“Wouldn’t it be wonderful, just wonderful, if we could turn conception on and off when we wanted it? Just think of the sorrow we could avoid.”

We were standing so close that I smelled the lemon in her perfume.

She heaved a sigh of exasperated irony.

“There’s no way to write insurance on any child, whether you give birth or adopt. It’s a tossup.” I think of Tara and the years when there was tension between us. “You and Olivia are going on a great adventure,” I said. “An adventure across the customary boundaries.” I held her hands. “Special.” And then hugged her. “From one end of the world to another. And China! Who knows what Olivia will introduce you to.”

Now I look around the room, at all these women, so many who have been part of my life for decades. Family, kinship, is what you build from the accidents of life; from different decades, different biologies, different countries, different races. Certainly that. I examine Sissy’s features and imagine them mixed with mine. I wonder if the baby will have her astonishing smile, a smile that Aaron has. I wonder if he’ll inherit her even teeth. The fine brows. Soon I’ll see the features from the accident of Tara and Aaron, though really every conception is serendipity.

If things don’t work out, a piece of Sky will always be sad that she couldn’t give birth, couldn’t see the love between her and Troy in the body of a baby, but she’ll still form a family, somehow, one more diverse than hers would have been if she had given birth. If this embryo is deformed, I’ll encourage her to adopt. But I know, once you’re a parent, your safety net is full of holes. Any glorious or horrendous thing is possible.

After Laurie brought Olivia home, she called me. “You were right. I was ready. As soon as they handed her to me, in her little pink blanket with her teeny fingers, I fell in love with her. She looked at me and I was hers. Like her eyes swallowed me and claimed me as her mom.”

Now, Laurie stands, a white baker’s box in her hand with a cellophane window revealing its contents. It is tied with red and green ribbons, the ends furled. Laurie is one of the youngest cookie bitches. She and Taylor are in their late thirties. The rest of us span the forties and fities. Me, I’m fifty-seven. Can hardly believe it myself it sounds so grown-up. In a few years, I’ll be eligible for Social Security. Social Security! That sounds old. How did that happen? Vera is in her midforties. Allie’s in her sixties. Or about to be. We stretch across all the decades of adulthood.