It does not establish that the claimant is who she says she is.”

“Then why would anyone file it?”

Samuel closed the folder halfway.

“That is one of the questions we need to answer.”

He turned the index toward me.

A filing date appeared beside the entry, less than a month old.

I had spent four years believing the adoption papers told a settled story.

Now a stranger had challenged that story using the very identity I had been told to trust.