by John Cloud

About the author: John Cloud is a correspondent for Time magazine.

Cindy is shaking with fear. She tugs at her gold necklace, shifts in her seat, slams down cup after cup of black coffee. She gets this way when she has to tell a stranger why she can’t sleep at night, why she and her husband have been fighting, why she can’t choke down even half her meal when she goes to a nice restaurant. Two decades ago, when Cindy (a pseudonym) was in college, a man beat and raped her. Devastated and uncertain, she had the baby but surrendered the girl for adoption.

Last summer [of 1998], after soul-searching, Cindy decided to find out what had become of her child. She gave the state where...