“I haven’t forgotten that.

Sometimes I’m still figuring out what it means for me.”

“Me too.”

We washed dishes side by side.

It felt more useful than trying to invent the perfect family vocabulary.

PART 14

I had always thought of memory as a loyal thing.

After the DNA results, my mind began offering details I’d forgotten: a woman with a clipped voice at the foot of my hospital bed, Robert stepping into the corridor with an envelope, the faint sound of another infant crying.