We were on our way to meet the family that would potentially adopt our infant daughter.
The day was overcast, with ominous, steely low-hanging clouds that promised rain. My mother’s words reverberated in my head, in her distinct Russian accent: “Rain is for goot lock in are femilee,” she would often say.
Then she would rattle off testimonials to her theory: The day she and my father married. The day we arrived in the U.S from Soviet Ukraine. The day I took first place in my piano recital competition when I was twelve.