Giftchild (3 page)

"How'd it go?" he asked as I climbed into his car.

"Good, I think," I said. "Let's go to my house. I can show you the pictures before we study for physiology."

"The first part sounds great," Rodney said. "Sure your parents won't freak out?"

I shook my head. "They're too worried to notice. Plus, studying. They can't argue with that, right?"

Rodney did not look pleased.

"It's a necessary evil," I said. "The test is tomorrow." I flipped through the photos on my camera's screen. It was sometimes hard to tell if I got anything good when the pictures were so small. I hoped the well-composed ones were in focus.

"You should have taken these," I said. "You're better than me. Plus she's a baby. They don't really move around much."

He smiled. "Moving, I can handle. But people want baby pictures to look cute. I don't do cute."

I rolled my eyes. He needed to get over that. We'd been talking about running a photography business together, and the easiest jobs to get were in family portraits. "Once Anna's home, you can take some edgy black-and-whites, okay? Maybe Mom will let you pose her with a tomato. You can pretend it's a still-life."

"Yes," he said. "I'm sure edgy is exactly what your mom will be looking for."

I shrugged. "I bet there will be a lot of poop. Remember that guy who took stills of his own feces? It'll totally be museum worthy."

Rodney laughed. "Dadaist baby photos. Could be a niche market."

"See," I said. "I knew I could get you to agree."

But he shook his head, like he hadn't. If Anna came home, I'd have to let her win him over herself.

When
Anna came home.
When
. Not if.

The house was dark when we arrived. I unlocked the door and turned on all the lights as we walked upstairs.

Across the hall from my room, I could see through the door to Anna's new room, with her name spread across the wall in polka-dotted letters. There had been two names on the wall before hers. Mom had the rest of the alphabet stashed in the downstairs closet.

I'd told Rodney I'd show him the pictures, but instead I left my camera on my dresser. There would be plenty of time to fall in love with the pictures tomorrow, once Anna was really ours.

I sat cross-legged on my bed, opening my physiology book. Rodney sat on my chair, leaning back so his legs stretched halfway across my floor. I held the chart up for him to see. "Which one is the inferior nasal concha?"

"Come on," Rodney said. "Aren't you too distracted for this?"

I shook my head. "This
is
the distraction."

"I can think of a better one. I'll buy you dinner. We could order pizza."

I hadn't eaten, but I still wasn't hungry. I turned the chart so I could see. "It's this one," I said, putting my finger on the chart. When I checked the book, I had to slide my finger over half an inch to find the right spot for the label. "Whatever. I know it's in the nose. Isn't that enough?"

"Do me a favor," Rodney said. "Don't become a doctor."

"Come on," I said. "Save me from the madness of waiting for my parents to come home."

Rodney eyed Anna's room across the hall. "All right," he said, twirling his finger in the air. "Pin the anatomy on the chart. The ethmoid sinus is . . . here."

I checked the key in the book. He'd pointed right at it. "Never mind," I said. "Now I'm just depressed. I didn't even have to tell you what it was called."

"Meh," Rodney said. "I got lucky."

Lucky, my ass. We both knew it didn't matter how many hours I studied, or how many he didn't. He would still score half a grade higher than me on the test, like he always did.

My cell phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket. It was Dad. My heart thudded. I'd just seen them at the hospital. Why would he be calling me now?

Rodney snapped open his handheld game system, no doubt glad for the distraction from the studying. It also let him avoid staring at me while I was on the phone.

I took a deep breath. It didn't mean anything. Maybe they were calling to tell me that they were coming home.

Maybe.

"Hey," I said into the phone.

"Penny?" Dad said. His voice sounded strained.

It took me a second to answer. "Yeah?"

"We're on our way," he said. "But we're not bringing the baby with us."

No
, I thought.
No, no.

And then he said it. The last words anyone in my family wanted to hear: "I'm sorry," he said. "But Lily has decided not to go through with the adoption."

I closed my eyes.

We'd been through this before, but instead of getting easier, each time got worse. Mom couldn't go through this again.
I
couldn't go through this again.

