as she admired the Christmas tree. Then she came and sat on the arm of the couch beside Lynn. Although Lynn had told Adam the truth—Irene Miller’s warmth was in her smile and words more than in her rarely bestowed hugs—this time her mother put out a gentle hand and smoothed her daughter’s hair from her face.
"You said he might bring her for a visit next week."
"Yes." Lynn smiled with difficulty. "Of course."
Her mother studied her worriedly. "Will you get used to seeing her only sometimes? Or are you always going to regret that you didn’t share more of her life?"
"I don’t know." Lynn had wondered the same thing, but it wasn’t as if she had a choice. "What can we do?"
“You’re lucky that he wants only the best for both girls, too."
"I know I am," Lynn said on a sigh. "I was so sure at first that he’d try to take Shelly from me. But he really does adore Rose. He calls her his Rosebud, did I tell you that?" Of course she had. She’d talked of little but her newly discovered daughter this past week. Her mother must be getting sick of hearing her go on and on! But she couldn’t seem to help herself. "I think he really, truly does want the same thing as I do for the girls."
"Whatever that is," Mrs. Miller said softly.
Trust her mother to figure out how muddled Lynn’s dreams still were. But what could she and Adam do other than experiment until one day the routine was right?
"Do you think Shelly is ready to find out Adam is her father?" Lynn asked, as much for reassurance as in the belief her mother really had the answers.
Mrs. Miller made a face. "Is anyone ever ready to find out something like that?"
"I wouldn’t have been," Lynn admitted. "In fact..."
"In fact?"
She was sorry she’d begun. Or was she? Now that she had a child of her own, she wondered more than ever about her own father.
"Do you know, I used to imagine all kinds of things about who my father was."
Her mother stood and went to the tree, moving an ornament from one branch to another as if she’d suddenly noticed a lack of balance. Her back to Lynn, she said almost casually, "Oh? Who was he? A movie star?"
"That crossed my mind, along with a cowboy or a spy or Roberta’s dad. Do you remember him? He was...oh, a TV repairman, I think."
Mrs. Miller didn’t laugh at the very idea as Lynn had expected. In fact, she said nothing.
Twining her fingers on her lap, Lynn continued steadily, "But what I finally decided was that you’d gone to a sperm bank."
That one did get a reaction. Her mother spun around. "What?"
"Women do it." Lynn watched her carefully. "I thought maybe you were single and decided to have a baby. And that, well, you chose what qualities you wanted and didn’t know anything else about the donor. Which is why you never talked about him. My father."
Her mother’s laugh was semihysterical. "Oh, dear! Oh, I should have guessed that you might think of something like that." She seemed to sag, still standing there in the middle of Lynn’s tiny living room. "Do you want to know the truth?"
"Yes," Lynn said quietly. "I always have, you know."
But never so much as lately, she realized. Ties of blood weren’t necessary to love, she had discovered, but they did exert a pull she had never understood.
"He was a married man." Shame crept over Irene Miller’s cheeks, although she met Lynn’s gaze. "Not your friend Roberta’s father, although he might as well have been. It was...it was something that should never have happened. I suppose I was lonely...but that’s no excuse."
"Oh, Mom," Lynn whispered. "Things like that happen. He was the one who was married!"
Her mother’s chin lifted with conscious dignity. "I can only be responsible for my own decisions, and I knew better. I despised myself, but I was lonely and he was such a kind man! I thought his marriage must be in trouble." Her smile was faint and tinged with remembered bitterness. "But after a couple of weeks, when he’d said nothing about leaving his wife or our future, I realized that he had no such thing in mind. I was the one with foolish dreams. I quit my job—he was my boss. He probably started a...a fling with the next secretary. Very likely he made a habit of them."
"And you found out you were pregnant."
A