I stare at the screen door as it groans shut.

She lost my birth certificate?

Or does she just not want to give it to me? Fury burns hot through my veins. I’m eighteen. I don’t have to listen to her. I can do what I want. If I want to rack up a million dollars in credit card debt, that’s my own damn prerogative.

Once Mom’s car disappears down the road, I spin on my heel and march straight to her desk in the dining room.

Pay stubs, old report cards, checkbook, tax documents.

No birth certificate.

I go to the living room and pull my baby book off the bookshelf. A few photos of me as a baby, an inked footprint, a lock of hair from my first haircut. No birth certificate.

Where else could it be? I worry my bottom lip with my teeth, a bad habit that tends to show up when I’m unsure about something.

There’s no clutter in this house. No secret places it could be hiding. For someone who doesn’t spend much time at home, Mom sure loves cleaning the place. From the hints I’ve managed to eke out about her past, I know her parents were abusive, and she moved out after high school and never spoke to them again. And as for my father … Turns out knowing someone’s last name isn’t a prerequisite for him to get you pregnant. I think it brings Mom a feeling of peace, of control, to keep the house in perfect order. But that just makes it even more unbelievable that she really “doesn’t know” where my birth certificate is.

My legs start moving again, this time toward Mom’s room. Her nightstand contains books, a book light, an economy-sized bottle of moisturizer, and some lip balm. No documents of any kind. I swipe the lip balm and glide a healthy coat on my chewed, cracked lips, then put it back. Her dresser drawers are filled with folded squares of underwear, T-shirts, jeans, and scrubs. Her closet is neatly arranged with shoes in cubbies, coats and dresses on hangers. I drop to my stomach and use the flashlight on my phone to check under the bed. Orderly boxes of winter clothes. I’m about to stand back up when the flashlight beam glints off something small and shiny at the back next to the wall. I shimmy closer, my hair clinging to the staticky underside of the bed’s box spring, and stretch to reach the object.

When my fingertips graze the surface, my pulse beats a triumphant little staccato. Jackpot. The light had caught on the metal of a small lock. And the lock is latched onto a safe deposit box–looking thing. There’s no way my birth certificate isn’t in there.

I slide out from under the bed, bringing the box with me, and push my hair away from my face. I sit back on my heels and try to pull the lid open. The lock is secure. The empty keyhole yawns at me like a bored kid in church.

The first question that comes to mind: Where is the key?

And then the second: Why would Mom have a locked box under her bed at all? God knows we don’t have any valuables that would need to be kept safe from potential robbers. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of there being a burglary in this town anyway. What could she possibly be hiding? My mother isn’t the most open person in the world, but she’s also pretty basic: work, sleep, Once Upon a Time on Sunday nights. Repeat.

I do another search through the house, this time for a key, a small one that might fit in the lock of a mysterious secret box.

I check all the logical places first: desk and kitchen drawers, the tops of bookshelves, the “miscellaneous” basket near the refrigerator. Then I look in the illogical places: the toes of boots, the zippered opening in throw pillows, the ice bin in the freezer.

I’m beginning to think either the key doesn’t exist or Mom has it with her at the hospital when, on my third sweep through her room, I find it. I blink a few times to make sure it’s really there and not just a trick of my tired eyes. It’s small and silver and nestled comfortably under the bottle of moisturizer on her nightstand. Smiling pleasantly up at me like I’m an idiot.

I’d laugh if this whole day wasn’t so frustrating.

Sitting on the floor of my mom’s bedroom—this has to be the most time I’ve ever spent in here—I slip the key into the lock and turn.

It clicks, and I lift the lid. The box is very full.

On the top of the pile are two small prescription bottles. I don’t recognize the names of the meds, but they’re both in Mom’s name, and the filled date is only a few weeks ago. She didn’t tell me she was sick. And why wouldn’t she just put the medicine in the kitchen where we keep the rest of our pharmacy stuff? Why would she lock it away …?

Oh God, she isn’t sick sick, is she? What if she has cancer? What if she’s been dealing with this all alone because she didn’t want to scare me, and was waiting to tell me the truth until she got her official prognosis? What if that’s the reason she doesn’t want me to go pro—because she might need someone to take care of her?

