“MY FAMILY.”
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On the left was the beach photograph she had originally chosen.
Sophie sitting between my husband and me.
All three of us sunburned and laughing.
On the right was the newspaper photograph of Isabella and Sophie’s biological father.
Under that was the photograph of Richard holding Sophie as a baby.
And beside it was a new photograph.
Sophie and Mr. Harris.
He was kneeling beside her so they were the same height.
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Both were smiling.
Both had the same dimple.
Mrs. Parker came to stand beside me.
“She worked on it for two days.”
At the bottom of the page, Sophie had drawn a small cardboard box.
I smiled.
The real box was no longer on top of my closet.
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It was on the bookshelf in Sophie’s bedroom.
The knitted hat was still inside.
So was the hospital bracelet.
The photographs.
Isabella’s letters.
Everything Richard had saved.
But now Sophie could open it whenever she wanted.
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Richard had told me to give it to her when she was old enough to ask.
For seven years, I had believed I was waiting for that moment.
The truth was, the moment had come long before I noticed it.
Sophie had been asking all along.
Then she came running down the hallway.
“Mom, come see.”
“I see it.”
“No.”
She grabbed my hand.
“This.”
She pointed toward one line she had written beneath all four photographs.
There were no labels.
No biological.
No adoptive.
No first family.
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No second family.
Just four simple words in Sophie’s careful handwriting.
“They’re all my family.”
I stood there staring at that sentence.
And for the first time, I understood that giving Sophie more of her past had never threatened the place we held in her present.
