After lunch, Margaret took Lily’s hand and walked her toward the garden patio where the club had set up a small play area for children of donors. Lily trotted beside her like she owned the world.
Margaret glanced back at me. “Sarah,” she said, hesitating slightly. “I’ve spent too much of my life letting people like Beatrice set the rules of what’s acceptable. I don’t want Lily to grow up thinking she has to earn a place in a room.”
My throat tightened. “She won’t,” I said.
Margaret nodded. “Not if I do my job.”
That night, at home, David kissed my forehead while I washed dishes.
“My mother defended you,” he murmured, still sounding surprised.
I smiled softly. “She defended Lily,” I corrected him. “And that’s bigger.”
In the living room, Lily sat cross-legged with her crayons, drawing a picture of our family.
She drew me, David, herself, my parents, and Margaret. She added Elena, too, because Elena had sent her a postcard from Milan and Lily had decided that made her officially part of the lineup.
No one was bigger than anyone else. No one was placed off to the side.
At the top, in wobbly letters, Lily wrote: OUR PEOPLE.
And I realized something with a quiet certainty.