How much of a life can be bought for exactly 12,240 dollars? I used to think it was a fair price for a miracle. I grew up in a quiet house in central Iowa where the floorboards creaked in the exact same spots every time you walked to the kitchen.

My parents were older, patient people who never spoke much about the agency. They just said I was a gift from a private lawyer in Des Moines who handled things quietly. I believed them because that is what children do. I believed it for thirty-seven years.

Last Tuesday, I was at the Walmart deli counter waiting for a pound of sliced ham. It was 3:14 in the afternoon. The store was quiet, just the hum of the freezer units and the distant beeping of a scanner. I was looking at the glass case, thinking about what to make for dinner, when I felt someone watching me. I turned my head. A woman was standing a few feet away, holding a half-empty basket. She looked to be about seventy, with tired eyes and a coat that had seen too many winters.

She didn’t look away when I caught her staring. She just stood there. Nobody said anything for a second and honestly that felt worse than a shout. Then she took a half-step toward me.

“You look exactly like someone I used to know.”

I gave her a polite, distracted smile. I get that a lot. People always think they know me from somewhere. “Oh, that’s nice,” I said, turning back to the clerk. “I hope she was a good person.”

The woman didn’t laugh. She didn’t even blink. “She died in 1987. Car accident.”

That stopped me. I felt a cold chill run right down my spine. I looked back at her and my hands started to feel heavy. “My name is Catherine,” I said. “I was adopted in 1987.”

The woman’s basket hit the floor with a loud plastic clatter. A few packages of deli meat tumbled out. She didn’t look at them. She moved fast, ignoring the clerk, and grabbed my arm just above the wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

“What’s your birthday?”

I told her, “March 14.”

She let out a sound that wasn’t quite a sob. It was more like she had forgotten how to breathe. She covered her mouth with her free hand. “That was her birthday.”

The room started to spin. I grabbed the edge of the glass counter to keep my balance. My head was buzzing. I thought about the 12,000 dollars my parents paid in 1987. I thought about the private agency that shuttered its doors in 1991, leaving no records for the state to audit. I thought about the birth certificate that always looked a little too crisp, a little too clean.