The Girl in the Mirror(65)

Adam stares at me and stares at Virginia. At her belly. “Can they stop the labor?” he asks the room.

“I think they can,” says Annabeth. “Her water hasn’t broken.” She looks at Virginia’s belly, too.

Is Virginia really only thirty weeks pregnant? She’s twice the size of me. Virginia’s eyes are fixed on Tarquin, who has picked up the carcass of the tandoori chicken and now drops it on the carpet. An orange-red stain spreads across the lush peach pile.

“Adam, bring the car around!” I cry. “And nobody call Skybird!” I need real doctors and nurses to deliver my baby, and I need them now.

Adam dashes out the front door.

A freight train of pain hits my belly, and something pops deep inside me. I lurch against the piano and scream. The image flashes through my mind of my father’s coffin, of scrambling beneath it to hide. But there is no hiding from this pain.

My legs are wet and there’s a bloody puddle at my feet. Tarquin plows the chicken carcass into the blood. “Snap snap snap,” he says. “Crockie eat a birdie.”

The pain ebbs. I breathe deep and look outside. I glimpse car tires. Adam must have already pulled up.

The doctors will check my heart. I’ve lost the money and Adam and everything, but I don’t care. All I know is I have to get into that car before the next contraction comes.

“Look after Tarquin,” I say to my mother.

I stumble outside into the rosy evening light. It isn’t the right car—it’s a silver sedan—but I still expect Adam to be inside. Then the driver’s door opens.

Francine steps out. In her ice-blue suit and pearl necklace, she looks as impeccably venomous as ever. She spots me and slams the car door.

“Where is my daughter?” she demands, striding toward me. “I know you’ve got Virginia in there. You’re harboring a runaway. This is against the law.”

“Get out of my way, Francine,” I say. “I’m in labor.”

Francine’s face distorts. “You liar!” she cries. “Don’t try to distract me!”

Another wall of pain slams into my body. I double over, almost sinking to the ground.

“Adam!” I call.

Where is Adam? For an instant, nothing exists outside the pain, but when I come to myself, Francine is digging her talons into my shoulders. Her scowling face is an inch from mine. “You little witch,” she hisses, “don’t give me this holier-than-thou routine. Where is she?”

“Adam! Adam!” I cry. Where is his car?

I can’t muster the willpower to fight off Francine. Is she going to hurt my baby? But now I’m free. Someone has dragged her off me.

Adam’s red Mustang pulls up. He jumps out and runs toward me. He lifts me into his arms.

I glance back toward Francine. Uncle Colton has her pinned tightly. He must have been in the car with her. She’s struggling in his arms, her face purple with rage.

“Face it, Francine, you’ve lost,” Colton barks. “Summer’s in labor. It’s time to give up.”

“You’re just like your mother!” Francine shouts at me as Colton drags her backward onto the lawn, snapping the heel off her shoe. “You act so saintly, but you just want the money! I pity your baby, having you for a mother!”

I turn away, and Adam carries me effortlessly to his car.

As he lowers me into the passenger seat, another contraction hits. Every fiber of my being screams push, but I know I must not push. The car door slams shut, and Adam jumps into the driver’s seat and takes off. We don’t have time to look behind us. We drive toward the setting sun, glowing bloody in the sky.





18

The Baby




We barely make it to the hospital before my daughter pushes her way out of my body. No time for the medical exam I’ve been dreading. They rush me into a delivery room. She twists like a corkscrew as she emerges, and her eyes meet mine as she enters the world.

“Born facing upward!” the doctor exclaims. “A stargazer!”

He places her on my chest straightaway, and she wriggles and purrs like a kitten. I wrap my arms around her. Through her fluttery movements I sense the warm steady throb of her heart.

My baby might be small, but she is strong. She’s alert, eager, bold. And her eyes are like two stars shining into my soul. I know things are different now. I know I can never lie to her.

“She’s a star!” I cry. I forget that she’s the Carmichael heiress. All I know is that I love her. And that everything has changed.



The morning after the birth, Adam brings Tarquin to meet his sister. We’re in a private room. It’s windowless and cramped in here, but I don’t mind. My baby is safe and I’ve avoided the neonatal unit. After Annabeth appeared unannounced at eight o’clock this morning, I’ve said no more visitors except Adam. I don’t want Summer’s nosy workmates.

All I want to do is hold my baby in my arms and gaze at her perfection. My body is a wreck, my breasts are leaking, and I don’t want to think about what’s going on with the rest of me. Everything between my neck and my knees hurts, but I don’t care. She’s worth it.

I know what I want to call her: Esther. It means star.

Adam stands in the doorway with two bouquets, one of irises and one of roses, and his smile is wider than I’ve ever seen. Tarquin is clinging to his legs.