I think I’d like to be the one who packs up the bags and walks out the door for good. Who gets on an airplane and never comes back. Maybe that’s what I should do in June. I’ve been lying to my whole family, and to Ben. Told them I went to my Annapolis interview, even though I cancelled it after they found Mom. I’m not a liar, and that was a hard thing to do. But I knew that if I told anyone the truth, Hannah would know it was because of her, and she’d feel terrible. Shame spirals are not good for recovery. I’ll have to tell the truth eventually, or maybe just say I didn’t get in—which would be embarrassing. But maybe cancelling was a mistake. Because Hannah was right: Our family is done.

“Mama,” I whisper into the blackness. Into the void.

It occurs to me that this is what I do all the time. I stare into the dark.

Dark matter. Dark energy. Darkest, deepest space.

There’s so little light.

So little I know.

I keep replaying that conversation with Aunt Nora in my head. Thinking about my new baby sister or brother. And how quickly Nora was able to cut them out of our life. And now I’m in a whirlpool of thoughts I don’t usually indulge in because they hurt and because there’s nothing I can do about the past. But it’s my birthday, and I can’t help it.

I remember when Nah found out about her conception. Mom had gotten tipsy on too many margaritas one Cinco de Mayo and it came out: Dad had been telling her he wasn’t ready, but it was Mom’s birthday, and he said, Okay, fine, we won’t use a condom tonight, and if it’s meant to be, then this is the only damn birthday present you’re getting this year. And then she laughed about how when she showed him the stick, he burst into tears and hugged her so hard she couldn’t breathe. “Your father,” she’d say, “truly contains multitudes.”

I don’t have a story like that.

I don’t know the circumstances of how I came to be, but I doubt they involved a mom desperate to get pregnant, where I’m seen as a gift, and a dad so happy he cries. Maybe the circumstances were horrible. Maybe my bio dad is a rapist or a drunk or a total deadbeat. Or my bio mom doesn’t know who he is. Maybe my conception is a sad one-night-stand story of barely remembered bad sex and Jell-O shots. Maybe my bio mom was broke or too young or scared or not ready. And when she found out, when she saw the stick that said I was coming, she hated me a little.