I don’t want another child. I want my daughter. I want to hold her in my arms. She was perfect there, the way she fit. She settled against my chest and stopped crying immediately. Whatever her flaws, they were God-given and she shouldn’t be punished for them.

Richard holds my hand, but I just stare out the window as the plane taxis down the runway and try to block her face from my mind. Puffy and pink, it should be unidentifiable in a crowded nursery. But I knew her on sight, the way a mother knows her baby. She was mine already. She knew me, sensed what my role would be. She held my hand.

Then, I kissed her and left her behind, with only a stuffed animal to remember me by, for the father who could never have loved her.

My stomach tightens and I feel sick. I know it isn’t the turbulence.

 

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