I felt myself relax. “Amelia, you’re going to spend the next year of your life on this. How could you not write about it?” I took her hand. “Are you serious? Are we doing this?”

She hugged me. I’d take that as a yes.

“Our parents are going to die,” she said into my ear.

I pulled away and said, “Let’s go cause a scene.”

I knew when I saw their faces they all thought we were going to announce we were dating. Everyone knew Olivia Thaysden and Elizabeth Saxton’s lifelong dream, from childhood—hell, maybe even from birth—was to have children who would grow up and get married. The truth was going to be a blow.

As I put my hand on the small of Amelia’s back to let her walk through the front door of my parents’ house first, I caught the conspiratorial smile that Mom and Elizabeth shared. Yeah, this was not going to be the dinner they were expecting.

It started out well. Mom had just had her kitchen redone and was excited to show it off. I don’t know much about kitchens, but I knew it was nice. We never ever talked about money in our house, but I knew Dad was one of the top producers in the country in his field. I was proud of Dad for forging his own path, for taking a risk and creating a new life for himself. Now I hoped he would feel the same way about me.

We all had cocktails and appetizers around the kitchen island, which Mom was explaining was travertine. Amelia smiled at me nervously, and I noticed how quickly she drank her first glass of wine.

Fortunately, nerves had never affected my appetite, so I was fully able to enjoy the stuffed figs, pimento cheese, and flash-fried cauliflower.

We had agreed that I would take the lead. It was my news anyway, my life that was going to change. Before I put it out there, I had to be sure. Not pretty sure or almost sure, sure sure. I thought about going it alone, the all-nighters and the dirty diapers, the fevers and the doctor’s appointments, my life no longer being my own. But then I thought about looking into the face of a child that was half-Greer, a child that we had imagined when she was alive. I would sacrifice anything to have her back. This was the only way that was ever going to happen. I was sure sure.

Greer had told me one day, with a scarf wrapped around her head, her face almost translucently white, not to do anything stupid when she was gone. The example she used was cryogenically freezing her in case she could be brought back to life. I tried to scoff, but it didn’t quite take. That woman knew me. I had actually Googled cryogenic freezing the night before.

Besides, this wasn’t extreme. It was normal. How many friends did we know who had done IVF? (Okay, one.) How many friends did we have who had had surrogates? (Again, one.) But that wasn’t nothing.