“You sure? I promise not to have a heart attack or fall off any stepstools getting it for you.”
He laughs. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
He follows me through the store. “Where’s Lily?”
“At Sarah’s house.”
“You’re fortunate to have a friend like that.”
I nod. “She’s been a great resource for Lily since Brooke’s death—not to mention a big help to me.” We walk into my office, which suddenly feels too dark and intimate. I usually sit side by side with my clients in one of the two chairs opposite my desk, but this time I circle it, keeping the desk between us. I turn on the lamp on my desk. “How’s your wife handling things?”
“Okay, I guess.” He rubs his leg.
There are varying degrees of okay. From his tone, I surmise Jessica’s is on the low end of the scale. “It must be difficult for her.”
“Yeah.” He looks like he’s about to say something more and then changes his mind.
“This is difficult for all of us,” I say.
He nods. “That’s why it’s important we talk. Do you want to go first?”
“Okay.” I sit there in silence for a moment, the light from the fringed lampshade on my desk throwing shadows on the framed photo of Lily. “There’s something I need to ask you about.” My lungs seem to tremble as I inhale. “Brooke and I used the same attorney, and I went to see him Thursday. He told me that you sent someone by to get a copy of Brooke’s will.”
“Yeah—an intern. I didn’t exactly send him, though.” He crosses his right foot over his left thigh. My office, which I’ve always thought of as spacious, suddenly feels a lot smaller. “I asked him to get a copy of the will from the courthouse, assuming it had already been filed. It hadn’t been. He’s something of a go-getter, so he took it upon himself to look up the obituary. He contacted the funeral home, and they gave him the name of the attorney handling the estate—apparently the estate paid for the funeral services. I had no idea he was going to the attorney’s office. I apologize if it seems intrusive.”
“‘Intrusive’ is one word for it,” I say. “‘Weird’ is another. So is ‘worrisome.’” So isgetting all up in my business, but that’s more than a single word. I look straight into his blue, blue eyes. “Why did you want to see the will?”
“To read the wording about Lily’s guardianship.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m an attorney, and that’s what we do. If an issue has a legal document attached, I want to read it.” He grins. “But I also wanted to know if there was a third party named in addition to you and Miss Margaret.”
“There’s not.”
“I saw that.” He uncrosses his leg and leans forward. “I was wondering who you’re going to list as the guardian on yours.”
My fingers tighten on the arm of the chair. “I haven’t made any decisions about that yet. This all happened really suddenly. I’ll want it to be someone Lily and the baby know really well, like Sarah or Annie or Terri.”
His gaze is steady and direct, and so is his voice. “I’d like to be someone they know really well.”
My mouth goes dry. “But you’re moving to Seattle.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan. But I have a month or more to get to know Lily before I move. And I could come back here two or three times a year to see her and the baby. We can write and call and video message. And maybe you can bring them both out for a visit once a year or so when they get older.”
“I doubt your wife will welcome us with open arms.”
“She’ll be fine once she gets used to the idea.”
Is he trying to convince me or himself? I decide to take another tack.
“Look, Zack—you signed a contract agreeing to be an anonymous donor and to stay out of the children’s lives until they’re eighteen. Neither Brooke nor I intended for the biological father to play a role in their lives.”
“Yes, but I’m not anonymous anymore. Lily knows I’m her father.”
There it is—the thing that can’t be undone. The thing that kept me awake much of the night before.
“Lily knows you’re herdonor,” I say. “She’s always known she didn’t have a co-parenting daddy.”
