One night in September 2009, a widowed mother in Texas named Marsha was up late at her kitchen table, scrolling through correspondence, when she opened an email that would change her family’s life. It was from an acquaintance who was sharing a newspaper article – as it happens, an article I’d written from China – about government officials who had snatched children from impoverished families to supply the lucrative adoption market. The article featured an interview with a nine-year-old girl speaking wistfully about her identical twin who had been taken…