And yet, here we were.

Chapter Two

Week One

"She can't do that." I said. Lily had eaten dinner with us more often than not this last month. She'd gone out with us on my birthday. I'd helped her with her algebra.

"She can," Dad said. "We haven't signed anything. She still has rights."

Rodney shifted in his chair, but I didn't look up. He could probably tell what was happening just from the look on my face. I kept the phone pressed to my ear and bit a nail. "So she can just use us and then . . ."

Dad's voice got sharp, though I could tell he was trying not to let it be. "She's not using us," he said. "She's still the baby's mother."

"Anna," I said.

"Tina," he said. "She's naming her Tina."

Tina
. Where had that come from? "I can't believe this."

"I know," Dad said. "We made a mistake, getting so close to her. I'm sorry."

Getting close wasn't exactly the problem. "What is she going to do? She doesn't have anybody but us."

Dad spoke slowly. This was the same voice he used to talk Mom down, when something like this went wrong. "I don't know, honey. That's not really any of our business."

I chewed on my lip. None of our business? We were supposed to be like family now. And Lily was just going to walk away from that?

Of course she was. She'd do it for her baby. Mom cried for weeks after the last one, but she said she understood. You didn't walk away from someone who had that tight a hold on you. You didn't just leave them with a stranger. She said placing a baby for adoption was the hardest thing in the world to do, because all your instincts said to take care of that baby, whatever the cost.

But if Lily couldn't let go, knowing Mom, knowing how good a parent she was, practically being parented by Mom herself, who would?

I sighed. "Is Mom okay?" Stupid question. "Don't answer that."

Dad sounded tired. "We'll be home soon, okay?"

"Okay," I said. Even though it wasn't.

Dad hung up the phone; I glared at the ceiling.

When I looked down, I found Rodney fiddling with his game system. "Things went bad?"

"Yeah," I said. "Again." I stood up and walked into Anna's room—the nursery, as we would resume calling it—and pulled all the letters down off the wall. I stashed them in the top drawer of the dresser, on top of the perfectly folded rows of onesies. Then I turned off the light, and shut the door.

I pulled mine closed as well, leaving only the necessary crack. Once Mom and Dad came home, we were allowed to be in my room as long as the door was open a little. I'd never say this to them, but the rule didn't matter. We could close doors at Rodney's house all we wanted.

But today, Mom and Dad weren't going to be thinking about rules. They'd only be thinking about what they'd lost.

Then I reached for my camera and started deleting the photos of Anna. Mom could never see these.

I
never wanted to see them again.

Then I picked up my phone to call Athena. "Did you hear?" I asked when she answered.

"Yeah. Dad texted me. Do you think I need to come over?"

"Probably not," I said. "I'm hiding in my room with Rodney. You don't really want to be here, do you?"

"I don't," Athena said. "But I don't want to abandon you there, either. You want to come have a sleepover? I'll let you take the bed."

"I'll be okay," I said. "I'll just make Rodney stay for a while."

He nodded at me. Of course he'd stay. That wasn't even a question.

"I wish Mom hadn't done this to you," Athena said. "It's not fair."

I groaned. "She's not doing it to me," I said. "Lily is doing this to her."

"I guess," Athena said. "But it was Mom's idea to let her into your lives."

I closed my eyes. Athena always said that Mom was looking for another daughter because we weren't enough. I knew it stung that Mom practically replaced Athena just as she was leaving the house, what with Lily being around all the time. But I didn't care if we were enough for Mom or not.

I just wanted the crying to stop.

"You should call Mom tomorrow," I said. "Lily will change her mind."

"Don't count on it," Athena said. "And don't say that to Mom."

"I won't," I said. It was probably wrong to get her hopes up. Though at this point, if she didn't have hope, what did she have?

Nothing but pain, that's what.

"Call me if you want to get out. Day or night."

"Done."

Then I turned off the phone. "I'll be right back," I told Rodney. Then I moved through the house, turning off the ringer on all the phones. The last thing Mom needed was every friend and family member calling to congratulate her on the new baby. If Dad was smart, he'd sent out a mass text about it, so everyone would know. But then they'd all call to console her, which wasn't what she needed, either.

