“As for you…I’ve thought about this for a long time, Mrs. Levine. Sitting in this room, I’ve had nothing but time to think about it. I think I’ve been overly preoccupied with the thought of who my biological parents really were. For years, I thought about them in the abstract, especially during my teens when I was angry at my parents. At that time, I felt that I didn’t really belong in my family. Course when you’re a teenager you don’t feel you belong to anyone.”

Frieda nodded.

“But I don’t feel that way anymore,” Decker said. “You know, lots of things go through your head when you’re being shot. My first thought was: Dear God, I’m going to die. Second thought: What’s going to happen to Rina? Third thought: Dear Lord, my mother’s going to be heartbroken. My mother down in Florida—”

“I understand.”

“Do you? In the past, I’d always been worried that if I met you, and if everything went ideally, how would I cope with dual loyalty?” Decker hesitated a moment. “There isn’t any dual-loyalty problem, Mrs. Levine. You’re a very nice woman, but I only have one mother.”

“I want it to be that way,” Frieda said. Her voice was heavy with sadness, her eyes were moist. “But your having a mother doesn’t mean we can’t have some kind of relationship.”

“We do have a relationship,” Decker said. “Not a close one, but a relationship. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to keep things just the way they are. I’m not that same soul-searching adolescent anymore, Mrs. Levine, but I’m not heartless. I have an untold amount of affection, even awe, for that fifteen-year-old girl who gave me up for adoption. That poor little girl who must have been so scared, who must have had to cope with furious parents, a painful labor and delivery, and a secret she could never admit to anyone because she lived in a very strict, religious community—”

“Please, no more!” Frieda covered her face and broke into pitiful sobs. She hadn’t meant to react this way, but his words…oh, how could he have known what she’d been feeling all these years? She cried and cried until she thought there was nothing left inside her. But the tears wouldn’t stop.

Eventually, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She reached up and grabbed him, needing to touch him, her baby—her precious little baby wrenched from her breast by a stern, unforgiving father and a passive, bewildered mother. Oh, how she held her baby’s hand, squeezing it until she noticed he was grimacing in pain.

“Oh, my goodness, I’m so sorry.” She released his hand immediately. “Did I hurt you?”

Decker said no.

“I’m so sorry—”