She Said I Couldn’t Hold The Baby Because Of “Germs” — The Real Reason Broke My Heart

sitting on the small balcony of my apartment with a book I wasn’t really reading, watching the light change over the street below, when my phone rang. A number I didn’t recognize. I almost didn’t answer.

It was a woman from an adoption agency. I had made an inquiry, quietly, some months before — not as a plan exactly, more as a door I was testing to continue reading …