I drag a hand down my face and force myself to focus.
I have known I was adopted my whole life. A woman who could not keep me. No family. No way to find her. For thirty-eight years, that story was enough.
I have not gone looking.
I am going to look now.
Karen kept journals. Next to the bed. For the years Frank came home at hours without names. I have never opened one.
I am opening one now.
The box is at the back of the hall closet. I bring it to the kitchen table.
The smell that comes up when I lift the lid is my mother's. Shampoo. Ironing. The kitchen that always had bread.
I have not smelled that smell since I was thirteen.
For a second, I cannot breathe.
Six journals. Spiral-bound. The one on top is 1988.
Karen's handwriting. Cursive. Small. The same hand I have on Christmas cards is on my desk at the precinct.
I read.
February 1, 1988. Frank came home tonight at 3 a.m. He didn't tell me where he'd been. He doesn't, anymore. He stood in the kitchen for a long time before he came to bed. I just hope it isn't catching up to us.
February 4. There's a man in Frank's life I've never met. Frank doesn't say his name. He says "the Greek" when he forgets I'm in the room. Three calls this week from the payphone on Steinway. I checked the number. I shouldn't have checked the number.
The Greek.
February 12. Frank brought home a baby tonight. Hours old. A boy. Frank says the baby is ours now. Frank says don't ask. I have always been able to tell when Frank is lying. He was lying. I took the baby anyway. He was so small. He looked at me. That was all it took.
I read it twice.
I read it three times.
I am thirty-eight years old.
My birthday is February 12.
February 15. Frank says we have to call him Sean now. The other name belonged to someone else.
I do not move.
The other name.
Belonged to someone else.
February 22. I rocked him to sleep tonight. He looks at me with these dark eyes, and I think. Somewhere, someone is going to bed not knowing where her baby is. I'm holding her son. I will love him so hard that he will never feel the missing. That's the only promise I can make. That's the only one I will keep.
I close the journal.
She kept that promise. I felt the missing anyway. I have been calling it by other names my whole life.
I dig backinto the box.
Past the jewelry. Past the photographs of me at six, at nine, at twelve. Past the program from Frank's funeral.