When I returned to Rodney, he'd collected the anatomy chart and book from my bed. "Sit," he said. "I'll quiz you."

I heard Mom and Dad come home ten minutes later. Rodney and I stayed in my room, and Dad didn't swing the door open like he usually did when we were up here alone.

"I can go anytime," Rodney said. "But I'll stay as long as you want."

"Thanks," I said. "You can go back to your video game, if you want."

But he didn't.

An hour later, when I walked Rodney out to his car, we found Mom sitting alone on the porch swing. She wore sweats, and had her hair pulled up in a ponytail. I could see the remnants of her makeup pooled at the corners of her eyes, and smeared across the outline of her jaw, but she wasn't crying now.

"Night, Rodney," she said.

He waved at her. "Goodnight."

That was one thing I loved about Rodney. He was never awkward with anyone. "I'll see you in the morning," I said to him.

Rodney nodded. "I'll pick you up." Then he walked to his car, and was gone.

I stood in the doorway, not sure if I should disappear upstairs, or stay. "Do you want company?"

"Sure," Mom said.

I sat down cross-legged beside Mom. The swing creaked as we swayed back and forth.

"I'm really sorry," I said.

"Me, too," Mom said. "You'd think I would have learned by now not to let someone into our lives like that."

Letting Lily in wasn't the problem. She wouldn't have regretted that if she had a baby in her arms right now. "She seemed like she liked us."

"She did," Mom said. "She liked us, but she loved her baby more. Someday, when you hold your own child, you'll understand."

I didn't know if I would do either. Athena told me she was never having kids, not after what we'd been through with Mom. What if she had one, or two, and then wanted more and couldn't have them? What if it consumed her, like it did Mom? But me, I just tried not to think about it.

"What will you do now?" I asked.

"I don't know," Mom said. "Try again, I guess."

I dug my nails into my palms. The thought of letting some other girl into our house, letting her sit at our dinner table and tell us that Mom could have her child, made me want to punch Lily right in the nose. I didn't see how Mom could trust another birth mother again.

I knew
I
couldn't.

"Let's talk about something else," Mom said. "How's school?"

Mom always got
really
interested in my life right after she lost a child, like she needed to remember that she was actually a mother, even if she wanted more kids than just the two of us. It bugged Athena when Mom did that; Athena just wanted Mom to butt out. But I didn't mind.

I leaned back, trying to think of a good story to tell her. "We have a physiology test tomorrow," I said. "Facial respiratory anatomy." That wasn't a brilliant tale, but it was on my mind.

Mom nodded, slowly. "Are you ready?"

"I'm nervous about it."

"Did you study?"

"Yeah. But it all blurs together after a while."

"I'm sure you'll do fine. You always do."

"I'll pass," I said. "But Rodney will do better."

"You'll beat him one of these days."

"Not likely."

"It'll happen. But there's got to be something more interesting going on in your life than that."

"Well, my mother lost a baby," I said.

Mom gave the swing a hard shove with her feet. "Something that doesn't involve your mother, maybe?"

"Okay," I said. "Here's some real drama. My friend Kara's boyfriend just dumped her over a text message."

"Ugh," Mom said, making a pained face. "Dating used to be hard enough. I'm so glad I married your father before the invention of the text."

I remembered when Mom dated Dad—I was six, and Athena was eight. Mom liked him because he was a gentleman. He called ahead for dates, and even paid for her babysitter, so she could go out without having it add to her single-mom financial stress. That had been the biggest four years in my family's life—year one: dating, year two: marriage, year three: adoption of Athena and me. And then year four, the year I turned ten. The first pregnancy.

Things hadn't changed much since then.

"Dad wouldn't have dumped anyone over a text message," I said. "Then or now."

"Not as an adult. Maybe in high school. Boys that young just aren't capable of commitment."

Mom would know. My biological father split when I was just a baby. "Yeah," I said. "Kara's a mess."