I could not move. The surgeon pulled a chair beside my bed and sat down slowly, the cross resting against his scrubs. “My mother gave me this on my eighteenth birthday,” he said. “She told me it was tucked in my blanket the day I was born.” My monitor began to beep faster. “I have looked for you for eleven years. When your name appeared on the emergency list last night, I asked to operate on you myself.”

Tears blurred the room. “I need you to see what is in my adoption file,” he said quietly. He reached into his coat and unfolded a photocopied page. At the bottom was my father’s signature, beside a single line that stopped my heart: Birth mother deceased.