“On a dating site?” Brooke and I looked a lot alike, so it’s not all that surprising that someone who’d only seen a photo of her might initially confuse us. What’s surprising is that Brooke would trawl the online dating pool without telling me—especially after her last experience. In the middle of dinner at Brennan’s, a couple had greeted her date and asked about his wife and children. Turned out the guy was married and looking for a little side action.
“Not a dating site.” He shifts his weight from one Nike-clad foot to the other, as if uneasy. “It was a site about her child.”
“Lily?”
“That’s her name?” His gaze intensifies.
The goose bumps on my arms shimmy down my legs.
Something strange and portentous is going on here. It reminds me of a night in Atlanta, when I was walking back to my car on a nearly deserted street and I became aware of footsteps behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a man about half a block away. He started walking faster, gaining on me, and I broke into a run. I ducked into a convenience store, where I spent twenty minutes pretending I couldn’t decide which bottle of water to buy.
I feel the exact same sense of alarm now. I start to close the door. “Well, it was nice meeting you.”
“Wait.” He steps forward. He doesn’t put his foot in the door or reach for it or anything, but I jump backward as if he had. “Maybe you can help me after all. The online site I mentioned—it’s a donor registry.”
Donor. The word pours over me like a cooler full of ice. I suddenly realize why he looks familiar.His eyes are just like Lily’s. My heart batters wildly against my ribs.
“Lily tried to contact me,” he says. “I—I thought it would be best to talk to her mother first, but I couldn’t reach her by phone, so...” He holds out his arms, his palms up. “Here I am.”
My brain tries to absorb this information. This is Lily’s father. The father of...Oh my God in heaven!My hand reflexively covers my belly.
I know there are a million things I should be thinking about, but like a wet circuit board, my brain is shorting out. It takes all of my faculties to just address the actual words he said:Lily tried to contact me. “That’s—that’s impossible,” I stutter.
“What do you mean?”
“Lily’s three. She can’t read yet.”
He stares at me. “She’s justthree? Then how... who...?”
“It was me,” Miss Margaret says behind me. “I reached out to you on Lily’s behalf.”
CHAPTER NINE
Zack
HOLY CRAP—DOESeveryoneon that donor registry pretend to be someone else? First Jessica impersonates me, and now I discover that this elderly woman impersonated the child.
Notthechild, I mentally correct—mychild. My daughter.I have a three-year-old daughter named Lily!It’s one thing to know, hypothetically, that a child with your DNA might be walking around out there somewhere; it’s another thing altogether to learn the child’s gender, age, name, and address.
The older woman steps forward. She reminds me of Dame Judi Dench.
“I’m Margaret Moore. I’m Lily’s great-grandmother.” She holds out her hand.
“Zack Bradley,” I say as I shake it.
“I’m so pleased to meet you.” Her voice is gracious and composed, as if she were expecting me for dinner, but I feel her hand tremble.
“Is Lily in the house?” Part of me is dying to meet her, and another part—the lawyer part—is clanging a loud warning. After all, the child is only three; legally—not to mention morally—I need clearance from her mother before we make contact.
“No. She’s playing at a friend’s home.”
“Is she likely to come back before Brooke?”
“Um... no.” She puts her hand on her chest and looks away. “Quinn will go pick her up in a couple of hours.”
I look at the pretty blonde. She’s been silent and rigid ever since I mentioned I was a donor.
“Please come in.” Mrs. Moore sways a little bit. I notice that she’s clutching the doorway as if she’s holding it for support.
