For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The courtroom seemed frozen in place.
I stood there, eight months pregnant, staring at a woman whose eyes looked exactly like mine.
The same unusual green-gray color.
The same shape.
The same tiny scar above the left eyebrow.
A scar I had carried since childhood without knowing where it came from.
Doña Catalina stared at me as if she were afraid I might disappear.
Then she reached into her handbag and removed a faded photograph.
Her hands shook.
“My daughter was taken from me twenty-eight years ago.”
The courtroom remained silent.
Even Judge Rivas stopped pretending to review documents.
Catalina handed me the photograph.
A young woman stood smiling beside a hospital crib.
Inside the crib was a baby.
