I cannot promise they will wait for the records.”

I looked at the line for my signature.

“What happens if they say I have no right to question the adoption?”

“Then we answer with the law and the evidence.

But I need you to understand that the inquiry will not stay private simply because we wish it would.”

I thought of Renata’s unfinished drawing, and the place she had left for a woman whose name she knew but whose story she did not.

“If the record is right, a certified copy will say so,” I said.