I take the folder and close the safe, shove it back under the bed where I found it, and then head to my room. I sit down at my desk and flip open my laptop.
My fingers shake as I type in the name of the cryobank and click through to their website.
Cryobank. It’s such a sterile word. A sterile place, too, no doubt.
Cryobank. Cryo-: involving or producing icy cold, frost.
Cryobank. I wouldn’t be here without one. I wouldn’t exist.
I find the tab I’m looking for: Request Donor Contact. Because once upon a time, on one particular day in history more than eighteen years and nine months ago, Frank chose to become an open donor, he’s obligated to a minimum of one communication with me, upon my request. Unless he’s dead. I suppose no one can obligate him in that case. I’m out of luck then. I won’t ask if they’ll release the name if he is dead, so I can at least read a scrappy obituary summary of his life. I’d rather not consider that possibility yet.
I have to submit my official request in writing. My parents’ names, the donor number, some other vital information that is all clearly laid out in my moms’ files. I note that I’m open to any kind of contact: e-mail, hard-copy letter, phone call, an exchange of information. Whatever Frank prefers.
I read through it all twice, make sure all the correct information is there. And then before I can stop myself, I click Submit Request.
Just like that, I’ve set it all in motion. It was so fast. So easy.
The cryobank will do the rest. They’ll reach out to him. Inform him of my request. He’ll choose the form of contact, and then they’ll send his e-mail, or letter, or phone number to me. My personal information is confidential until I choose to respond. If I choose to respond.
I close out the screen, shove the folder in my desk drawer, and stand up.
I walk downstairs, out through the kitchen door, and flop onto the hammock.
And then I wait.
The weekend is a necessary distraction.
Max picks me up early Saturday morning for our grand birthday Philly tour. He comes to the front door dressed in dark jeans and a checkered short-sleeve button-up shirt with a black skinny tie around his neck. I’m glad I changed outfits five times and landed on the silky green dress that I worried at first would be too fancy.
It’s our first time outside of Green Woods together, and the thrill of it thrums in my veins as soon as we pass through the town limits. I put the windows down and turn the radio up and close my eyes as the warm breeze tangles my hair.
There’s a palpable buzz of freedom here in this car with Max. Escape.
For the first time, I feel eighteen. I feel different.
We don’t talk much during the ride. And we certainly don’t talk about our secrets. I don’t ask about his grandparents, and he doesn’t mention Frank. It’s like whatever happened around the firepit on my birthday was a contained moment that existed only in that specific time and place, with neatly sealed borders that none of us dare to cross again.
I’ve been to Philly more times than I can count, but driving into the city with Max makes it feel brand-new. I see it through his eyes. I feel the deep love, the joy.
Our first stop is a tour of Reading Terminal Market. Max had been aghast to hear I’d never been before. It’s chaotic and loud and exploding with people and smells—some better than others—aisle after cluttered aisle of vendors and markets, every kind of food one could possibly imagine. Fine meats and exotic produce, honeys and jams and herbs, chocolates, coffee, doughnuts. Max takes me to his favorite stalls, and it’s a long list. We split a roast pork sandwich and a grilled cheese with pickled green tomatoes, a cinnamon sugar pretzel and a lemon lavender whoopie pie, an apple fritter. We wash it all down with a minty fresh lemonade.
My stomach aches by the time we leave. “If you leave here feeling healthy, you did the market wrong,” Max says, grinning at me.
He takes me to his old neighborhood next, parking the car outside the building he had lived in since he was a kid. Max’s family had a floor to themselves. The tenth floor—the very top. It doesn’t look like anything special from the outside—pale brown stones, ten stories of white-framed windows, a big green door with a silver 4-1-2 at the top. But the way Max looks at it makes it feel like the most special building on the block. Maybe in the whole city.
“Can we go inside?” I ask, grabbing his hand. “I want to see more. I want to see your old view.”
“I doubt the new people who live there would let two strangers poke around their home. But it’s okay. I think being in there would make me feel sad and nostalgic and weird, and I don’t want to feel that way today. There’s no room for any of that bad stuff.” He squeezes my hand tight. “I loved it here. It was home. But I’m not sure it feels that way anymore.”
We walk for a long time, Max pointing out all his old favorites—favorite deli, favorite Chinese restaurant, favorite mural, favorite park, favorite bench.
“Favorite bench?” I stop walking and scowl down at the bench. “Do I want to know what happened here?” I picture it before I can stop myself: Max and a pretty, giggling girl, a kiss—maybe his first kiss. A kiss he can’t possibly ever forget.
“Stop whatever you are thinking. Please. God. It’s where
