She slid it across the laminate table, her fingernail tapping the crease.

“That is a copy of my hospital discharge file,” she said. “I spent ten years trying to get it.”

I hesitated, then picked up the paper.

It was stiff and smelled of damp cardboard.

My eyes scanned the blurred photocopy of the typed text, my mind struggling to process the medical jargon.

Near the bottom, under the section marked *Disposition of Infant*, there was a handwritten note.

*Infant discharged to protective custody pending state hearing.*

Beneath that, a single name was written in blue ink, signed with a hurried flourish.

*Richard Vance.*

“He didn’t adopt her,” Rose whispered. “He took her.”

“No,” I said, the word slipping out of me like a gasp. “No, that’s not possible. The home visits. The social worker who came to our house.”

“Did she ever come back after the first month?” Rose asked.

I tried to remember.

I remembered a woman named Mrs. Gable.

She had stayed for ten minutes, drank a cup of tea, and looked at the nursery.

She had never returned.