It was a folded piece of paper. Old. Soft at the creases. A printout.
I unfolded it.
My heart stopped.
I knew it. I’d had the same printout in a shoebox in my closet for fifteen years.
Westbrook Cryobank. Donor Profile.
Donor #4471.
Height: 6’1″. Hair: brown. Eyes: hazel. Education: graduate student, civil engineering. Hobbies: baseball, woodworking.
And at the bottom, in a little box labeled Personal Statement, one sentence I had read so many times I could recite it in my sleep.
I hope whoever you are, you raise a kid who’s kinder than I am.
I looked up at him.
He was staring straight ahead at the street.
“I was twenty-six,” he said. “Second year of grad school. Broke. A guy in my program told me the cryobank paid a hundred dollars a visit. I went for a year and a half. I signed the papers. Anonymous. I never thought about it again.”
