Bridget winning a county science prize for building a rainwater filter out of junk drawer materials and stubborn concentration.
Theodore bringing home every injured thing in a two-mile radius and eventually announcing, at age nine, that he would become “an animal doctor unless space doctor is available first.”
At ten, the truth about the donor had to be told.
Not all at once.
Not cruelly.
But truth had seasons, and Dorothy knew this one had arrived when Bridget found the fertility clinic paperwork during a thunderstorm-induced power outage while helping reorganize the attic.
She carried the folder downstairs with a flashlight in her hand and said, “Grandma, what does donor mean in this kind of paperwork?”
Dorothy made tea for herself and cocoa for them, because difficult conversations required warm cups.
Then she sat the three of them at the kitchen table where so many things in their lives had begun and been repaired.