“Investigators discovered that some adoption files had been altered. Names were changed. Family histories were obscured. Birth and medical records were sometimes falsified. Connections to biological relatives were lost.”
I looked at Mom.
She was staring at the floor.
Dr. Reeves explained that investigators had recently reopened parts of the old case.
They had spent months trying to identify adults who had once lived at Maplewood House.
But the records were incomplete and inconsistent.
The little blue tattoos were one of the few pieces of evidence that couldn’t easily be rewritten.
“A document can be altered,” he said. “A mark someone has carried on their skin for decades is different.”
Then he looked directly at my mother.
“Helen, were you connected to Maplewood House?”
Mom looked at me.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then something in her expression changed.
It was as though thirty years of avoiding one conversation had finally ended.
