A receipt from the public library.

And my little leather wallet.

I unzipped the billfold and counted the bills inside.

One crisp hundred, five twenties and one ten.

Two hundred ten dollars in total cash left to my name.

I picked up my phone and opened the browser.

Saved among my open tabs was the portal for the National Genetic Identity Registry, a public DNA database built to connect adults raised in closed state foster care with confirmed biological relatives.

I’d looked at that page a hundred times over the past year, but fear had always made me close it.