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of—”
    â€œThat’s done.” My fingertips felt like old skin. It was the dried glue, no longer sticky, and I peeled it off like shreds of skin after a sunburn.
    â€œHow do you know it’s done?”
    â€œIt just is.”
    â€œThat raft—such a long time ago.” He touched the red along the upper edge. “That’s not blood, is it?”
    Blood… I hadn’t thought about blood. “It could be seen as blood…fanning out in the water.” Something other than what it was. Like the raft now, finally, starting to transcend what it was.
    â€œBut it’s not blood?”
    â€œI don’t know.”

    â€œW HO GAVE you those hickeys?” Mason teased me one afternoon when he and Jake came back from taking Opal out in the stroller.
    â€œThey’re baby hickeys.” I held out my arms for her, and she babbled, jiggled her legs as if walking the air to me. Nothing scrawny about her anymore…her face round, her body growing.
    â€œYou should have seen those two guys at the park,” Mason told me. “They were there with a little boy, Opal’s age, and—”
    Jake interrupted. “One of them asked us, ‘Did you adopt?’ And when we told them that Opal was not adopted, they asked, ‘Is the birth mother someone you know?’ ”
    â€œSo I said: ‘Indeed.’ Now get this—” Mason laughed. “Then the other guy asked me, ‘Did you use your sperm or a sperm cocktail?’ And I said, ‘It’s my father-in-law’s sperm.’ ”
    â€œThey had to think on that one,” Jake said.
    â€œSo do I.”
    â€œThey thought we were a couple, Annie.”
    â€œTwo fathers,” Jake added.
    â€œSimply because they were. And had adopted.”
    â€œI figured,” I said. “Good. You’re so grounded in your…manliness that you didn’t freak out.”
    They postured…biceps bulging, chins raised.
    â€œLook at those two,” I told Opal. “Competing so you’ll notice them.”
    She made herself heavy in my arms. Squirmed.
    â€œYou know what would have freaked them out more?” Mason asked. “If I had told them my mother-in-law was the carrier.”
    Jake shook his head. “Carrier is for diseases. You mean egg donor.”
    â€œOpal does have two fathers now,” I said.
    â€œCool.” Jake blinked. Wide-spaced eyes. Green. “Thank you.”
    â€œYou should get your own family,” Mason told him.
    Jake looked stricken, and we were back to being four years old…so careful because Mason wanted me to like him better than I liked Jake, wanted Jake to like him better than he liked me. If we didn’t, he’d ignore Jake or shove him or make fun of him.
    â€œDrop it, Mason,” I said. “You know what’s going to happen. You always—”
    â€œI need to be off.” Jake headed for the door.
    â€œDon’t go, Jake,” I said. “Please?”
    He hesitated.
    I turned to Mason. “Can we skip all this? You’re always bashing Jake till he stays away from us. After a week you start missing him, and then you go over to his place and drag him here to us. Can’t you—”
    Mason pulled Opal from my arms and kissed her. “Wouldn’t you like a little brother or sister?”
    â€œYou,” I said, “are insane.”
    â€œI am serious.”
    â€œSeriously insane.”
    â€œShe already has a sister,” Jake said.
    â€œI’m not counting Annie as her sister.”
    â€œThat’s obvious.”
    â€œIt’s just that we’re getting so good at being parents, Annie. She hardly cries anymore. Look at her.” Mason touched his nose to her forehead. “My dad said I used to cry constantly.”
    â€œI don’t remember you ever crying,” I said.
    â€œBecause he cured me. Sometimes, when we had company, he’d tell this story