“But it wasn’t about you and how you would feel walking back from a lie, Mom. It was about me. It would have helped me to know Betsy, to know that having premonitions was genetic, to talk to her and reach out to her for help and advice. It would have helped me to know Johnny, to meet Tilly, to later know I had another sister.”

“And then what, Evie?”

“What do you mean?”

“Then you go to that family, you’re furious at me, at your dad, and we lose you. You stop talking to us. Then we’ve lost our daughter.”

“Mom.” I was shocked. “Why would you think you would lose me?”

“Because you share the same blood with them. Betsy gave birth to you. You both see the future. Those are enormous bonds. You could have chosen to live with her, to call her Mom forever.”

“You will always be my mother. Always. I love you so much, but I am livid with you, and with you, Aunt Camellia and Aunt Iris, for not telling me.”

Aunt Camellia burst into tears.

Aunt Iris’s chin trembled and she dropped her face to her hands.

“Mom,” Jules said. “I think you should have told Evie.”

My mother dropped into another round of choking tears. “I know. Maybe you’re right. I don’t know. Maybe. I’m sorry. I am. I did what I thought was best.”

“You all knew this secret about me,” I said, my voice cracking with pain. “You’ve all known how lonely I’ve often felt, how alone. There was something missing, and I couldn’t explain it, couldn’t fix it, couldn’t deal with it. I thought that it was me, that something was wrong with me. I thought it was my premonitions that were setting me apart, but it wasn’t. I had been taken from my biological parents, and somehow, some way, even though I was a baby, I felt it. That separation is what caused the inexplicable hole I have felt, I have battled, my whole life.”

My mother shook her head back and forth, not in the negative, but as if she was emotionally crushed, jerking this way and that.

“Knowing I was adopted could have helped me in so many ways.”

“I know,” she said, crying. “I know. I’m sorry. I see what you’re saying now. I didn’t handle it right. Evie, please. I love you so much. Please forgive me. Please.”

Jules reached over and held my hand. Her hand was shaking in mine.