Quinn nodded. “And Miss Margaret and I are going to take very good care ofyou.”
Lily had stuck her thumb in her mouth and hugged her bear. Fat tears had coursed down her still-babyishly-round cheeks. “But I want my mommy.”
“I know,” I’d said. “I know.” I’d rocked her and stroked her hair, not knowing what else to do, until her tears stopped and she looked up.
“Am I goin’ to school today?” she asked.
“Do you want to go?”
Her head bobbed up and down. “It’s picture show-an’-tell. I’m taking a picture of Auntie Quinn an’ Mommy an’ me at the zoo. An’ Auntie Quinn said I could take the cookies we made yesterday afternoon.”
“It’s probably best to keep her on her regular routine as much as possible,” my minister had murmured.
Oh, how wonderful, that Lily’s mind is so young and forward-looking that it holds distressing thoughts for only short spurts of time. Even in grief, sadness isn’t her default emotion. It comes andgoes like summer rain, but doesn’t entirely overshadow her sunny disposition.
Quinn has been a huge help these past few days. She made sure Lily went to preschool and on playdates. She coordinated which of Brooke’s many friends brought us dinner, and she helped with Lily’s meltdowns. She sat with me in the evenings as Brooke’s friends came by, all of them bearing food, and she helped with decisions about the funeral arrangements. We decided to have a reception at Brooke’s house after the service instead of a wake the night before.
I’d thought that perhaps Lily should go to school on the day of the funeral, but one of the women in Brooke’s single-parent club, a salt-and-pepper-haired woman in her early forties named Sarah, was a psychologist, and she suggested Lily attend.
“She needs to be a part of the ceremony honoring her mother’s life,” Sarah had said. “Even if she doesn’t fully understand it now, it’ll be important to her when she’s older.”
It made as much sense as anything, so Lily had accompanied us. I was surprised at how well she’d behaved, sitting between Quinn and me during the service. Quinn had arranged for Lily to go play at a friend’s house shortly after we got home.
“When is Lily due back?” I ask Quinn now.
“Anytime we want her. Her friend’s house is less than a block away.”
It occurs to me that I’ll have to make all kinds of arrangements—find children for her to become friends with, coordinate playdates, enroll her in dance lessons. It all seems rather daunting.
“Alicia and Lily have known each other since they were infants,” Quinn says. “They met in a mommy-and-me exercise class.”
I feel a moment of panic. I don’t participate in many things—anything, really—that attract young mothers. I’ll have to build a network. “I suppose I’ll have to find a good preschool for Lily in Alexandria.”
Quinn’s eyebrows rise, then pull together. “I thought you’d move here, into Brooke’s house.”
The remark startles me. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, because it—it’s Lily’s home.”
I’m taken aback by the very thought, and my answer comes out sounding more curt than I intend. “Children live in the home of their guardian.”
Quinn’s mouth opens. I think she’s about to say something more, but then she abruptly closes it. She blinks rapidly, and I realize she’s fighting back tears.
“You’re welcome to come visit anytime you want,” I tell her.
“Thank you,” she says. Her hands link together over her stomach, so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “Can Lily come visit me, as well?”
“Certainly. But not right away; she’ll need some time to settle in.”
I am, after all, Lily’s family. Blood belongs with blood. I have reasons for knowing this that I’d just as soon not think about, but I know it for a fact. Friends are wonderful, but there’s no substitute for true family.
Which is why, when Quinn took Lily to preschool that first day after Brooke’s death and I was left all alone in Brooke’s home, I went into her office and looked through her files. I didn’t know how it would be labeled and I didn’t know if it would be in the file cabinet or on her computer, but I knew she would have kept information about Lily’s father.
I decided to look for paper first. Paper is so much easier to manage, although I’m quite good on computers, much better than most people my age. I used to work at the public library and I still volunteer there, so I know all about Google—and I’ve already used it to research how to track down an anonymous sperm donor.
It’s still a long shot, but the anonymous nature of sperm donations is rapidly disappearing, and the odds of locating a donor are steadily getting better. Many cryobanks are developing more-open policies regarding contact between donors and recipients and children. Some are offering donor-sibling registries and message boardswhere children of the same donor can meet and stay in touch. Some have sent notices to former donors, offering them the opportunity to be notified if their offspring reaches out to them. Others refer all parties to organizations that forward messages from donors, siblings, and recipients to one another.
The key piece of information needed for any of this is the donor number. That’s the golden ticket for making contact—the number that identifies the father. You must have it, as well as the name of the cryobank.
