Without thinking, I called out, “Ella?”
The woman turned, surprised. Her name, she explained gently, was Margaret.
We sat together and began to talk. Piece by piece, a different story emerged. Margaret had been adopted as a child and had always known little about her biological family. She was five years older than me, which meant she could not be my twin.
The conversation stayed with me long after we parted. When I returned home, I began carefully sorting through old family papers. Hidden among them was a document I had never seen before—an adoption record—and a letter written by my mother.
