“I better be,” I said.

She took another sip and a bite of toast. After a minute she said, “I heard you went to the doctor today.”

I tucked my feet under me. “Yeah.”

“Usually you like the doctor.”

“Yeah.”

“But not this one?”

“I liked her a lot.”

Another sip of tea. This time I knew she was asking me a Silent Question.

“It’s weird…,” I said. I didn’t really know what exactly was bothering me. “It’s hard to explain.”

She kept going with the Silent Question.

“It’s like…,” I started. “It’s like they told me there’s something sort of controlling how I think. I mean, not exactly, but something at least kind of influencing the way I think. That … that’s weird. If … if that’s true, if something in my brain really is different, then I … I don’t know what’s me and what’s … controlling me.”

“I get that,” Nonny said. “But I don’t think they mean something’s inside your brain controlling you. It’s the way your particular brain is built. It’s you.”

“But it’s a different thing,” I said. “I mean, it means my brain works a certain way. A different way. So then, what if I didn’t have that thing? Wouldn’t that mean I’m a different person?”

“Then you’d be a different person,” Nonny said. “But you’re not.”

“I guess.”

Nonny put the mug back on the table and sat up taller. “Think of it this way. Tell me something you learned at school today.”

“Um … oh, we had an assembly about internet safety.”

“So your brain is already different today than it was yesterday, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“But you’re still you, right?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Hey, no fair! Okay, you got me.”

“There you go,” Nonny said, and picked up her mug again.

I knew Nonny would understand. And I knew, without a doubt, that I would do whatever it took to give her this beautiful universe, this perfect baby. Sometimes, though, there were these what-ifs that shot across my mind like comets, flaring in and out. There were the normal what-ifs, like, What if something went wrong? But there were other what-ifs, too. Like, What if I was the perfect, best, most understanding aunt in the world for a niece who had Turner syndrome, too?

“Nonny?” I said.

She took a careful sip. “Hmm?”

“What if … what if the baby has a disorder?”

Nonny choked a little on her tea, but with someone as elegant as her, it was more a dainty cough.

“Have you been worrying about that?”

I pulled at loose threads in the hem of my shirt. Why was it so hard to think of the right thing to say at the times when saying the right thing was the most important? I could talk and talk for a long time about exciting things, but explaining what I really meant was different. “I mean … I wonder…”

Nonny put her mug on the table and put her hand on my knee. I glimpsed one of those particular furrows between her brow and it made her look like Mom.