“And this child,” she said, nodding toward the office where Junie sat, “gave you an address four streets from your home. Has been apparently living four streets from you. Looks exactly like your daughter’s photograph.”
She took a breath.
“I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to hold on.
Was there any possibility your daughter was a twin?”
The hallway tilted.
“I had one baby,” I said. “I held one baby.”
“You held one baby,” Okafor repeated carefully. “But who managed the delivery paperwork, Mrs. Vance? Who did the hospital forms, the birth records — back then?”
And I heard myself say it, the sentence that has echoed through every terrible story like mine:
“Adrian did. I hemorrhaged. I was unconscious for the first day. He handled all of it.”
