“She knew me very well.”
Then Sophie asked something that changed the room.
“Did she want me?”
My husband turned toward her.
“Sophie.”
She stared at the photograph in her hands.
“My first mommy. Did she want me?”
And suddenly I heard Richard on our porch seven years earlier.
“Just don’t let her grow up thinking they didn’t love her.”
“Of course she did,” I said.
Sophie looked at me.
“But how do you know?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
Mr. Harris looked back at the letter.
“There is more.”
He crouched beside Sophie.
“Do you want me to read it?”
She nodded.
His voice shook.
“Sophie is the best thing we’ve ever done. I didn’t know you could love somebody this much when you’ve only known them for four days.”
Sophie didn’t move.
Mr. Harris continued.
“I keep looking at her and thinking I wish my little brother could meet her.”
He stopped there.
He couldn’t continue.
He didn’t need to.
Sophie looked at the photograph again.
Then she climbed into my lap.
I wrapped both arms around her.
After a while, she whispered, “Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Are you sad?”
“I am.”
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“Because I wanted their picture?”
The question confused me.
“No.”
She wouldn’t look at me.
“I didn’t tell you I took it because I thought maybe you’d think I wanted a different mommy.”
Everything I’d been holding together that day broke.
“Oh, Sophie.”
“I don’t.”
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She said it quickly.
“I don’t want a different one.”
I pulled her closer.
“You never have to choose.”
She started crying.
Not loudly.
That somehow made it worse.
“I like hearing about her.”
“I know.”
“And him.”
“I know.”
“But I love you and Dad.”
My husband knelt beside us.
“We know.”
I kissed her hair.
“You can miss people you don’t remember. You can love them. You can ask about them every day if you want to. None of that takes anything away from us.”
She looked at me.
“Really?”
“Really.”
