I rapidly scroll to the next photo. Lily’s arms are raised to catch an airborne string of beads while Brooke watches, her smile so fond and tender that my breath catches. I pass the phone to him again.
“That’s Brooke?” Zack asks.
I nod.
“Tell me about her.”
“Oh, I don’t even know where to begin,” I say.
“Well, how did you two meet?”
“In college.” I tell him about sitting beside her in class.
“What was she like?”
“Supersmart and warmhearted and hardworking. She was one of those people who could do anything.”
“I googled her while you were on the phone this morning,” he says. “It seems like she had everything going for her.”
I nod, my throat tight with emotion.
“So why did she go the donor route?” he asks. “Didn’t she want to get married or have a partner?”
“Yes, but she hadn’t met the right person, and she had severe endometriosis. She had surgery twice, but the doctors couldn’t fix the problem. When she was thirty-three, a specialist told her, ‘If you ever want to have children, you’d better do it soon.’”
My mind drifts back to the phone call when Brooke told me about it. I give Zack only a summary, but I can replay it in my brain practically word for word.
—
Five years earlier
IT WAS EARLYevening after work. I was heating up leftovers in my apartment in Atlanta when Brooke telephoned.
“I sat down today and made a list of the ways a woman can get pregnant,” Brooke said. “I came up with four.”
“Only four?” I opened the microwave and stirred yesterday’s Chinese takeout. “Where’s your imagination? The Kama Sutra lists more than sixty.”
“Not positions, you perv. Situations.”
I laughed. “And there are only four?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“And you listed them.” Of course she did; Brooke made lists for everything. “Did you make a spreadsheet of pros and cons?”
“No.”
“Call me back when you’ve finished that,” I teased. “I’ll also want to see graphs, comparison charts, and illustrations.”
“Very funny. Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I may even want to write it down myself.”
“I definitely think you should.”
I winced. At that point I’d been dating Tom for two years, and he still refused to discuss the future any further out than weekend plans. Brooke thought I should end it and move on, but I kept thinking—Brooke called itfantasizing—that he would change. “I’m all ears.”
“All right.” I heard clicking sounds, and pictured Brooke opening a file on her laptop. “Number one: a woman meets the love of her life and gets married.”
