Read Online The Lost Daughter by Lucy Ferriss - Free Book Online

sec?” a woman asked as Brooke turned away from the dahlias.
    “So long as they don’t leave this area,” Brooke said. She glanced at the children—Asian girls, both of them, looking like twins but also looking nothing like their freckled mother. “Sweet,” she said.
    “Aren’t they? We planned to adopt just one, but these two were inseparable, even as toddlers.”
    “Aren’t they sisters?”
    The woman smiled. “Now they are,” she said. “I’ll be just a sec.”
    Brooke loved children. She loved Meghan past all reason. When Sean asked if she didn’t want a second child, if she didn’t want to jump on that merry-go-round again, she felt her capacity for love like an ache. But she dreaded giving birth. She could not explain to Sean why the idea terrified her. Every time she thought of another pregnancy, she felt a tornado moving straight at her, fast and relentless.Sometimes she had to watch her breathing, to stave off what might be seen as a panic attack. She ought to see someone about it, she counseled herself, and by “someone” she knew she meant a shrink. But she couldn’t see a shrink. Shrinks were like the gardeners of history. They delved into your past with words as their spades. So tell me, the shrinks would say—raking, digging—why you’re meeting this man today? Alex? Any connection to these thoughts of pregnancy?
    Get out of my garden, she would tell them.
    Finishing up her task, she kept half an eye on the girls, who were quickly bossing Dillon and his brother, Charles. Shooing away the invisible shrinks, she thought: Adoption. Of
course
. Plenty of people adopted. They didn’t even have to look as far as China. There were babies in Central America looking for a home, babies in eastern Europe. Sean’s family had its share of bigots, but Sean wasn’t among them. It would make sense to anyone who asked. Brooke had had trouble with her first pregnancy; people would understand that she had reason to be concerned.
    But this man you’re meeting, the shrinks would begin. Shoo, she would tell them.
    “The other day,” she said to Shanita over lunch, “I was picking up Meghan, right? And this Jewish dad picked up his daughter who looked—I don’t know, Mayan or something. Straight hair, black eyes. He scooped her into a bear hug. She was his daughter, plain and simple. Shanita?”
    She snapped her fingers in front of her friend’s glazed eyes. Shanita’s head jerked up. “That’s my name.”
    “What do you think?”
    “About what?”
    “Adoption.”
    Shanita gave her a long look. “You mean like Madonna, swoopingdown on Africa to get her toys?” she said at last. “I think that is disgusting.”
    “No, I mean normal adoption. Like of a Chinese girl, or—or I don’t know, a baby needing a family. You think parents feel the same way toward their adopted kids?”
    “Brooke, baby, you asking the wrong person. Fought tooth and nail to
keep
my kids from being adopted. Why you ask?”
    “I’m thinking about it. How it might work. For Sean and me.”
    Shanita packed up her sandwich. Her face had darkened to pitch. She leaned across the table and repeated, “You’re thinking about it.”
    “Sure. Lots of people make a family that way, Shanita.”
    “You thinking up
here
.” Shanita pressed her finger suddenly into Brooke’s temple. Brooke’s eyes teared up with shock. “But ain’t nothing happening
here
.” She removed the finger and grabbed at Brooke’s rib cage, just under her left breast. Brooke pulled away. A fat tear rolled, uninvited, down her cheek. She felt the imprint of Shanita’s hand on her heart.
    “What are you doing?” she gasped.
    “You got any idea what is involved in bringing up a child that got someone else’s genes? Someone else’s moodiness or asthma or I don’t know what all?”
    “I’m sure it’s not the same. But it’s still wonderful.” Brooke dabbed at her eyes. “Or it…it can be.”
    “That decision lies at the top of