“Mother.”

Maya stared at him.

“No.”

The woman on the porch didn’t move.

Maya’s hands began shaking.

“My mother raised me for thirty-two years.”

Adam nodded.

“And she loved you.”

“Then what are you saying?”

He swallowed.

“She wasn’t the woman who gave birth to you.”

Maya reached for the door handle.

Adam stopped her.

“Wait.”

“Get your hand off me.”

“Maya, there’s more.”

She looked at him.

“How long have you known?”

His silence answered first.

Her face collapsed.

“How long?”

“Six months.”

Maya pulled away from him.

“You knew for six months?”

“I was trying to understand what happened.”

“What happened is you lied to me.”

The woman on the porch slowly placed something on the ground.

Then stepped backward.

Maya squinted.

An envelope.

Adam whispered,

“She said she only wanted you to have the truth.”

Maya opened the car door.

This time he didn’t stop her.

She crossed the driveway and picked up the envelope.

Inside was her original birth certificate.

And a hospital photograph.

Two newborn babies lay beside each other.

Maya stared at it.

“Why are there two babies?”

Adam had followed her.

He looked toward the woman.

Her biological mother was crying now.

Maya turned the photograph over.

Two names had been written on the back.

One was hers.

The other was Lily.

Maya looked toward the upstairs bedroom window.

Her voice became almost inaudible.

“Our daughter?”

Adam’s face changed.

“No.”

Maya looked at him.

“Then why is Lily’s name on a photograph taken thirty-two years ago?”

The woman finally stepped closer.

“Because Lily wasn’t the first child in your family with that name.”

Maya stared at her.

“What does that mean?”

The woman looked at the house.

Then whispered,

“The woman who raised you didn’t just take you from me.”

Her eyes filled.

“She took your—”