“We have been so fraught with worry over you, darling girl. Don’t ever run away from us again. My heart cannot take a loss like you.” She kisses me on my cheeks, holding my face in her palms and gazing adoringly. My stomach shreds with conflicting pains.

This woman may not be my birth mother, but in the six years of being adopted into this family, I have cherished and loved her as though she is. Even when I ran, I never stopped loving all of them. My father is a man of fewer ...