Mrs. Wilson nodded.
Mom's voice rose.
“And you're telling me you knew?”
I reached for her.
“Mom—”
She shook her head.
“No, Emma. I need to understand.”
Mrs. Wilson took a deep breath.
“About thirty-two years ago, I asked an adoption-search intermediary to help me find my daughter.”
Her hands trembled.
“The records were incomplete, but she found information suggesting my baby had been adopted by a family named Bennett.”
Mom went very still.
Bennett had been her adoptive parents' surname.
Mrs. Wilson continued.
“The child had been renamed Ruth.”
Mom covered her mouth.
“I was never able to get direct confirmation. But I learned that a woman with the same birth date had married a man named David Carter and was living near this neighborhood.”
My father.
Mrs. Wilson looked at me.
“I moved here because I hoped she might be my child.”
Mom sat down heavily.
“So you bought the house next door?”
