Mark L. Keats was adopted from South Korea at the age of three. He earned his MFA in fiction from the University of Maryland and is the recipient of a Kundiman Fellowship. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Pithead Chapel, Waxwing, The Offing, Smokelong Quarterly, and others. He is currently a PhD candidate in English and Creative Writing at Texas Tech University.
When you found me, it was already too late. I was almost eight and my memory had been erased and reprogrammed through years of loving indoctrination. I was, as the first of many reports had said, “adjusting well and learning English quickly.” On the way to the meeting, you tried to explain that my Korean mother had been looking for me for many years. “Was I lost?” I asked. But you only smiled slightly, squeezed my hand, and started the car.