They Said I Was Adopted, but I Was Always the Real Daughter novel · Chapter 7 of 24
Chapter 7: Three Hundred Thousand Pesos
I looked in the bag at six the next morning, because I couldn't sleep.
It was a box of my own life, dented and soft with age.
Crayon horses.
A report card with a gold star.
A birthday card from my father that said, in his small blocky writing, "To my Inés, who is too clever for her old dad."
At the bottom was a photograph, and I almost missed it.
It showed my mother in a green dress on the back patio, enormous and laughing, with one hand on her belly.
A toddler sat on her lap with a mouth full of cake.
The toddler was Paulina, about a year old.
Someone had written on the back, in my mother's neat hand: "Eight months. Inés is on her way."
I held it for a long time.
Then I put it in my pocket with the bracelet, and I went downstairs to work.
The shop opened at ten.
By ten thirty a couple was arguing over invitation paper, a bride was pointing at a font, and a delivery man was waiting on the counter for a signature.
Gael was behind the register, and I was at the design table in my knit cap, pretending to move a logo two pixels to the left.
The bell over the door rang.
My mother came in wearing her camel coat and her good pearl earrings, and she held the door open for a second.
She didn't look at the customers.
She walked to my table and laid a white envelope in front of me, and on top of it a single typed page.
"Good morning, Inés," she said. "I've come to make this easy."
"Mom, this isn't the place."
"It's the only place you'll let me find you."
The bride stopped pointing at her font.
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