Leigh Reverra bit her lip, but she could not stop her eyes from watering. She quickly brushed her eyes and swallowed the hard, dry knot which was forming in her throat. Leigh sank deep into the hospital room’s squashy armchair, and let the bed and its patient swim in and out of focus as she stared at nothing in particular. She felt a comforting touch to her shoulder, but shook it off coldly and scooted her chair a little farther away from the mother she thought she had known.

On the hospital bed was an oddly familiar figure, with high cheekbones and a pale thin mouth like Leigh’s. But the face of the figure on the bed was pale and jaundiced, with blue-black shadows under her large doe eyes and blond hair the color of dead grass. The flannel bedcover was drawn up to her chin, and if it wasn’t for the shallow rise and fall of her chest, she could have passed for dead. On the hospital bed was a woman who claimed to have carried Leigh for nine months in her womb, who had donated to Leigh half of who she was. more…