Excerpt:

“Hey baby.” I cooed. Her face lit up in a smile. “Hey baby.” She clapped, happy to be getting attention. Just then a woman walked through the kitchen door. She looked like the little girl I’d seen earlier, but thirty years older. Her eyes were light and her hair was pale, swept into a quick bun. Although I couldn’t recognize her clothes they instantly seemed designer, something high-end and expensive. She knelt, picked up Loretta, and walked into the room. “What’s going on in here?” she asked.

“You have a visitor.” Her husband announced, gesturing at me. “She says that her name’s Lacey Simon.” The woman stopped in her tracks.

“Lacey?” she asked faintly. I nodded, not knowing what else to do. It would seem awkward if I ran up and hugged her; she was my mother but I have no memory of ever meeting her, and she had a baby in her arms. Saying “yeah” seemed kind of lame, and “yes” sounded too anti-climactic. Yes, I am your daughter whom you’ve never met before and probably didn’t expect to meet for three more years? How weird would that be? So I settled for a simple nod. She looked at me, studying my face harder, looking, I think, for myself in her. I noticed the similarities immediately. As I had only ever known my dad, I had spend a good part of my life imagining what my mother must have looked and been like for me to be different from my father. She had to be blonde, or blonder, because my dad had brown hair, but mine was a pretty strawberry blonde. I had guessed correctly that it was also straight. Dad was the proud owner of tight, ringlet curls but my hair fell in loose waves, I had also had the fortune to inherit her unfrizzing hair. Her eyes were blue, which I would not have guessed. My eyes were a strong hazel, and my dad’s brown, so I had always assumed that hers were bright green, but I had guessed wrong. I didn’t know her well, but I could guess that she worried a lot and loved family moments. I was much bigger on the whole “family experience” then poor old dad. He was happy to spend his spare time watching television or exercising, and only asked me questions to appear interested. I was the one who had pushed family picnics, outings to the zoo, and museum visits as a child.

That might actually be why I tried to find my mom. I wanted a family, no matter how torn apart, that loved togetherness and each other’s company. I hadn’t found that in dad, so I clung to the hope that my mom would want to do those things. I wished that she wanted to take a dance class with me and bake cookies for the school bake sales. I hoped that she was the kind of person who would teach me how to put makeup on right and help me with my sometimes horrible fashion sense. I didn’t just want a mom, I wanted a teacher, a friend, and a role model wrapped up together in one person. It was probably a ludicrous wish, but that didn’t matter. It was what I wanted.

“Well, I … I guess you w-want to talk to me, don’t you?”