The Photograph That Led Me to My Twins—and the Letters My Mother Hid for Three Years

“Perhaps,” I said.

He shook his head.

“I think you’re becoming harder to manipulate.”

That was the first time I understood that gentleness and weakness were not the same thing.

PART 11: THE CHILDREN’S QUESTIONS

The twins’ questions arrived without ceremony.

Maya asked why I came to visit but didn’t live with them.

Caleb asked whether I was related to the man in a photograph Savannah kept in a drawer.