And I had, by then, become a mother.

Not through a miracle, and not, I want to be very clear, to prove anything to anyone — not to Adrian, not to Vanessa, not to the relatives who had spent eight years asking whether I had failed.

I was long past needing to prove myself to any of them; that is, in a way, the whole point of a freedom like the one I had built.

I became a mother because I wanted to be one, on my own terms, in my own time.

Years before — quietly, during one of those long stretches when I was carrying a blame that was not mine — I had done one careful, private thing for myself.

I had created embryos, from my own eggs and a donor’s, and frozen them, and told no one.