She said: "I always knew this day was coming. I just hoped it would come later." She did not say congratulations. She did not say how exciting. She did not offer to help me, or to look at the photos with me, or to be part of whatever I was about to do next. She said "I always knew this day was coming" in a voice I had never heard from my mother before — a voice that sounded like she was already grieving something. I tried to tell her it was just curiosity. That I wasn't going to replace her. That nothing would change. She said "I know, honey, I know," and she changed the subject. For the next year and a half, every time I mentioned my biological family, my mother got very quiet. My father, who had always been the warmer parent, started leaving the room. Something was happening to them that I didn't understand. And when I flew home last Tuesday, I was determined to have the conversation. To finally ask. And that determination is what made me say the cruelest sentence of my entire life.