across the table. Every question was something my mother might ask when she met her daughter.

Was I afraid of thunder? Were there streetcars outside our house? What had my mother sung to put me to sleep?

Beside every question was an answer from my childhood.

Silas asked another one. "What if she asks why you didn't answer any of the thirty-one letters?"

"I'll say the Hallowells were afraid she'd take me away, so they hid them. I only found out about the letters recently."

"What if she brings up Wren?"

Loretta had no answer.

Silas was quiet for a moment.

"Tell her Wren got lost as a child, too. When she heard someone was looking for a daughter, she started confusing someone else's past with her own. Don't argue with her—just cry."

He'd even planned how to get rid of me.

I couldn't listen to another word.

I shoved the door open. Loretta scrambled to cover the papers.

Silas stayed calm. "What are you doing here?"

"Getting my birth certificate."

I pulled the pages out from under her hand.

An envelope was tucked against the last sheet. The address was unmistakable:

[c/o S. Ward — for Birdie, personal.]

I had barely read the name before Silas snatched the letter and the papers, then locked them in a drawer.

"Why do you have Mrs. Vance's letters to me?"

"She had the wrong person. These belong to Loretta."

Loretta leaned out from behind him. "Wren, she's been looking for me for years. I know this hurts because you got lost, too."

"But just because similar things happened to us doesn't mean you can claim my mother is yours."

My adoptive mother, Edith, came in carrying a stack of clothes. She stopped when she saw the medal on the table.

"Edith," I asked. "You knew?"

She avoided my eyes. "Loretta goes to Boston with her, and you stay here and marry Silas. It works out for everyone."

"But she's my mother."

"That woman wants a daughter. Loretta needs a way out. You have Silas, and you have us."

"What is there to fight over?"

To her, even my birth mother was just another thing she could hand over to Loretta.

A woman's voice sounded in the hall.

"Excuse me. Which room is Mr. Ward's?"

The room went silent.

Silas pulled the key out of the drawer's lock.

Loretta smoothed her hair and drew the half medal out over her collar.

I stood by the door, motionless.

The footsteps came closer, then stopped.

A woman in a gray coat stood in the doorway.

She was barely into her forties, but her hair was already gray at the temples.

She saw me first.

Her handbag fell to the floor.

"Birdie?"

The moment I heard that nickname in her voice, tears flooded my eyes.

She reached for me.

Before I could say "Mom," Loretta shoved past me and threw herself into her arms.

"Mom. You finally came."

The woman went rigid.

Loretta held up the half medal against her chest.

Margaret Vance touched it, and tears rolled down her face.

Silas walked past me and joined them.

"Mrs. Vance, this is Loretta."

My birth mother had called me by my name first.

But my fiancé placed another woman in front of her.

"This is your daughter."