I Was Never the Stray
Language: en
A week before I was supposed to leave for college, I started pulling my paperwork together. At the very bottom of the mahogany nightstand in my parents’ bedroom, tucked beneath years of tax returns and expired insurance policies, I found two yellowed sheets of paper. The first was my birth certificate. The county registrar's embossed seal had long since lost its luster, but there, printed in crisp, faded ink under "Mother" and "Father", were their names. The second document was an official adoption decree for my younger sister, Sadie. I sat on the hardwood floor, staring at those two…