MY SISTER SPENT EIGHT YEARS TRYING TO BECOME A MOTHER
Large, expressive eyes.
And when she smiled, a tiny dimple appeared in her left cheek — exactly where mine had been as a child.
Nora laughed. “Claire, isn’t she adorable? She even looks like she belongs in our family.”
I forced a smile. “She certainly does.”
Later, alone in my car, I cried, because Ellie was exactly the age Lucy would have been, and she looked exactly like the daughter I’d spent five years imagining.
But I never let my grief touch Nora’s happiness.
I visited often. I brought little gifts. And soon Ellie was running to the door shouting “Auntie Claire!” and dragging out her hair ribbons.
“Can you do my hair? Two pigtails. Not one! And don’t make them too tight!“Yes, ma’am,” I’d laugh.
Those small moments became precious to me.
I told myself Ellie was Nora’s daughter, and I was lucky to be her aunt.
I had no idea I was brushing the hair of the baby I’d buried in my heart five years before.
Chapter 3: Not a Coincidence
The independent test came back in nine days.
It did not say “possible.”
It said mother and child.
