“A clean contract,” he said. “We will have our attorney draft the paperwork next week to ensure there are no custody disputes later.”
“You are talking about this like a commercial lease,” I said.
“It is a legal protection for everyone involved,” he said, finally putting his phone away and stepping into the driver’s seat. “We will love the child more than life itself, Marianne. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“I hope so,” I said, watching him adjust his side mirror.
Claire got into the passenger side, her face pale behind the tinted glass as she buckled her seatbelt. She waved once, a small, tentative motion of her hand, before Evan backed the car down the gravel path, kicking up a small cloud of grey dust.
The house was quiet again, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator in the corner of the kitchen. The supermarket bakery box sat unopened on the laminate table, next to the small package Claire had left behind on the counter.
I untied the white ribbon and folded back the tissue paper, my fingers moving slowly.
Inside was a heavy silver rattle, its surface polished to a mirror finish that reflected the yellow paint of the kitchen walls. It was an antique, old-fashioned and substantial, the kind of toy our grandmother might have kept in a velvet drawer, though I had never seen this particular one before.
I picked it up, the cool weight of the metal resting in my palm, its small silver bells clinking softly in the quiet room.
My daughter Chloe was twenty now, living in her own apartment near the community college, her life entirely independent of mine. My days of middle-of-the-night feedings, soft baby blankets, and constant worry were nearly two decades behind me.
I looked out the window at the empty driveway where the gravel was still disturbed from Evan’s quick departure.
My body felt tired already, the lingering ache in my lower back reminding me of the long hours spent bending over patients at the pediatric dental clinic.
But Claire was my sister, the baby girl I had helped raise after our mother passed, and she had never looked so fragile as she did today on my porch.
