A girl from work, Tracy, slid her phone across my desk one Tuesday and said, “This woman looks exactly like you.”

I figured she was teasing me. I’m not a head turner, never have been. But I looked anyway.

It was an obituary. Margaret Elaine Cooper. Died at 74. Knoxville, Tennessee. And honestly, my hand sort of stopped halfway to my coffee.

Same round face I’ve got. Same little point of hair on the forehead, the widow’s peak my mother used to try and pin back when I was small. Even the crooked pinky finger, bent at the top knuckle. Just like mine.

Now here’s the part most folks at the office didn’t know. I’m adopted. And I didn’t find that out until I was 40 years old, if you can believe it.

My mom and dad were good people. The best. They raised me, loved me, never once made me feel like anything but theirs. But when I asked questions, they got real quiet.

“The records are sealed, honey,” my dad told me. “1969. That’s just how they did it back then.” And that was the end of it, bless him.

So for a lot of years I let it go. I had a life to live. Kids of my own. Anyway.

But that obituary sat on my mind like a splinter you can’t dig out. I read it at my kitchen table that night about nine times.

Three children listed. And wouldn’t you know it, one of them lived right here in my city. Same zip code as the grocery store I shop at every Saturday.

I’ll be honest with you. A normal person would have left it alone. I am not always a normal person.

I found the address. Easier than it ought to be these days, mind you. And one afternoon I drove out there and parked across the street like some kind of stalker.

There was a woman in the front yard. Right about my age. On her knees, planting roses along the walk, dirt all up her arms.

I sat in that car a full twenty minutes. My heart going like a hammer. Telling myself to start the engine and drive home and forget the whole thing.

I didn’t drive home.

I walked up that driveway with my legs shaking and my mouth dry as cotton. She looked up, squinting in the sun at me.

And the first thing out of my mouth wasn’t even hello. I said, “Did your mother ever mention giving up a child?”

She dropped the trowel. Just let it fall in the dirt. “Who are you?” she said. Real low.

I didn’t have a speech ready. I just reached in my purse and handed her my birth certificate. The amended one, the only kind I’ve got. No real names on it. They wipe all that off, see.

She read it slow. Her hands were trembling, I could see it. Then she got to the date. 1969.