sun to me

Prolouge: Stick Season

Now I am stuck between my anger and the blame that I can't face

And memories are somethin' even smoking weed does not replace

Florence

-

Geno and Kathy were far done with raising kids, all three of his were grown and starting new families and as the head coach of UCONN's Women's Basketball, he was now more than ever focused on his career. Kathy had her hands full with her own passions—gardening, her book club, and spoiling their grandchildren on weekends. Life had finally settled into a predictable, comfortable rhythm.

But they say when you make plans, God laughs.

It was a gray January morning when Geno first saw her, wrapped in a tattered quilt, left on the gym steps like a forgotten dream. A baby, not much older than a week, her cries barely audible over the biting wind.

Kathy got the call from Geno while she was knee-deep in her tulip bulbs. "Kathy," his voice cracked, unsteady in a way she'd never heard before, "there's a baby here. On the steps of the gym. Someone just left her."

In the beginning, Kathy had been adamant. "We can't. Geno, we're done with raising babies. Do you know how much work that is? At our age?"

This baby was a fighter, A survivor, brought in the doctors found traces of drugs in her system and gave her a week to survive. The nurses at the hospital had called her "Baby Doe," and as the week passed it soon turned into a month, where Geno would visit and hold her, with her tiny fingers wrapped around his calloused thumb, he felt a bound with this baby not ready to give up on her

"She's ours, Kathy," Geno whispered later one night as they sat side by side on their worn leather couch, I have a feeling she's going to do great things. "I don't know why, but she's supposed to be ours."

And so 3 months later Geno and Kathy brought back Florence to their home, naming her after their favorite city in Italy, knowing their days of parenthood weren't quite over.

Florence grew up surrounded by love but haunted by mystery. The story of her beginnings—the unanswered questions about who left her and why—was a shadow that stretched long, even into the light of Geno and Kathy's home.