At night, Clara lingered outside Emily’s door, listening to the scratch of pen against paper. Emily had started keeping a journal, filling pages with guesses, dreams, even sketches of what her biological parents might look like. Clara turned away before the tears could fall, pressing her fist against her mouth to keep from making a sound.
At work, she caught herself staring blankly at charts, her thoughts circling back to the envelope that would arrive any day. She imagined Emily’s face lighting up at the results, imagined her rushing into the arms of strangers, imagined her choosing them over the woman who had given everything.