I laughed. “Yeah, that’s what I heard. You need to quit threatening arson for everything that happens or you’re gonna be in jail for Kallie’s high school graduation.”

“Fuck you,” she retorted.

“Not right now, I’m sleepy. Besides, I need my energy so we can go to McDonald’s.”

“Ha ha ha,” Alice mumbled sarcastically, but she curled up into me and fell asleep anyway. I smiled and joined her not long after.

**********

“I called the fertility clinic this morning,” Alice told me over dinner that night. “They referred me to the sperm bank across town. I was thinking maybe we could look at some of the donors and get an idea of what we’re looking for. Would that be all right?”

“Are you sure you’re ready to do that so soon?”

“I wouldn’t have called over there if I wasn’t,” she said, and I had to agree that that made sense. “I’m not saying I want to get inseminated tomorrow or anything, but there’s no harm in looking, right?” she asked.

“No harm at all. Are you sure you want to go through a sperm bank, though?” I asked. “Maybe we could find somebody we know or something.”

“I just figured that would be the easiest thing…but if you want to try and find someone, we can talk about that too,” she replied thoughtfully. After that we dropped the subject because Kallie was an absolute mess from dipping her chicken nuggets into an array of sauces, so I had to clean her up.

The next morning, we decided to go to the Planet for breakfast. We’d been talking about getting back into the habit of going a few times a week, because it was obvious that Alice missed it and I had to admit that I did too. What I found really nice was the fact that nothing seemed to have changed. All the usual suspects were there aside from Helena, who had taken Kallie for the morning, and Bette, who was already at the university. It was just like old times and nobody breathed a word when the two of us sat down.

“So have you looked at any donors yet?” Tina asked immediately. I looked at Alice in confusion and she smiled. It took me a minute, but I guessed that she meant that she’d asked Tina for advice since she’d done this before.