It started with a school project.
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Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that should have changed our family.
Sophie’s teacher had simply asked every child in her second-grade class to bring in a family photo.
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My daughter was seven.
She was adopted.
She knew that before us, she had another mother and father. We had never hidden that from her
We had always answered her questions as gently and honestly as we could.
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Her biological parents had died in a car accident when she was a baby.
That was the story we knew.
That was the story Sophie knew.
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So when she needed a picture for class, I opened our family albums and spread dozens of photographs across the table.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
Vacations.
School mornings.
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One of us at the beach caught her attention.
The three of us were sunburned, laughing, and squinting into the sun.
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“That one?” I asked.
Sophie nodded.
I thought that was the photo she took to school.
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The next afternoon, the school called.
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When I arrived, Sophie’s class was still sitting at their desks.
Her teacher, Mrs. Parker, stood near the front with a folded piece of newspaper in her hand.
She looked irritated.
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“Your daughter brought something completely inappropriate for a second-grade family project.”
She handed it to me.
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My stomach dropped.
It was not the beach photograph.
It was a newspaper clipping.
One I had kept hidden in a box at the top of my closet.
The article was about the accident that killed Sophie’s biological parents.
