The next Saturday the dad took me for a walk to a nearby jewelry store. He said we should bring the mom a present, that I could pick something out to give her and we could wrap it for her at home.

In a glass case crowded with gaudy bracelets and diamond earrings was a necklace, a simple gold chain that looked like something a mom could wear all the time, even to the park or the pool or riding bikes.

We wrapped the box in brown paper I colored with markers and crayons. We gave it to her after dinner, and the dad lifted her hair and clasped it around her neck, and she let me feel its delicate links.

“So pretty,” I said. “You look like a mom. Real, not pretend.”

She put her head on the table and cried.

A week later, Joellen came to help me pack.

The mom and dad waited in the kitchen, probably listening to Joellen tell me again and again as I rolled my shirts and socks, Yes, they did want to adopt you….No, you didn’t do anything wrong….They wish they could, but they can’t. It’s not because of you or anything you did. It’s not your fault, and I packed as slowly as I could, waiting for the mom and dad to come and say it was a mistake. I imagined a very dramatic rescue. The mom would rush in, maybe even pick me up or take my pajamas from Joellen’s hands: Stop packing! Don’t touch her suitcase; she’s staying here with us; this is her bedroom; she is our daughter.

I folded and rolled and packed my pajama top.

They did not come.

I went to the bathroom to collect my toothbrush and washcloth but stopped first at their open bedroom door. The bed was unmade. Scared but curious, I stepped in. Quiet and dark. Her pillow smelled like shampoo, and on her bedside table, in a knotted pile, was the gold necklace.

My throat burned. What had she done? It had no charm, no pendant, how easy it would have been to keep it untangled. Just a simple, perfect chain. Ruined.

I did not think. I picked it up, slipped it into my pocket, walked fast down the hall and out the front door, my heart thumping, to cry on the porch and wait for Joellen to come out with my suitcase.

“Don’t you want to say goodbye?” she said, trying to wipe my tears and also wrestle me into a jacket because it had begun to rain.

Didn’t they want to? Still hiding in the kitchen. Cowards.

“I need a new toothbrush,” I sobbed.

She gave up on the jacket and knelt down beside me. “Okay,” she said.

“And a washcloth. A blue one.”

“Okay.”

“No. Pink.”

“All right.”

I grabbed the handle and lifted my suitcase.

“Muir,” Joellen said, “let me help you.”