Caroline Mercer’s soft breath emerged from the small speaker. "Testing. Okay. This is Caroline. May fourteenth." The voice was light, carrying a slight Midwestern lilt, entirely devoid of the desperation of a woman caught in an embryo-theft conspiracy. She was just a thirty-three-year-old woman yearning to be a mother, talking about her appointments with Dr. Vale and her dismal implantation odds. Caroline Park closed her eyes, listening to her grandmother describe buying a yellow newborn sweater at a discount outlet, ignoring Denise Hall’s warnings that it would bring bad luck. "She said that if there was a child waiting to be born from a donated embryo, she would spend her whole life making sure that child knew they were wanted twice," Caroline Park whispered. "Yes," Sophie nodded, tears welling in her eyes. "She wasn't the person who stole me. She was the person who welcomed me." The tape ended. Caroline Park touched the cold metal of the tape recorder. She had studied endless principles of medical ethics and "unauthorized genetic material transfer", but no textbook had ever taught her about the yellow sweater. "They judged her," Caroline Park said, her voice hardening. "In lectures, they use her as an example of genetic property rights being violated." "Legal truths don't always contain human truths, sweetheart," I told my granddaughter. "The courts gave your mother back to me and Emily. But the courts couldn't give Caroline Mercer back the dream that the clinic stole from her with a lie." The box of tapes wasn't just a relic. It was the final, most beautiful, and honest defense of a mother for the child she never knew she had no right to claim.