Then I looked at Aunt Marcy, who had both hands pressed over her mouth, tears pouring down.
“And on Friday,” I said, “I signed adoption papers. At twenty-two, you can choose your own parent, legally, for the rest of your life. So as of yesterday, Marcy isn’t my aunt. On every document that matters, she’s my mother. The only one I’ve got, and the only one I ever needed.”
The room didn’t clap.
It rose to its feet, turned toward a stunned woman in a second-row dress, and broke into the kind of applause that shakes the floor — while my mother and father sat in the front row, holding empty plastic bags, with every camera in the building pointed at them.
Chapter 5: A Blessing, Not a Burden
My parents left before the applause even d*ed down.
They slipped out a side door with their plastic bags, and a reporter followed them onto the sidewalk, and I did not watch to see the rest.
