“I only wanted to know he was loved.”
He set the grocery bag on my tray table and unfolded the top.
Inside, wrapped in tissue paper gone soft as skin, was a yellow baby blanket.
I knew it by the smell before I touched it.
Laundry soap, cedar, and something warm underneath that I could not name.
“Esther washed it every year on his birthday,” Bruce said. “By hand. In the kitchen sink. She said it was your turn to be held.”
I pressed the blanket to my face.
I made a sound I had not made in thirty-one years.
Nobody moved.
Nobody tried to stop me.
When I could see again, Bruce was holding out a manila envelope.
“The placement file,” he said. “Esther made me promise to keep it. There’s Danforth’s letters. There’s the check for his fee, and this.”
He slid out a single yellowed receipt.
RECEIPT OF INFANT. Baby Boy G. Delivered by Marilyn Gilchrist to the Law Office of Irwin Danforth, November 11, 1995, 7:40 a.m.
