“If she’s Lucy…”
“Nora, you didn’t know.”
“Do you hate me?”
“But I brought her home.”
“You brought home a little girl who needed parents.”
Tears ran down her cheeks.
I wasn’t ready to comfort her by promising nothing would change.
Something already had.
“I brought her home.”
***
“Leave the papers with me,” I said.
She nodded.
Before she left, she turned at the door.
“Claire, whatever happens, I love her.”
“I know.”
“Claire, whatever happens, I love her.”
Afterward, I took Lucy’s bracelet from my bedroom.
The plastic had yellowed slightly.
Her name was still printed across the front.
I placed it beside the report.
Two pieces of paperwork.
I took Lucy’s bracelet from my bedroom.
Two completely different accounts of the same child’s beginning.
For the first time in five years, I couldn’t tell which one to believe.
