Chapter 44 part four

I saw her, and though it was only for a moment, I saw her anyway.She has black hair and a round, delicate face, like a doll's face.She has Johannes' nose, upper lip and mouth, and Johannes' chin.Her face is also a bit like my mother's, maybe it's the forehead, maybe it's the shape of the face.She huddled into a small ball, with her arms and legs curled up in a fetal position, her impossibly small hands tightly clenched, four fingers of one hand wrapped around her thumb, her eyes closed, and her toes bent and straightened in turn as she cried. This is what I saw as the midwife brought her to me.She is real, alive, and healthy.Then she was carried away.My belly was stitched up.I lay on the operating table under complete anesthesia from the chest down.

Pedro once said: If there's anything I can do to help, please tell me, Dolly. Pedro said this to me the morning after Johannes made his final donation.Funny enough, within minutes of my walk under the stars and back at the dinner party, I bumped into Pedro, and she said that to me again.I was out for about an hour and had time to think about a lot of things, so when she asked if I could help, I knew exactly what she could do. Well, I replied: Do you want to know now? Of course, she said: Let's find a quieter place to sit. We walked out of the ballroom and into the lobby, with its low tables, low-backed sofas and stools with cushions, it looked like an airport lounge, with only the necessary comforts and a very communal vibe.I sat down on one of the sofas and Pedro sat on the stool across from me.She took a notebook and a pen from the inside pocket of her jacket and nodded to me with her eternal sincerity.

Three things, I said: I'm going to be awake for the C-section, I'm going to see the baby, and I'm going to straighten my left foot, put my hand in my pocket, take out that rock with the fossil embedded in it, and put it on the palm of my hand , stretched out in front of Pedro, I want the child to keep this, and I want the adoptive parents to promise that when the child asks about the biological parents, or when the child reaches the appropriate age, they must give this stone together with a letter I wrote to the child For now, this letter doesn't say anything about biological parents being unwanted individuals.Can you do this?

Pedro started to write quickly, and raised his head: I think so, but I can't guarantee that the adoptive parents will keep their promises, but I will definitely get them to sign the consent form. Pedro promised to get back to me with further messages, and I thanked her.We went back to the dinner party and went our separate ways.I went back to Miranda and explained to her that the reason I had been away for so long was because I ran into a friend who was feeling down and talked to her for a while. Seeing you just now, Miranda said: I just think you need to talk to someone. I laughed a little, assured her I was fine, and asked her if she wanted to dance now.She said yes.

The time sequence came to February again, eight months had passed since the orientation party, and four months had passed since I gave birth.There are two reasons why I stayed so long. First.I wanted to finish the novel, even if the manuscript might end up in the basement of the Royal Library in Stockholm right away, at least it ended up somewhere and wasn't destroyed. Second, after I gave birth, Feifei was sent to make the final donation, so I wanted to stay with Aisha, because after Johannes made the final donation, Aisha also stayed with me. Now that Aisha is gone, no one needs me here, not even myself.I only have a few lines left to write, and then I can wrap it up.This time tomorrow, my heart and lungs will belong to someone else, a local politician and mother of two.

By the way, my daughter's mother is a forty-two-year-old single woman who is the director of a small business recruiting firm, and I've seen pictures of her, and she looks like a nice guy with a sad brow.She had had multiple miscarriages and was on the adoption list for a long time.They offered to show me a picture of her with my daughter, which I declined. According to Pedro, the adoptive mother happily signed a consent form, promising to give the stone and the letter to my daughter as I asked.Of course, I can't be sure that Pedro is telling the truth, but I choose to believe that she is telling the truth, just like I choose to believe that the foster mother will not break a promise.

If I had chosen to live freely with my daughter instead of giving her up and giving her away to give her the chance to live a life of security and dignity, there are things I would want to say to her.Now I write these words in a letter.I wrote that she was born with my dad's nose, lips, and chin, and that she was like my mom, with my mom's forehead and face shape.I wrote that the stone with the conical fossils embedded in it belonged to her father, who died before she was born, and that it was the only thing I had left of her father's possessions, so I wished to pass it on to She, so that she can remember her father.I wrote that her father had picked up the rock between Abecos and Mosby Beach, the day we met in the November twilight, he went to the beach to pick it up and I went dog walking.

(End of the book)