The room seemed suddenly too warm.
“What happened to them?”
“Most grew up normally. Some never learned the truth. A few families disappeared from public records.”
“Disappeared?”
“Changed names. Moved. Refused contact.”
“And Richard?”
My mother stopped.
“He was one of them.”
For several seconds, I could hear only the soft hum of the medical equipment.
“Richard was part of the same trial?”
“Yes.”
I stared at her.
“That is why my parents chose him?”
“We did not choose him.”
“The letter says he agreed to marry me.”
“Years before you married, Samuel found Richard while investigating the trial. Richard was nineteen. His adoptive parents had died, and he had already discovered that his birth records were false.”
My mind returned to Richard at nineteen.
Confident, brilliant, impossible to ignore.
I had met him at a summer leadership program in London. He had appeared beside me in a crowded lecture hall, offered me the last seat near the aisle, and asked whether I always looked so serious when listening to economists.
I had believed chance had placed him there.
“Samuel asked him to stay close to you,” my mother said.
“Stay close?”
“To protect you.”
“By dating me?”
“No. At first, only by attending the same program and watching whether anyone else approached you.”
The humiliation arrived slowly.
Every shared joke, every coffee, every long walk beside the Thames now seemed staged.
“Did he ever love me?”
