Switched at Birth: The True Story of a Mother's Journey by Kathryn Kennish, ABC Family

according to John, had bars on it.
    There were no bars on the guesthouse windows, although after the previous night, I was seriously considering putting some on the ones in Bay’s room.
    “So what would this experiment in coparenting be like?” I heard myself asking. “Will I have to consult Regina on every decision I make regarding Bay? Will she have to powwow with me anytime there’s an issue with Daphne?”
    In that regard, I wondered if I’d even be qualified to weigh in. I suspected a lot of Daphne’s freedoms and restrictions were directly related to her deafness. And as I’d proved in such a grand and humiliating fashion at last week’s luncheon, I simply was not educated. I made a mental note to go online first thing in the morning to research everything I could find about raising a deaf child.
    “Maybe it doesn’t have to be about coparenting at all,” John suggested. “It can just be a way for us all to get to know each other. For us to get to know Daphne and for Regina to get to know Bay.”
    “I want that,” I whispered, and my voice sounded wistful in the pale-lit room. “And I hate the idea of Daphne spending one more minute in East Riverside.”
    John reached over and stroked my hair. “It’s a rough neighborhood,” he agreed. “They’ve been lucky so far, but …”
    But luck runs out. And what would happen when it did? A carjacking? A mugging? A home invasion? Three females—one of whom was a woman in her seventies and another of whom wouldn’t hear the door being broken down or a window getting smashed in—would surely constitute an easy target. I shuddered to think how truly vulnerable they were.
    Through the window I could see the slate shingles of the guesthouse roof. “Right next door, huh?”
    “Neighbors.” John propped himself on his elbow and smiled at me. “You and Regina can be just like Lucy and Ethel. Or Wilma and Betty. It’ll be fun. You can borrow cups of sugar from each other and come up with all kinds of crazy schemes.”
    “You mean crazier than the scheme to share a driveway with the woman who is the biological mother of our daughter?” I closed my eyes. “This whole situation is so … unprecedented. I’m terrified that I’ll say the wrong thing, or make the wrong gesture, or the wrong meal.” I thumped the heel of my hand against my forehead and groaned, remembering how utterly incompetent I’d felt during that lunch. “Chicken enchiladas! Why did I have to make chicken?”
    “Because you didn’t know Daphne was a vegetarian, that’s why.” John laid his hand gently on my belly, like he used to do when I was pregnant, and I reveled in the warmth, the comfort of it. “That’s kind of the whole point. There’s going to be one hell of a learning curve, and I think the best way to get ahead of it is to have Daphne and Regina move in here.”
    “The old ‘keep your friends close and your long-lost daughter and the woman who raised her closer’ trick, huh?”
    “Is that what we’re calling her, then?” I felt him smile in the shadowy room. “Our ‘long-lost’ daughter?”
    “Hmm.” I wrinkled my nose. “Too soap opera-y?”
    “Little bit.” John chuckled. Then he kissed me on the tip of my nose. “We can do this, Kathryn. We have to do this. And besides, it could have been worse. A lot worse. Regina might seem a little abrasive right now, but I think that’s just because she doesn’t know how to handle this any better than we do.”
    It was an indication of how loyal he was that he called her abrasive but made no mention of me threatening her with litigation and calling her a drunk.
    I let out a long sigh. “I’ll call her tomorrow and extend the offer to move in to the guesthouse.”
    “Thatta girl, Lucy.”
    “Very funny. Now go to sleep, wise guy, before I play a rousing rendition of ‘Babaloo’ on your skull!” I rolled over and kissed his cheek.
    He kissed me back. “Well, then you’d really have some ’splainin’ to