“How come you don’t visit your son?” She erased her work again, and this time she erased so hard that she tore a small hole in the paper. “Goddamn it.” She threw the eraser at the window in an apparent attempt to startle the cardinal. But the bird just fluttered its wings. “Everyone’s talking about a baby that doesn’t even exist.”

“I miss my son.” I did. I missed Jasper from the bottom of my heart. I ached to hold him in my arms. I’d worked hard to create memories, and over time my child had grown so clear to me. I could hold on to the notion that I would be reunited with Jasper. I thought about the work I could do in my studio, creating even more memories that would provide me with hours of happiness. The pain I was experiencing was the pain of a mother, an artist, a creator. Jasper was my creation, but eventually I would have to release him. With love comes loss.

“I long for Jasper,” I said. “We FaceTime every day.”

“Can I FaceTime with him?”

“He’s shy.”

Natalie looked down at her homework. “What does he like?”

“Surfing. He lives near the beach in Venice.”

She drew spirals on the side of the page.

“He has an imaginary friend named Spiro,” I said.

She smiled for the first time since I’d arrived at their house that day. “Jasper could visit you. You could visit him.”

“I’m visiting him next week.”

“Oh.” Her spirals grew larger.

“I know it’s probably hard for you to understand the surrogacy. I care about you and your mom and your dad. I love all of you.”

“You haven’t known us that long.”

“I feel as if I’ve known you forever.” That was true. From the moment I’d met Amelia, I felt like she knew me, and I knew her.

Natalie shifted from spirals to a vortex.

I paused, trying to find the right words: “I don’t think your mom is going to give up on the idea of a baby.”

She continued drawing a vortex that appeared to be spinning around a black hole. “I just want to get out of here,” she said.

My pulse quickened again. I took her hand in mine. “I think that as soon as your mom has a baby, she’ll act the way you want her to act.”

“You’re wrong.”

The cardinal landed on a branch that was even closer to Natalie’s window.

“What do you think would make you feel better?” I asked.

“I want my parents to die.”

Her bedroom felt warm and close. I had a strong urge to open the window.

“I want my mom to be my mom,” she said. “Just because she cries, doesn’t mean that she’s a good person. My mom wants people to pay attention to her. That’s why she cries.”