After the insemination, she tells Brynn to lie still for about ten minutes. Then she asks Brynn if she wants to keep the vial.

“Yes?” Brynn says.

“I forgot to keep all my kids’ stuff,” the nurse says, “and now they ask where it is.” She leaves.

“No one asked me that the last times,” Brynn says, still lying on the table. “About the vial.”

“You could turn it into a Christmas ornament,” I say. “Hang it on the tree every year and reminisce.”

Brynn laughs. “Or I could keep it in a drawer somewhere and take it out when they want to do anything and say, ‘Why don’t you ask your father about that?’ ”

I am wheezing I am laughing so hard.