“No. You shouldn’t have.”S
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because yesterday they told me there was a baby.”
She looked at Grace.
“I couldn’t think about anything else.”
I stood and walked toward the window because suddenly sitting felt impossible.
For nine months, I had imagined Grace as a bridge between who I was at thirty-three and who I had become at seventy-five.
The final piece of that younger woman.
Now a stranger was sitting in my home telling me that story might not be true.
“Did you know the clinic still had one of your eggs?”
“Yes.”
“Why hadn’t you used it?”
Ivanna looked down.
The answer came softly.
“I tried.”
She told me she’d wanted children for years.
She and her husband had undergone multiple fertility treatments.
Embryos failed.
Pregnancies never came.
Then, two years earlier, her husband died in a car accident.
After that, she couldn’t bring herself to return to the clinic.
“I kept paying the storage fees,” she said. “Destroying the last egg felt like closing a door.”
I stared at her.
Of all the things she could have said, that was the one I understood completely.
“So when they called…”
“They told me there might have been a mix-up and that a baby had already been born.”
She looked toward Grace.
“I only wanted to know if she was real.”
I tightened my arms around my daughter.
“How did you find my house?”
“The clinic accidentally said your full name.”
“That doesn’t explain my address.”
“I searched for you.”
My expression hardened.
“I know,” she said quickly. “I know I shouldn’t have.”
“No, you absolutely shouldn’t have.”
“I wasn’t coming here to take her.”
I stared at her.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
She was right.
The question came out before I could soften it.
“If the DNA test says Grace is biologically yours, would you try to take her?”
Ivanna went very still.
That pause terrified me.
“Answer me.”
She looked directly at me.
“I’ve wanted a child for most of my adult life.”
“So have I.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the sentence. You don’t know my life.”
Her eyes filled.
“You’re right.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Two women who had spent decades preserving possibilities.
Two lives shaped by waiting.
One newborn sleeping between us.
“I’ve had three days with her,” I whispered.
Ivanna looked at Grace.
“I’ve had none.”
I hated how much that hurt.
It would have been easier if Ivanna had been cruel.
Easier if she had walked into my home demanding rights or calling Grace hers.
Then I could have hated her.
Instead, she looked like someone whose heart had been broken before she even knew whether she was allowed to hope.
Grace began fussing.
I stood and rocked her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.”
Ivanna looked away, but I saw tears running down her cheeks.
Then, without understanding why I was doing it, I asked, “Do you want to hold her?”
Ivanna stared at me.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
For the first time, the edge of a smile appeared through her tears.
Neither of us was sure about anything.
Still, she held out her arms.
I placed Grace carefully against her.
Ivanna froze completely.
Then Grace settled against her chest.
Ivanna covered her mouth with one hand.
“Oh.”
Her voice broke.
“She’s so tiny.”
“Seven pounds, two ounces.”
“Hello, Grace.”
Watching another woman hold my daughter should have filled me only with fear.
Instead, the emotions came one after another.
