Chapter 9: What Diana Told Me
"My attorney doesn't know I'm calling you," Diana said.
"Mine won't be happy either."
"I know.
I'm calling anyway." A pause.
"Can you meet me?
Not a café this time.
Somewhere private."
I thought about it for longer than I should have.
"My home," I said.
"Tomorrow morning.
Nine o'clock.
And Diana — my neighbor will be here."
She came at nine exactly.
I opened the door.
Grace was in the bouncy chair in the living room, awake, looking at the ceiling with the focused intensity newborns have for nothing in particular.
Diana saw her immediately.
She stopped in the doorway.
"Come in," I said.
She sat on the sofa.
I sat across from her.
Ruth was in the kitchen, close enough to hear.
Diana didn't look at Grace again.
She kept her eyes on her hands.
"I want to tell you why I kept trying," she said.
"For six years.
Why I didn't stop."
I waited.
"My daughter died," she said.
"She was four.
A car accident.
Seven years ago."
The room was very quiet.
"I'm so sorry," I said.
"Her name was Lily." Diana's voice was steady in the way that voices are steady when a person has said something many times and learned to hold it without breaking.
"After she was gone, I thought — I thought if I could just have another child, I could — not replace her.
You can't replace them.
But I thought I could find a reason to keep going forward." She looked up.
"That's why six years.
That's why alone, after my husband left.
That's why I didn't stop."
I didn't speak.
"When the clinic called me," Diana said, "and told me there was already a baby — I didn't think about legal rights or DNA or any of it.
I just thought — she's here.
She's real.
She's alive." Her voice dropped.
"And then I came to your door and I saw you holding her and I understood immediately that I had made a terrible mistake by coming."
"You frightened me," I said again.
"I know.
I'm sorry.
I was not in a rational place."
"Are you now?"
She met my eyes.
"I'm trying to be."
I looked at her for a long moment.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I want you to know who I am," she said.
"Not what my attorney presents.
Not what your attorney will say about me.
Me." She pressed one hand flat against her knee.
"I lost a child.
I know what it is to have a child and then not have her.
I would not do that to you."
"Then why file the petition?"
"Because Bridget told me I had to establish legal standing before the hearing or I would have no voice at all.
It wasn't an attack on you.
It was—" She stopped.
"I don't want to fight you, Margaret.
I want to talk to you.
I want to figure out if there is something that works for Grace.
For both of us."
The word landed differently this time.
Not like a claim.
Like a question.
I looked at Grace in the bouncy chair.
She had found her own fist and was studying it with great seriousness.
"What are you proposing?" I said carefully.
"I don't know yet," Diana said.
"That's the honest answer.
I don't know what's possible or what's right.
But I know I don't want a judge to decide it.
I want us to decide it."
Ruth appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She looked at me, not Diana.
I gave her the smallest nod.
She went back into the kitchen.
"I need to speak to my attorney," I said.
"I know."
"And Diana — if this is a strategy, if Crane put you up to this to soften me before the hearing—"
"She didn't." Diana's voice was flat and certain.
"She would be furious if she knew I was here."
I believed her.
I didn't know why.
I just did.
"I'll call you," I said.
"After I speak to Patricia."
Diana stood.
She looked at Grace one more time — not with hunger this time, not with that desperate claiming look from the doorway three weeks ago.
With something quieter.
"She has a good face," Diana said softly.
"Strong."
May you like
"Yes," I said.
"She does."
