Seeing Lucy
I pulled up to the Willow Creek building, the sky a thin, bruised gray that matched the ache in my chest.
The receptionist glanced up, eyes weary, and barely managed a smile before she turned back to her computer.
“You’re here for Lucy?” she asked, voice flat.
I nodded, feeling the weight of the name settle like a stone.
She led me down a hallway lined with pastel walls, each one humming with the soft rustle of toys and the distant murmur of nurses.
When the case aide appeared, she cradled a tiny figure swaddled in a white onesie speckled with yellow sunflowers.
“This is Lucy,” she said, her tone gentle but tired.
Lucy stared up at me with wide brown eyes, as if she’d been waiting for a stranger her whole life.
She reached, fingers wrapping around the zipper of my jacket, refusing to let go.
I laughed, the sound echoing oddly in the sterile room, and she turned her face toward me.
There, high on her left cheek, was a pale brown birthmark, the exact shape of the one I’d known since I was seventeen.
My breath caught; the memory of Elena’s smile flooded back, the way her own cheek bore an identical mark.
My hands trembled as I asked for her file.
The aide hesitated, then placed a folder on the desk—medical evaluations, therapy notes, a placement summary.
I flipped to the second page, eyes skimming until a single line froze my blood.
Biological Mother: ELENA BROOKS.
The name hit me like a punch, and for a moment I was rooted to the spot, the world narrowing to that single line.
Without thinking, I reached for the desk phone, my fingers fumbling over the numbers I hadn’t dialed in nine years.
“Can I use this?” I asked, voice barely more than a whisper.
The aide nodded, and I pressed the digits, each one echoing the past I’d tried to forget.
