Silence. Long moments of the clock ticking, the thin, scratchy sound of elm twigs brushing my windowpanes. My heartbeat seemed to go into slow motion. Mom groped for my desk chair, then sank into it heavily. My dad shifted from foot to foot, looking over my left shoulder at nothing. Mary K. stared at all of us.

"What?" I tried to smile. "What? What are you saying? I'm adopted?"

"Of course you're not adopted!" said Mary K., looking at Mom and Dad for their agreement. Silence.

Inside me, a wall came crashing down, and I saw what lay behind it: a whole world I had never dreamed of, a world in which I was adopted, not biologically related to my family. My throat closed and my stomach clenched, and I was afraid I was going to throw up. But I had to know.

I pushed past Mary K. into the hallway, then thundered down the steps two at a time. I tore around the corner, hearing my parents on the steps behind me. In the family office I yanked open my dad's files, where he keeps things like insurance papers, our passports, their marriage license … birth certificates.

Breathing hard, I flipped through files on car insurance, the house's AC system, our new water heater. My file read Morgan. I pulled it out just as my parents came into the office.

"Morgan! Stop it!" said Dad.

Ignoring him, I rifled through immunization records, school reports, my social security card.

There it was. My birth certificate. I picked it up and scanned it Birthday, November 23. Correct Weight, eight pounds, ten ounces.

My mom reached around me and snatched the birth certificate out of my hand. As if in a slapstick movie, I snatched it back. She held tight with both hands, and the paper ripped.

Dropping to my knees, I hunched over my half on the floor, protecting it till I could read it. Age of mother: 23. No. That was wrong because Mom had been thirty before the had me.

Then the edges of the paper grew cloudy as my eyes locked onto four words: Mother's name: Maeve Riordan.