My skin prickles as the image of Mom not being here anymore invades my mind. She’s all I have. I grab my phone and begin to dial her cell. Whatever happens, I’m here for you, I want to say to her. Nothing’s more important than this.

But a dose of rationale trickles in and, before I hit the green “call” button, I switch over to the internet browser and look up the names of the medications. Huh. One is an estrogen replacement. The other is a testosterone blocker. So … not cancer? Looks like she has some sort of hormonal imbalance I didn’t know about. Maybe she’s gone into early menopause. That could explain why she’s been so cranky lately.

My breathing returns to normal as the panic seeps from my body. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. I wish she didn’t feel like she has to shelter me from this stuff. I’m not a little kid anymore. I can handle it.

I place the bottles on the carpet and return to the box’s contents. It’s mostly papers. I shuffle through, looking for something that might be a birth certificate. It feels kind of wrong to be snooping in here, going through all of Mom’s personal stuff. I already know about one thing she didn’t want me to; at this point I just want to find what I came for and be done with it.

Toward the bottom of the pile of documents, I find it. New York State Certification of Birth. Yes! First step toward getting my passport—and my freedom—complete.

But as I skim the information on the document, my celebration drifts into confusion.

My first name, middle name, and birth date are correct. But nothing else makes sense. The child’s name is listed as Dara Ruth Hogan. That’s not my name. My name is Dara Ruth Baker.

And the parents’ names. Not only are there two of them, when Mom always swore she didn’t know my father’s name, but … neither of them is Mom.

Father’s name: Marcus Hogan.

Mother’s maiden name: Celeste Margaret Pembroke.

Where is Mellie Baker?

I stare at the paper. It shivers in my wavering grasp. But no matter how many times I read the words on the page, no logical explanation comes. I don’t understand what I’m looking at. The only thing I know for sure is that she never planned on me seeing this.

I take every last item from the box, spread them out on the carpet, and begin to read. With each photo and document, the disquiet in my stomach becomes sharper, jagged.

A wedding announcement for Marcus Hogan and Celeste Pembroke from just months before I was born.

An old, worn issue of Sports Illustrated that falls open to a half-page feature on men’s tennis up-and-comers. The names mentioned include Marcus Hogan.

And dozens of pictures I’ve never seen before of two people and a chubby-armed baby. There’s no question: The baby is me. I recognize myself from the pictures in the baby book, and I still have that dimple under my left eye when I smile. Mom’s not in a single photo.

I sit back a little. Force myself to take five breaths. Then, carefully, I reach for the photos. Study them.

They span at least six months—mushy newborn up through the start of the cute drooling phase. They were taken in different locations at different times of year. And I’m always with the same two people. A man and a woman. No one else. No Mom.

The man is clean-shaven, with shaggy, light-brown hair and blue eyes. There’s something about his smile that is familiar, but I don’t think I’ve seen him before. The woman has long, wavy blond hair, pink lips and cheeks. She looks so much like me, right down to the dimple, that it takes my breath away.

She’s only in the earliest photos. In the ones where I’m a little older, it’s just me and the man, always grinning and happy. Opening gifts in front of the Christmas tree, on the swings at a park, petting puppies at some sort of rescue-dog adoption event.

And bouncing balls at a tennis court.

Marcus Hogan was listed as the father on my birth certificate. Marcus Hogan was, according to the magazine article, a tennis player. These pictures have to be of him. And the woman must be Celeste Pembroke.

But who are they?

I throw everything back into the box, not bothering to be neat or careful about it. The lid makes an almost-satisfying clunk when I slam it down. I don’t lock it. Instead, I carry the box, the lock, and the key to the living room, place them on the coffee table, and glower at them from my seat on the sofa a few feet away.

The clock on the mantle ticks steadily.

One by one, possibilities—crazy, impossible possibilities—bleed into me. There are only two explanations I can think of right now. Both bad; one worse than the other.

The two options continue to take shape, but to do so they have to borrow and steal from everything I previously knew to be true. It’s not possible for the old and the new to coexist and remain intact. A bend here, an erasure there. As I sit, trying to keep calm, my entire past, my entire life, is crumbling apart.

I get up. Begin to move. Slowly at first, then as fast as my bare feet will carry me. Through the room, out the front door, across the lawn.

I don’t want to be alone right now.