Alice was still working on her next book, and was more than half finished. She usually wrote for a few hours every day, and was still working at KCRW while she did. But I figured she could take the morning off when I asked if she wanted to go ahead and go to the sperm bank place with me, so we could look through the list of donors. “Just to see,” I told her.

She thought it was a great idea. I think her eyes actually lit up when I suggested it, and she’d barely said yes before she was running to the car. She knew how to get there, so I suggested that she drive. I’m pretty sure she sped, and I had to keep telling her to calm down or she’d kill us both before we got there.

It didn’t take much for us to be able to browse. All Alice had to do was tell the desk clerk her name. The fertility clinic had called and left it with them, so we were already on the list to look. Alice had gone for her initial appointment to make sure she was physically okay, and she’d been talking with the doctor that had overseen Tina’s pregnancy as well as my cancer. I trusted her and thought it was a good idea, so I was happy she’d gotten things moving so quickly for us.

The catalogs were huge, and there were three of them. “This is gonna take forever!” I muttered, but Alice shushed me.

“They’re divided by type, okay? It’s not like we have to search through every single guy that’s donated. And we’re just looking anyway.”

In all actuality, we probably only looked for about half an hour before Alice nudged my arm. “We might not have to ask around for your distant relatives anyway. Is there anyone named Reginald in your family?”

“Oh, yeah, I have a second cousin named Reggie. His family’s from San Diego, but I haven’t seen him since the last big reunion we had. That was probably eight years ago…I think he’s some kind of asshole attorney now.”

“Yep, that’s him,” Alice laughed. “Looks like he drove all the way up here to donate.” She showed me the sheet, and I was a little surprised.