Sharon, a woman in her late thirties, lost custody of her infant daughter nineteen years ago and is returning to the home of the child’s adoptive parent, her Aunt Grace, for the first time since that loss. The aunt, near death with lung cancer, has asked her niece, the girl’s birth mother, to become the young woman’s guardian and executrix of her aunt’s will. Together they plan to tell the daughter the truth about that birth over dinner. However, in the intervening hours Sharon reviews her medical record and learns the “truth” Grace intends to share is a lie.

estimated 10,000 words