A Family Name Read Online Free PDF

had been formulating her plan to swipe the folder and get the
info she needed. She hadn't thought beyond that point.
    "You can do this," she whispered. The bedside
table was within reach. Lexi paused. She calculated that Charlotte
would be at work for another hour at least. Still she held her
breath and strained to hear any noises coming from the rest of the
house. There would be no way to explain why she was in there, and
then Charlotte would probably send her away just like all the
others had done.
    All the more reason to find her real mom.
Lexi grabbed the folder, and wrenched it open. The first page was a
basic fact sheet about her current and former placements; names and
addresses. Lexi scanned the list for anything useful before she
turned the page. Several more page flips yielded little but when
she hit the fifth, she caught sight of the photocopied birth
certificate. Her mother's name sat there, typed neatly onto the
page by some hospital worker thirteen years ago. The name that
linked Lexi to her real family.
    "Mary Hoffman." The name tasted delicious to
Lexi. Her mother. Her real mother. "Hoffman?"
    If her mother had been named Hoffman then
where had her last name come from? Lexi rechecked the birth
certificate but in place of her father's name it merely read unknown. The mystery made Lexi's thirteen-year-old brain hum
with possibilities. She concocted half a dozen theories in a matter
of four seconds as to why her mother wouldn't have listed her
father. What if he didn't even know she existed? Maybe after she
and her mother got settled, they could find her father and the
three of them would be a family again.
    She flipped to the next page, and there
staring back at her was an address beside her mother's name. A mess
of other information littered the page, but the only thing Lexi
could see was an apartment number followed by a familiar street
name. All this time her mother had been just across the city.
Lexi's heartbeat sped up as it raced through her veins and
thundered through her ears. Quickly, she calculated the general
distance from Charlotte's house.
    Tossing the file folder onto the bed, Lexi
made up her mind. She hurried out of Charlotte's room before she
had a chance to change her mind.
     
    ****
     
    "Lexi?" Charlotte tossed her keys onto the
table in the entryway beside the stack of mail. "I brought pizza. I
hope that's okay?"
    Silence met her call. Kicking off her shoes,
Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief. Those heels always hurt her
feet, but they looked so professional that she always made a point
to wear them on days she met with clients. The last time she had
worn them she had met Lexi. She hung up her coat in the closet as
she thought back to that day. Despite the minor bumps they had
endured so far, Charlotte had never made a better decision in all
her life.
    As she thought about that day, the memory of
meeting a certain man with startlingly familiar eyes came over her
without warning. She was embarrassed to admit how often she had
thought of Mr. — no Dr. Will Wright over the past few weeks.
She had even run a search on him one night when she just happened
to be online. None of what she discovered had shocked her, but it
had intrigued her. Of course, she knew that she probably would
never see him again, but the tiniest, most sentimental part of her
glimmered with hope. The man did work in Rapid City. There was
always a chance, no matter how minute, that they could run into one
another again.
    "Lexi?" Charlotte headed for the stairs. The
girl probably had her ear buds in and her music cranked to top
volume. Charlotte had to laugh every time Lexi insisted that was
the only way she could do her homework. It sounded like an excuse
Charlotte would have used years ago, although her foster mother had
been insistent that she study in a quiet environment.
    Charlotte paused outside Lexi's door, and
knocked. "Lexi? I got pizza. I'll just go change and we can eat,
okay?" She waited a moment. When Lexi didn't