But it wasn’t just the way I’d failed Jason and Amy that rattled me when I thought about becoming a parent. It was my DNA, too. My mother hadn’t lived to see thirty. My father had been shot and killed in 1989 in a domestic dispute over a woman that sounded like a seedy episode of A Current Affair. If that weren’t enough, I’d had half a dozen foster parents who had made me seriously wonder if any grown-ups had their act together. It wasn’t until I came to Mendocino that I saw some actually being that, grown-up, doing more than just getting by. Hap and Eden had a stable marriage—another first for me. They said what they meant. They were patient with my moods and outbursts. They asked questions and seemed to care what I had to say. They gave me a real childhood when I’d long since stopped hoping there was such a thing. And all I had to do was be myself.

All of this—the presenting evidence on each side of the decision I needed to make—seemed far too complicated to try and wade through with Brendan. He didn’t have any ambivalence at all about starting a family. He was part of a sprawling Irish brood, with five brothers and sisters who were loud and cheerful and always in one another’s business. When I saw them with their kids, I could almost see it—that messy, happy version of domestic life we could have, maybe, if everything lined up just right.

“You wouldn’t do anything different?” I asked Frank as he manned his grill tongs, turning over peppers and onions with a satisfying hiss.

“Maybe go to dental school instead?” He smirked. “Nah. I like my life.”

“How do you know when you’re ready?”

His laugh was a snort, as if I’d asked the funniest question he’d ever heard. “No one’s ever ready, kid. You just gotta leap.”

(thirty-nine)

Crayoned sun drawings with goofy, large-headed stick figures splayed beneath. A chameleon on a cloud and the words Dear Mom, I have been missing you! A spelling test from second grade with “100%” circled in red, with stars by two extra-credit words, “parallel” and “integrity.” A glittery purple beanbag lizard with loopy plastic eyes. A Strawberry Shortcake tea set. All of this in one large plastic bin in the attic—fragments of a girl, a childhood. One white roller skate with slightly battered wheels. Tucked inside, a pair of rainbow suspenders like Robin Williams wore in Mork & Mindy. Four pastel My Little Ponies with a collection of tiny pink hairbrushes for their manes and tails. I never had a box like this, but I recognize I’m looking at treasure. Somehow these things add up to Cameron. I need to find her so she can get back to who she was. Who she is.