My appendix ruptured at 2 a.m., and I called my parents seventeen times before the world began to blur. My mother finally texted back: “Your sister’s baby shower is tomorrow. We can’t leave now.”

When Claire broke a vase, it was an accident.

When I dropped a glass at thirteen, my father said, “This is why nobody trusts you with anything valuable.”

When Claire got pregnant, my parents turned their house into a shrine of pastel balloons and silver rattles.

When my appendix burst, I became an inconvenience.

And now a stranger sat beside me with a twenty-six-year-old grief in his hands, telling me that maybe I had not been unwanted after all.

Maybe I had been stolen.

“How did you know I was here?” I asked.

Gerald wiped his face with the back of his hand.

“That part feels like something out of a book. I almost didn’t come to the hospital last night. My friend Owen had surgery yesterday. I stopped by to bring his wife some coffee. I was near the nurses’ desk when I heard a woman raising her voice.”

“My mother.”

He nodded.

“She was dressed like she was going to a garden party. Pearls, pink coat, perfect hair. She kept saying, ‘My daughter exaggerates. She doesn’t need to stay. We have family obligations tomorrow.’ The nurse told her you’d gone septic. Your appendix had ruptured. You needed monitoring. And then your mother said…”

He stopped.

I already knew.