“...I couldn't let go of her hand. For a few moments, I looked at the shape of it, the roundness of her fingers. I realized that her hands gave me a sense of comfort because they were the most familiar part of her to me. Those hands had always been in my sight when I was a child. Those were the hands I held crossing the street, the hands that made me lunch and cooked me dinner, the hands that stroked me when I was feeling sad, the hands on the steering wheel driving me all over town, the hands whose rings I had looked at and played with, turning them around on her finger. I knew then that regardless of how we had fought and cried and how adoption had affected us both, those hands, free of words and emotional baggage, encompassed everything. They were pure love-all the love that she had for me.”

“As for myself, the part of me that still believes that I was given up because there was something wrong with me will diminish with the passage of time. But I feel sad when I think about all those years of not really knowing the truth. Would it have made me feel better about myself if I had known my story? Or would it still have taken me this long to understand what it all meant?”

“I began for the first time to really understand the loss my adoptive mother must have felt from not having her own child. I was terribly sad for her and realized that she had missed out greatly - we both had - and there was nothing I could do to change that. I could never be her natural daughter and I could never make her feel better about that loss. Guilt is a strange waste of time in the cold light of day.”

“When she sat, she crossed her hands and ankles perfectly. Yes, yes, everything was in the classroom. We chatted, bonded, as Brandy flopped around on the silver concrete floor with the silver hook still in her bloody mouth. Both of us were excited. Celinas tried to climb in her purse, which was filled with dirty broken makeup, the true sign of a queen. I was thrilled she had let me look, even slip my hand into it for a moment. I let her huddle near me, but when she tried to clutch my hand I had to recoil. I hated being touched by anything in the human-skin package.”

“She gave me a lopsided quirk of a smile. "Joss," her voice hoarse, barely audible.I wanted to run. I know. That's horrible. But I wanted to run away from this part. People ending up in hospital had never concluded well in my life, and seeing her there, so vulnerable, so exhausted, just reminded me of how close we might have come to losing her.I felt a hand squeeze mine and I turned my head to see Hannah watching me. She looked as pale as I felt, and her fingers were trembling between mine. She was scared too. I smiled reassuringly at her, hoping I was pulling it off. "Ellie is okay. Come on." I tugged on her hand and pulled her with me to Ellie's bed side. I reached out for the hand Ellie had held out for her mom, and I slid mine into it, feeling relief and love as she gave me a gentle squeeze.”

“Yes they are my parents but unlike those who haven't been adopted, I also have another set of parents. I know my adoptive parents love me and I love them, but I have a different connection with them than I would experience if I had been raised in my birth home. I still need to know who my birth parents are.”

“I left their house that night feeling very different from when I arrived. I was exhausted and relieved, yet more importantly, I felt more grounded, as if I was finally stepping into my own body. It felt good. At last I had done it. The secret was out and I knew then that how my parents chose to deal with this information was up to them. I simply couldn't carry it all any longer. I had to stop protecting their feelings. They were, after all, grown-ups. It was time for me to heal my sadness and anger, to stop being a victim of this situation, to move on with my life.”