Mateo stirred in her arms and made a small contented sound. The sight of him — peaceful, trusting — against the woman who had carried the same blood as me cracked something deep inside my ribs.
I sank into the chair across from her.
For the next hour, she showed me everything: old letters, a faded hospital bracelet with my newborn footprint, newspaper clippings about my father’s death in a construction accident when I was only three — the father I had been told was a stranger who abandoned us.
She had never stopped looking for me.
