******188:

ABCSC had a baby car seat/ carrier for her to borrow. She dressed Kylie in borrowed clothes and headed down the stairs. She encountered Marsha on the way out.

"Oh, Trace, you can't leave tonight. I mean you can, but she can't." Her voice was kind.

Tracy shook her head. "Nancy said everything checks out, the pediatrician was in earlier, and she's totally fine, just low birth weight, but she's pooped and peed and I've fed her." She looked into Marsha's stubborn eyes and was bewildered. "What's up?"

"Kylie signed the papers before she was born, but you..."

"Oh, I've signed the papers."

"Well, a grandparent came forward today."

"Kylie had already signed the papers."

"Well, the courts might see it differently. You being the founder and owner and all."

"I don't see how, I've already been to court. Before I left I had Andria clear all this stuff. I'm taking her home tonight, Marsha, she needs her Mommy."

"Honestly Trace, you just got in from Hawaii, you're tired, why don't you let me take her for the day and we'll have an advocate come and bring her to you like any other normal adoptee."

"There's no need." Tracy stated, her voice pitched a little higher than normal, she was very tired, and her usual calm wasn't coming to her rescue, too many emotions tonight.

"Tracy, this isn't normal. This violates all you stand for. There are protocols." She was blocking her way on the stairs. She didn't see Blaze and Ramiro standing behind her, but Tracy did and she gave Blaze a knowing look. As usual, he was going to come to her rescue. He cleared his throat and Marsha spun around, startled.

"Tracy stands for acceptance here, about putting children first, about love and making things work for the best interest of all involved. It's best for the baby, that she go home with her... mother." Blaze said. His stance was firm. Ramiro stood behind him the same grim look on his face. Men who make things happen, Tracy thought.

She moved past Marsha down the rest of the stairs and handed the car carrier to Ramiro. "Can you get this in my car?"

"Tracy, you can't carry her out of here."

Tracy turned slowly. "Why not? This isn't a hospital Marsha, it's just a center. It doesn't have rules and laws that babies have to leave the hospital in a carrier and the mother in a wheelchair, those rules are ridiculous, and meant for a different kind of experience, you're trying very hard right now to wreck mine, now please go to bed, or go back to work, or whatever."

"I am tired." She whispered as she passed Blaze who peeked into the wrapped bundle at the sleeping baby.

He looked up at her. "As well you should be. Come on. I'll drive you home."

*****

Tracy sat at her kitchen table with Michael and Janene in the living room talking softly either to each other or on the phone. Tracy's lawyer, Andria Collier was also there, in the living room, a weird way to do business.

Tracy listened carefully to the mortician speak, but her eyes were on Sam, out on the patio, playing with the twins, as in the distance under their favorite tree the boys played with their dump trucks. Sam was taller than he'd been, and very lean and muscular, more filled out than the last time she'd seen him. She realized that she'd really neglected this side of her life, and was instantly and irrationally chagrined. She couldn't lose touch with Sam.

She hung up. Next to her on the floor in a white basket bassinet with a fluffy pink quilt under her, and a light fleece blanket covering her white and rose-bud sleeper clad form was the new little Princess, Kylie Ann McCaffrey Mann.

She pulled her old pink fluffy robe out from under her chair seat where it had gotten caught and went to the little computer stand next to the phone cabinet and close to the sink. There in the FAX drop was the paper that Richard had faxed her just moments ago while she'd been on the phone arranging the service for her mother and brother. She picked it up and stared at it. A birth certificate application, it listed her name as adoptive mother, the other Kylie as biological mother. The baby's name was legally now Kylie Ann McCaffrey Mann, even though she and Richard weren't married and technically after their marriage he could be placed as adoptive father on her birth certificate, right now he couldn't be.

She took the paper to Andria who snapped it out of her hand and filed it quickly without even looking at it. That was just Andria, Tracy thought, as she turned and went leisurely back to her little makeshift desk and her little notebooks. Okay, she thought, the arrangements have been made. There would be a graveside, no funeral. She would sing, her Bishop would dedicate the graves, Sam would say a few words, and Jerry Nelson, Tracy's adopted father, would say a word or two, if he wasn't too drunk to say them. Then the boys, all four of them would sing I am a Child of God and the service would close. Simple. Tracy had arranged for a small spread of flowers to be placed on each casket. Blaze and Ramiro were coming and Bridget and Julian, Lorraine and Ray and Shanna. That was it. Not a big production. People who didn't even know them, Tracy mused, except for Sam and Jerry. It was possible to not be remembered, to not be liked. The product of bad choices, and heartbreaking abuse and neglect, perhaps generations of it.

For a moment as she looked over at Michael and Janene and Andria, and thought about those of her family and friends who loved and looked after her, she was overcome with emotion. She had so many loving friends. She had so many people who she called family. She was so blessed.

A knock sounded on the door and Michael called for someone to come in, Tracy turned to see who it was, expecting it to be her mother.

It wasn't. Humble, contrite, respectful, Ramiro stepped into the small living room, nodded to the people he didn't know and his eyes lit on those that were familiar to him. Tracy wore a loose fitting, unbelted fuzzy robe over white t-shirt pants and a tank top, her long hair, ringletted and straggling artfully swished over her shoulder as she turned to greet him, her eyes, a deeper blue than he'd ever seen on a human being without contacts, seemed to shine. He crossed the room quickly, would have embraced Tracy who looked up at him expectantly, and then saw the baby on the floor in her basket and stopped in shock. He knelt down to look at her.

Tracy once again looked at the baby as well. A miracle. A precious bundle of trust and joy. A reiteration of how much the Lord loved his children. The curve of skull, slightly ridged from birth, the minute tendrils of wispy hair, the soft bloom of pink creamy skin. "I thought she had an olive tone, like you." Tracy said softly to Ramiro. "But she's really quite pink."

"Oh, yeah, she's very pink. She's lovely, micara." His nickname for her, developed while filming long days and nights, under stressful circumstances. A made up name, but pretty, meaningless, and hence with meaning. He pulled a chair out and sat staring down at the tiny thing.

"Why, Trace?" he finally asked.

Tracy smiled fondly, recognizing the need to understand in this crazy selfish mixed-up world. "Because." She answered. "Because I can."

*****