Chapter 11: What Dad Said

I did not call ahead.

I drove across the bay on Friday morning with the envelope on the passenger seat and found their hotel by its sign.

They were eating breakfast in the dining room.

Mom and Dad sat at a window table with Colby between them, and the room was full of strangers with coffee cups.

I walked straight to their table and laid the decree beside the butter dish.

Dad looked at the page.

He did not touch it.

"Regina had no right," he said.

"My name was Cedric Doane."

Mom's fork went down.

"Keep your voice low."

"Why? Do these people know me?"

A woman at the next table lowered her newspaper.

Colby stared at his plate.

"We raised you," Dad said. "Thirty-four years. Every meal, every school, every ride to the hospital. You never wanted for anything."

"I wanted to know who I was."

"You were ours."

"Then why does the paper say otherwise?"

Dad drew a slow breath through his nose.

"Your mother was young and alone. She couldn't care for a baby. We were neighbors, and we were decent. We took you because someone had to."

"Her husband had died."

"Yes."

"She was twenty-one."

"Yes. And she signed you over, Cedric. Of her own free will."

I looked at the surrender form, with the stamp at the bottom.

"You're the notary," I said.

"It was my job."

"You notarized your own adoption."

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