The woman’s hand emerged from her coat holding not a threat, but a photograph. It was old and creased, a young woman in a hospital gown holding a newborn, and my breath caught because the young woman was unmistakably me, thirty-six years earlier. “My name is Corinne,” she said, her voice shaking.

“The clinic called me because our records were linked. Eleanor, the egg you used wasn’t only stored. Decades ago, part of that same donation cycle was used once before, without your full knowledge, in an early program error the clinic buried.” She looked at Hazel, then at me. “I was that error. I was born from your genetic line forty-five years ago. Hazel isn’t just your daughter.” Her tears spilled over. “She’s my half-sister. And I have spent my whole life looking for where I came from.”