Birthright

be compensated. To stand there and accuse us of buying you, of stealing you denigrates everything we’ve ever had as a family.”
    “You don’t ask why I came here, why I looked in your files, why I broke into your private papers?”
    Elliot dragged a hand through his hair, then sat. “I can’t keep up. For God’s sake, Callie, do you expect logic and reason when you throw this at us?”
    “Last night, a woman came to my room. She’d seen the news segment I did on my current project. She said I was her daughter.”
    “You’re my daughter,” Vivian said, low and fierce. “You’re my child.”
    “She said,” Callie continued, “that on December 12, 1974, her infant daughter was stolen. From a mall in Hagerstown, Maryland. She showed me pictures of herselfat my age, of her mother at my age. There’s a very strong resemblance. Coloring, facial shape. The damn three dimples. I told her I couldn’t be. I told her I wasn’t adopted. But I was.”
    “It can’t have anything to do with us.” Elliot rubbed a hand over his heart. “That’s insane.”
    “She’s mistaken.” Vivian shook her head slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. “She’s horribly mistaken.”
    “Of course she is.” Elliot reached for her hand again. “Of course she is. We went through a lawyer,” he told Callie. “A reputable lawyer who specialized in private adoptions. We had recommendations from your mother’s obstetrician. We expedited the adoption process, yes, but that’s all. We’d never be a party to kidnapping, to baby brokering. You can’t believe that.”
    She looked at him, at her mother, who stared at her out of swimming eyes. “No. No,” she said and felt a little of the weight lift. “No, I don’t believe that. So let’s talk about exactly what you did.”
    First, she stepped to her mother’s chair, crouched down. “Mom.” All she did was touch Vivian’s hand and repeat. “Mom.”
    With one choked sob, Vivian lunged forward and caught Callie in her arms.

Five
    C allie made coffee as much to give her parents time to compose themselves as for the need. They were her parents. That hadn’t changed.
    The sense of anger and betrayal was fading. How could it stand against her mother’s ravaged face or her father’s sorrow?
    But if she could block out the hurt, she couldn’t block out the need to understand, to have answers she could align until they gave her the whole.
    No matter how much she loved them, she needed to know.
    She carried the coffee back to the living room and saw that her parents sat together on the couch now, hands clasped.
    A unit, she mused. They were, as always, a unit.
    “I don’t know if you can ever forgive me,” Vivian began.
    “I don’t think you understand.” Callie poured the coffee. The simple task gave her something to do with her hands, kept her gaze focused on pot and cup. “I have to know the facts. I can’t see the whole picture until I have thepieces of it to put together. We’re a family. Nothing changes that, but I have to know the facts.”
    “You were always a logical girl,” Elliot replied. “We’ve hurt you.”
    “Let’s not worry about that now.” Rather than move to a chair, Callie lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the table. “First I need to understand . . . about adoption. Did you feel it made you, me . . . us less valid?”
    “However a family is made is a miracle,” Elliot responded. “You were our miracle.”
    “But you concealed it.”
    “It’s my fault.” Vivian blinked at tears again. “It was my fault.”
    “There’s no fault,” Callie said. “Just tell me.”
    “We wanted a child.” Vivian’s fingers tightened on Elliot’s. “We so very much wanted a child. When I had the first miscarriage, it was terrible. I can’t explain it to you. The sense of loss and grief and panic. Of . . . failure. My doctor said we could try again, but that I might have . . . might have difficulty carrying a child to term. Any future pregnancy would have to be carefully monitored. And even though it was, I miscarried again. I was . . . I felt . . . broken.”
    Callie lifted a cup, held it up to her mother. “I know. I understand.”
    “They gave me a mood elevator to get me through the depression.” She managed a watery smile. “Elliot weaned me off the pills. He kept me busy instead. Antiquing, going to the theater. Weekends in the country when he could manage it.” She