I stared at the ink. The paper was dry and brittle, but the blue ink was still clear.

The signature was written in a beautiful, sweeping cursive.

The “H” in Helen had a perfect, looping tail. The “M” in Mom on my birthday cards had that exact same curl.

It was Helen’s handwriting.

My adoptive mother. The woman who had raised me.

She was the head nurse in the delivery wing that night.

She had lied to a seventeen-year-old girl. She had stolen her baby, signed the papers herself to cover her tracks, and then brought me home to raise as her “miracle.”

I sat in that wooden booth, my mind racing.

Helen hadn’t saved me. She had stolen me.

And I was currently spending forty-eight thousand dollars a year of my hard-earned money to keep her in a luxury retirement suite.

“We are going to see her,” I told Gloria. My voice sounded cold, even to myself.

We drove back to Brunswick in silence. The afternoon sun was hot against the windshield. I felt completely numb.

We walked through the glass doors of Shady Pines. The lobby smelled like lemon polish and artificial flowers.

The receptionist smiled at me. “Good afternoon, Sarah! Helen is in the garden room.”

“No,” I said. “We’ll go to her suite.”

We walked down the carpeted hallway. When I pushed open the door to Helen’s room, she was sitting in her recliner. She was wearing a beige cardigan I had bought her for Mother’s Day.

“Sarah, darling!” she piped up, her voice sweet and high. “You didn’t say you were visiting today.”

Then, she saw Gloria standing in the doorway right behind me.

The sweet smile froze on Helen’s face.

I have never seen someone’s skin change color so fast. She went completely gray. Her mouth opened slightly, but no sound came out.

“Do you remember Gloria?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet.

I walked over to her recliner and laid the yellowed hospital document on her lap, right over her knitting.

“You told her she had a stillborn baby,” I said. “You made her bury an empty casket.”

Helen stared at the yellowed paper. Her hands began to tremble.

“Sarah, please,” she whimpered, looking up at me with tears in her eyes. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t have children. I wanted a baby so badly. That girl was young, she had nothing to offer you. I gave you a good life.”