Later, the nurse told me that the girl had no other known living relatives.
It would be welcomed by foster families as soon as their criminal record was regularized.
Something inside me refused to accept it.
I managed to save her.
Then I started to show up. I can't explain why, but I felt an instant connection to Lily.
Every morning before the doctor’s visits, and every night after, I would go to see her, she would bring stuffed rabbits from the gift shop and children’s books that I hadn’t read since she was a child. I sat with her while we read together.
“You know you’re getting attached, Paul,” my partner Mark told me one afternoon as he watched me out the recovery room window.
“I know.”
I started showing up.
“It’s not bad. You just don’t lie to yourself about what you do,” Mark said.
