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look.” She laughed, and I laughed along. It felt good.
    “My daughter and her husband just moved to Montreal. It’s where I was born.”
    “I was born in Kingston,” I said.
    It was strange to hear those words out loud. I’d never said them to anybody except Joe. Until earlier today, I hadn’t known where I was born. I’d just assumed it was right around Hope. It would have been better if I’d known all along. I wouldn’t have wondered if my mother was somebody I passed in the streets of Hope. And I would have known there was no way I was ever going to see her anywhere.
    “Kingston is a lovely town,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy there.”
    “I’m sure I will.”
    I offered the woman another little smile and glanced down at the envelope. My last excuse was gone, and now my uneasy feelings came to the surface. This was silly. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what was in there. I’d already looked at each slip of paper, read them over a few times, but still, it was so unreal. I hoped by reading them again they’d become more real. In this envelope was my history, my background. Maybe looking back was the way forward—that’s what Mrs. Hazelton had said—but how could any of this information help me move anywhere?
    I started with the smallest piece of paper. It was tattered and faded blue.
    Certificate of Birth
Name: Elizabeth Anne Roberts
Date of Birth: Dec. 24, 1946
Sex: F
Place of Birth: Kingston, Ontario
Registration: Jan. 14, 1947
    I ran my fingers along the words and numbers. There weren’t many, but they were everything I needed to know, everything I was .
    Elizabeth Anne Roberts. I’d always liked the name Elizabeth—it was regal. Queen Elizabeth. How much more regal could you be than the Queen of England? But it wasn’t me. I was just Betty, plain Betty, Betty Shirley, the person I’d been my entire life. Well, not exactly my whole life, but the life I’d known since I was almost four, since I’d come to live at the orphanage, since the time that…I turned to the next two papers.
    They were large, faded, yellow with age and delicate to the touch. They had been clipped from the front page of the Kingston Whig-Standard newspaper. The first was dated September 11, 1950. The headline was right below the title of the paper. In big bold capital letters, the words practically jumped off the page.
    MURDER IN KINGSTON
    I read the headline two more times before I read the text, somehow hoping that this time it would say something different.
    KINGSTON—Police officers responding to a routine domestic assault in a house in the Inner Harbour District were shocked to discover the body of Kingston resident Victoria Roberts. Along with the body they discovered the woman’s three-year-old daughter, covered in her mother’s blood and clinging to her mother, who had suffered obvious head wounds. The grisly discovery was made in the backyard of the house where the victim resided with her daughter, at the corner of Charles and Montreal. Ambulance services were also dispatched, but Miss Roberts was declared dead on the scene. A twenty-year-old unmarried mother, Miss Roberts was a long-time Kingston resident who had no known relatives, her parents having predeceased her in a car accident.
    Police report that there have been previous calls to this address for similar reasons, and an officer reported that he felt it was “just a matter of time until something happens.” The police are seeking a person of interest, Mr. Gordon Sullivan, the boyfriend of the victim. He is described as standing in excess of six feet three inches and weighing over 250 pounds and is well known to the police. Anyone knowing of his whereabouts is requested to contact the police and not to approach, as he is considered dangerous.
    The child, Elizabeth Anne, suffered no injuries. The investigating detectives and a matron from social services who interviewed the girl believe she did not actually witness the murder of her