What I understood was this: I cared for the Creature, yes. I loved it, as one might very well love a child – or a symphony, or a masterpiece, or a beloved pet raised from infancy, or anything else perfect and beautiful that one has helped shepherd into the world. What I despised was the notion that it was a replacement – some inferior substitute to that which I ought to have brought forth by natural means, through agony and blood. The hollow that our poor daughter had left inside my heart was one that might never be filled. But – and here was a thought I had kept buried for a very long time,
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