PART 2
Josh looked at Brynn.
“You knew?”
Brynn burst into tears. That was the answer.
“Mom said Sabrina would never use them,” she sobbed. “She said they’d just sit in a freezer until they expired. She said it was basically the same as a donor.”
“It’s not the same,” Josh said quietly. “It’s your sister.”
My mother tried to take control the way she always does.
“Everyone calm down. We’ll talk about this privately. This is a celebration.”
“No,” Josh said. “Where did the twenty-two thousand dollars go, Deirdre?”
She didn’t answer.
Later, we found out. A new kitchen. And a cruise.
I left the party without saying goodbye to anyone.
The next Monday, I met with my lawyer. Then the clinic. Then the police.
The clinic’s investigation took three weeks. The notary my mother used was a friend from her church. She admitted she never saw me sign anything. She said my mother told her I was “too sick to come in.”
My mother was charged with forgery, identity theft, and theft by deception. Josh agreed to testify.
The hardest question wasn’t legal.
It was the baby.
She was born in December. A little girl. Seven pounds, two ounces.
She was mine, genetically. And she was Brynn’s, because Brynn carried her. And she was Josh’s, because he was her father. All of that was true at once.
I didn’t want to tear a newborn away from the only parents she knew. That wasn’t what my eggs were for.
But I needed her to know the truth someday.
Josh came to my apartment two weeks after she was born. Alone. He’d moved out of their house.
“I’m not going to lie to her,” he said. “Not ever. When she’s old enough, she’ll know where she came from. And I want you in her life. As much as you want to be.”
I couldn’t speak for a minute.
Brynn and Josh share custody now. Brynn is in counseling. She wrote me a letter in March. It’s sitting unopened in my desk drawer. I’m not ready yet.
My mother pleaded guilty and paid back every dollar to Josh. She was sentenced to probation and community service.
I haven’t spoken to her since that day in the backyard.
But every other Sunday, I pick up my niece and take her to the park.
She has my nose. My stubborn chin. When she laughs, she squeezes her eyes shut exactly the way I did in my baby pictures.
Her name is Juniper. Josh asked me to choose her middle name.
I chose Lark. After the little brown bird that sang outside my hospital window every morning during chemo. The one that made me believe I’d live.
THE END.
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Your body, your choices, and your future belong to you. Nobody, not even family, gets to decide you don’t deserve them.
What would you have done if you were Sabrina? Tell us in the replies.