My mother was seventy when she went into the hospital for a routine knee replacement, and I never imagined that a tiny blue flower tattoo on her wrist would change both our lives. She had always had it, at least as long as I could remember. When I asked about it as a child, she would smile and say it was from “a very long time ago.” She had been adopted when she was six, but she rarely talked about the years before that. I assumed she simply didn’t remember.

The morning of her surgery, a nurse noticed the tattoo while checking her identification bracelet. She stared at it for several seconds, then looked at my mother again. Instead of preparing her for surgery, she quietly stepped outside and spoke to someone in the hallway. A few minutes later, two police officers entered the room. My mother looked at me, confused, while one officer gently asked her a question that made my stomach drop.