“Oh, baby, I’m sorry. I really am sorry.” Ellen jumps up and tries to force me into a hug. I freeze, wanting to wrestle away, but her mom strength keeps me tight against her. “Because I was afraid,” she rasps in my ear. “I don’t want to be replaced, and because when you were younger, you used to cry yourself to sleep some nights wondering why your mother had abandoned you. I thought I was protecting you.”

And yourself.

“Eventually you stopped asking those questions, so when Wansu contacted me the first time, it had been years since you’d asked that question and I didn’t want to bring that pain up again.” Ellen pulls back and grabs my cold hand between hers. “You’re my daughter. You’ve been the light of my life since I took you off that plane twenty-four years ago. To me, those people who created you, the woman who gave birth to you, they didn’t exist anymore. It has always been you and me against the world. We have never needed anyone else.”

I remember the stories that I’d comforted myself with—that even though I’d been abandoned, I’d also been chosen. And it was Ellen who had chosen me. Who had bought me those books, who had taken those pictures, who had made cookies for those friends, who had measured how tall I was and recorded it in a book, who’d praised my good grades and scolded me for bad ones. She had made my lunches, gone to my recitals, sat through the endless hours of softball I struggled through to please my father even though I know that Ellen hated those games.

“I know that one day you’ll marry and have a family of your own, but it’s one thing for you to fall in love with a man, and it’s an entirely other thing for you to love another woman as your mother.”

My gaze falls to our clasped hands. Mine are short and small. Ellen’s are long and elegant. There are few similarities between us. Ellen’s skin is reddish with freckles dotting the surface—some of that is her German heritage and some is due to the sun exposure from outdoor work. Mine is pale and warm, a product of an office environment, not enough sunlight, and my Korean genes. Ellen has green eyes mixed with blue. Mine are brown, bordering on black. We look nothing alike, and maybe that made Ellen hold on to me a little tighter.

“I did what I thought was right at the time. You’re my daughter, Hara. Pat had left me with no money. Choi Wansu offered me a lifeline and I took it. Please don’t hate me. I love you so much.” She brings my hand up to her mouth and presses a kiss to it. Water from her tears dampens my fingertips.

I need time to think, away from her, away from everyone. “Do you have a hotel room?”

She nods. “Yes, why?”

“You should go to it.”