Taking Terri Mueller by Norma Fox Mazer

parmigiana, which was her favorite Italian food. They talked about some place nice to take her aunt on her visit and planned to have a big family dinner with Nancy and Leif.
    Driving home, Terri glanced at her father’s profile, dark in the truck, and thought again of the troublesome questions. Supposing she were to ask him point blank: Why didn’t you tell me you phoned Aunt Vivian? Would it sound as if she didn’t trust him? She yawned. The wine had made her sleepy. Why ask anything? she thought, yawning again. Why not just let things go along as they were?
    Barkley was at the door waiting for them. “What smells burned?” her father said as they walked in.
    â€œOops!” Terri ran into the kitchen. She’d forgotten to take the potatoes off the stove. “That makes two times today I did this!”
    â€œDon’t worry about it,” her father said, dumping theburned potatoes into the garbage. “It could happen to anyone.”
    Terri took a deep breath. She didn’t feel sleepy anymore. “Daddy,” she heard herself saying. “I want to see my birth certificate.”
    â€œYour birth—Where’d that come from?”
    She hesitated. Should she stop before she made a fool of herself? Or before they arrived at that point of stubborn silence where she would have to challenge him to get what she wanted? The worst part was, she didn’t know exactly what it was that she wanted. “I want to see it,” she said softly. “My birth certificate—I just want to. Okay?”
    â€œWell, it’s in the box.” He kept a small, locked, grey metal box in his room with all their important papers. His Army discharge, their health insurance, tax forms, things like that. She was aware of the box, but had never seen the contents. She felt that he was waiting for her to withdraw the request.
    â€œCan I see it?” she said again.
    He shrugged. “If you want to.”
    â€œYes. Yes, I do.”
    He brought the box into the kitchen, put it on the table, and took the key from his keychain. She watched as he sorted through several manila envelopes. Then he handed her a piece of stiff paper bordered in red. She held the paper in both hands and read the words. She felt very nervous and at first it didn’t make any sense.
    This is to certify that Terri Lee Mueller was bom . . . in the City of Oakland, California, . . . in the County of . . . to Kathryn Susso Mueller and Philip James Mueller . . . on the eighth day of April, 197— . . .
    Slowly the words arranged themselves into sentences. Yes, there it was, black on white. She had been born—to a mother and a father. The only thing that actually came as a surprise was her mother’s middle name. Susso. She hadn’t known that. “Was that my mother’s maiden name?”
    â€œYes.” He held out his hand for the paper and locked it back into the box. “Feel better now?” A little smile, as if they’d had a fight—no, a struggle of some sort—and he had won. She felt a kind of vague shame. What have you found out? What difference did that make?
    But later, in bed, her eyes open, staring at the dark ceiling, the thought came to her with force that something was wrong. She had never let herself think this, in these exact words, but she felt she had known it for a long time. She thought of all her questions. She thought of their moves, how they had no place of their own, belonged nowhere special, and to no one but each other. She lay very still and thought it again. Something is wrong.

SIX
    â€œHello?”
    â€œHello—is Shaundra there, is she awake?”
    â€œWho’s this?”
    â€œTerri.”
    â€œHi, Terri!”
    â€œHi, who’s this?”
    â€œBarry.”
    â€œOh, hi, Barry, what are you doing up so early?”
    â€œTalking to you. You called to talk to me, didn’t you?”
    â€œWell, actually, hate to disappoint