From the beginning, she hated the adoption. Not openly, at least not at first. Eliza never shouted. She preferred the cleaner wounds: the pause too long before a reply, the cold smile, the sentence that sounded polite until you heard the poison beneath it. “Are you sure this is wise?” she had asked when we told her. Wise. As if love were a business investment. When Evelyn came home, Eliza visited once. She stood in our living room holding an expensive handbag and looking around as though she had wandered into the wrong house. Evelyn toddled toward her, arms raised in that hopeful, universal gesture children use when they want to be picked up. Eliza stepped back. “I’m not very good with children,” she said. That alone would have hurt. But over time it became clear it wasn’t children she disliked. It was Evelyn. She never brought a birthday card. Never asked about her therapy. Never once got on the floor to play. When Evelyn called her “Gamma” in her sweet, slightly slurred little voice, Eliza acted as if she hadn’t heard. Eventually, after too many visits that left Evelyn confused and me furious, Norton and I stopped trying. If Eliza wanted distance, she could have it. Years passed that way. Then came Evelyn’s fifth birthday. She had insisted on a yellow dress with daisies because “sunshine dress” sounded prettier than “party dress.” Our living room was full of balloons and paper streamers, and the cake sat on the dining table under a plastic cover, waiting for our friends to arrive.

PART2