My hand slipped off the doorframe.
My knees gave out.
I don’t remember falling. I just remember the floor of my parents’ hallway suddenly being very close, the cold tile against my palms, and my mother’s voice behind me, far away, like it was coming through water.
“Claire? Claire! Claire, honey, look at me!”
I couldn’t answer her. I couldn’t do anything.I could only stare at my husband, on his knees on the welcome mat, his face wet and broken.
And slowly, slowly, the pieces started falling into place.
The way his face went white when I showed him the positive test.
How.
The phone call at midnight in the backyard. I’m choosing to believe it.
Do you think she’ll look like me?
The laptop snapped shut at the kitchen table.
And the hair. My daughter’s copper-red hair. Neither of us had it. Nobody in his family had it. Nobody in mine that he knew of.
