Unmoored
Everything froze in the parlor for several seconds. My lungs began to gasp for air as my entire world crumbled to dust. My mother . . . was not my mother? I had not been born in Erlangen? But her name was on my birth certificate alongside my father’s name and the name of the hospital downtown. This made no sense.
“Let’s go in another room and talk about this. Gabi.” My father rose to his feet with a grunt, his face ashen as he held out a hand to me.
“You mean . . . we’re only . . . half siblings?” Dennis asked in a broken voice, a dress shirt and tie lying forgotten in his lap. He sat on the floor beside the tree like he had during our childhood, his face crumpling when his gray eyes caught hold of mine. I had frozen on the couch, my fire extinguished. Unmoored.
“Dennis, you a
