She lifted the flap of the yellow envelope.
Inside, there was a single sheet of paper. Yellowed. Folded once. Grandma took it out and unfolded it very carefully, like it might fall apart in her hands.
It was a birth certificate. An old one. Typed on a typewriter. With a raised seal in the corner.
“This is the original,” Grandma said. “The real one. Harold had the official record changed afterward. On the one the state has, it says father unknown. And the mother’s name was sealed. But Ruth got this one from the records office before her father could destroy it. She stole it, really. And she gave it to me.”
She turned it around so I could read it.
CERTIFICATE OF LIVE BIRTH. April 19, 1975. St. Andrew’s Hospital. Male. 4:17 a.m.
Mother: Ruth Anne Calloway.
Father:
I looked at the name. I read it twice.
Then I looked up.
