I Became a Surrogate for My Brother — But When He Saw His Newborn Baby, He Rejected Her, and the Reason Made Me Go Pale.

When they wheeled me out, a woman in the hall smiled and said, “Auntie duty is over, huh?” I smiled because correcting strangers in a hallway is a sport I did not have blood for.

David said, “We’re going home.” The woman looked confused.

Good.

Confusion is lighter than explanation.

PART 4 — TAKING HER HOME, AND EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWED

We left the hospital two days later with a car seat we had bought for a niece and a name we chose in the parking garage because the pink nursery across town was no longer a destination.