But look at what you are doing now!

You are handing millions of dollars over to absolute strangers, when that money belongs to this family!

It came from a tragedy that hurt all of us!”

And I looked at my mother’s face, and I found, searching myself, that there was nothing left.

Every last remaining ember of feeling I had carried for my biological family, the small stubborn warmth that a child never fully stops feeling for her parents, had finally, completely burned out.

“It did not hurt you,” I said, very quietly.