Birthright

stomach was clutching again. She ran the water cold, as cold as she could stand, and splashed it on her face.
    She didn’t look in the mirror. She wasn’t ready for that, either.
    When she came out, started down, Vivian was in the foyer, clutching her husband’s hand.
    Look how tall he is, Callie thought. How tall and trim and handsome. And how perfect they look together. Dr. Elliot Dunbrook and his pretty Vivian.
    They’d lied to her, every day of her life.
    “Callie. You’ve got your mother in a state.” Elliot crossed over, wrapped his arms around Callie and gave her a bear hug. “What’s wrong with my girl?” he questioned, and had tears burning her eyes.
    “I didn’t expect you back today.” She stepped out of his arms. “I thought I’d have more time to figure out what I wanted to say. Now I don’t. We need to go in and sit down.”
    “Callie, are you in trouble?”
    She looked at her father’s face, into his face, saw nothing but love and concern. “I don’t know what I am,” she said simply, and walked across the foyer into the living room.
    The perfect room, she thought, for people of taste and means. Antiques, carefully chosen, carefully maintained. Comfortable chairs in the deep colors they both favored. The charm of folk art for the walls, the elegance of old crystal.
    Family pictures on the mantel that made her heart ache.
    “I need to ask you . . .”
    No, she couldn’t do this with her back to them. Whatever she’d learned, whatever she would learn, they deserved to speak directly to her face. She turned, took one deep breath.
    “I need to ask you why you never told me I was adopted.”
    Vivian made a strangled sound, as if she’d been dealt a hard punch to the throat. Her lips trembled. “Callie, where did you—”
    “Please don’t deny it. Please don’t do that.” She could barely get the words out. “I’m sorry, but I went through the files.” She looked at her father. “I broke into the locked drawer, and the security box inside. I saw the medical records, the adoption papers.”
    “Elliot.”
    “Sit down, Vivian. Sit down.” He pulled her to a chair, lowered her into it. “I couldn’t destroy them.” He stroked a hand over his wife’s cheek as he might a frightened child’s. “It wasn’t right.”
    “But it was right to conceal the facts of my birth from me?” Callie demanded.
    Elliot’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t important to us.”
    “Wasn’t—”
    “Don’t blame your father.” Vivian reached up for Elliot’s hand. “He did it for me,” she said to Callie. “I made him promise. I made him swear. I needed . . .”
    She began to weep, slow tears streaming down her face. “Don’t hate me, Callie. Oh God, don’t hate me for this. You were my baby the instant you were put in my arms. Nothing else mattered.”
    “A replacement for the baby you lost?”
    “Callie.” Now Elliot stepped forward. “Don’t be cruel.”
    “Cruel?” Who was this man, staring at her out of sad, angry eyes? Who was her father? “You can speak to me of cruel after what you’ve done?”
    “What have we done?” he tossed back. “We didn’t tell you. How can that matter so much? Your mother—yourmother needed the illusion at first. She was devastated, inconsolable. She could never give birth to a child. When there was a chance to adopt you, to have a daughter, we took it. We loved you, love you, not because you’re like our own, because you are our own.”
    “I couldn’t face the loss of that baby,” Vivian managed. “Not after the two miscarriages, not after doing everything I could to make certain the baby was born healthy. I couldn’t bear the thought of people looking at you and seeing you as a substitute. We moved here, to start fresh. Just the three of us. And I put all of that away. It doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change who we are or how much we love you.”
    “You pay for a black-market baby. You take a child stolen from another family, and it doesn’t change anything?”
    “What are you talking about?” Elliot’s face filled with angry color. “That’s a vicious thing to say. Vicious. Whatever we’ve done we don’t deserve that.”
    “You paid a quarter of a million dollars.”
    “That’s right. We arranged for a private adoption and money speeds the wheel. It may not be considered fair to couples less able to pay, but it’s not a crime. We agreed to the fee, agreed that the biological mother should