They Said I Was Adopted, but I Was Always the Real Daughter novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Not a Match

"Give me that," my mother said again.

I closed my hand around the bracelet.

"No."

She got up off the floor with her glasses in her fist and smoothed her coat.

She was already finding the smile.

"It's nothing," she said, loud enough for the room. "A keepsake from the clinic. They put our name on the bracelet because we were the adoptive family on the paperwork. You're making a scene over a piece of plastic."

"My birthday is on it," I said.

"Of course it is. That was the day you were handed to us."

"Graciela." My father's voice was very tired. "I was in the room. You pushed for nineteen hours."

My mother turned and looked at him.

"You are going to regret this, Humberto."

"I regretted it eighteen years ago," he said. "That's the whole trouble."

The guard reached our table and stopped, unsure which of us to be firm with.

My mother picked up her bag, her keys and her cracked glasses, and she handed none of them a glance.

"Paulina, we're leaving."

Paulina didn't move.

She stood with her arms still half raised between us, her face wet.

She was looking at the bracelet in my hand.

"Paulina."

"Go with her," I told my sister.

I wasn't being cruel.

I couldn't think of anything she could say that would fix this.

I didn't want her to try.

She went.

My mother put a hand on her back and steered her to the door.

At the last second Paulina looked over her shoulder at me.

She didn't look angry or confused.

She looked like someone watching a house she lived in start to burn.

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