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She shrugs. “My shift is over. I’m going home.”
It’s not often that I panic, but here we are. “You’re leaving?” Wasn’t it only five minutes ago that I had the same plan?
“I guess,” she says. “It’s normally what one does when they get off work. Dinner. A little Wheel of Fortune. A glass of wine. A bath. Repeat the next day.”
My brain catches on the idea of Billi in a bathtub, but I force it to unstick. “What if I asked you to stay? To help me see this thing through.” There. I’m mad that I said it, but it’s out there. No going back. I want Billi to stay. Maybe part of me wants to stay too.
She takes a step forward, her hand falling from the doorknob. “You want me to stay?”
I close my eyes, expecting to feel regret. I open them when all I feel is certainty. “I want you to stay.”
Billi walks toward me then, stops right in front of me, bumps her way between my legs like she’s always belonged there. Like she owns the space and dares anyone to argue with her. Her hand pushes my hair back and rests on the back of my neck. And before I know what’s happening, she climbs onto my lap, her legs straddling me on both sides.
“You’re making the right decision, you know.”
I look up at her, heart pounding so loud in my ears that I’m certain she can hear it. This woman knows what she wants and goes for it, uncaring of who agrees with her or not. I, for one, am a big fan. I lock my arms around her waist and pull her to me. Neither one of us is going anywhere.
“It’ll probably turn out to be the best decision I ever made.”
She thinks I’m talking about Sally, but I’m not. And I know with certainty that she’s right. She leans down to kiss me then, to take ownership and stake her claim. I let her, doing a little of the same. Everyone needs a place to belong, and part of me is working out a way to belong to Billi. Her lips tell me I’m invited, and my body flips her over to accept the invitation.
Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the issue of my origin.
Right now, I think I belong right here.
23
Billi
We knocked on Sally’s door five minutes ago, and she ushered us inside. No one has said a word since. The implication in Sally’s story ignited a series of emotions, some of which had to do with me, all that had to do with Sally and Finn. And I’ve been sitting here with both of them since, waiting for the fuse to blow.
“So, you’re saying that you think…”
“You’re Jack’s boy, aren’t you?” Sally says it matter of fact, looking right at Finn, the accusation clear. “And you have a scar on your chin, just like the baby I saw Laura carrying out of the hospital that day. Just like—”
“Your baby?”
Sally sniffs her agreement, keeping her eyes on him. “I’m not saying you couldn’t have been hit by the blast too. Maybe you were, maybe in the same place on your face. I just always found it odd that my baby disappeared on the same day their baby went home whole and healthy; a miracle in itself, considering.”
“Considering?” he says, his voice low.
“Considering they’d lost three other children already to some disease that ran in Laura’s family. You got any health problems that you know of?”
Three? My stomach sinks, remembering the ancestry conversation we had only last week. Finn’s face is drawn and pale but also rigid and accepting. Like part of him knew this was coming, but the reality knocked him sideways anyway. Maybe he suspected it. Maybe not with Sally being the center of the conversation, but he suspected something all the same.
“I read about two of the babies a couple weeks ago, but not about a third. As for me, I’ve never had any health problems, except for the stitches I got from falling off the bed when I was a baby. That’s what my parents told me, anyway.” Finn’s voice is clipped, strained. Resigned. I feel the need to speak up, to rescue him somehow.
“I know nothing about Finn’s health history,” I say to Sally. “But…” I dig around in my bag, then produce the newspaper clipping I stole from county records a few days ago. The fact that I’m still carrying it is a silent admission that Finn wasn’t the only one who suspected foul play. “I do have this. Is this what you remember about that day?”
Finn glances at the clipping and then up at me. I shouldn’t have kept the photo from him, but it’s only now that I realize how wrong it was. Secrets break trust, and I’m dangerously close to doing just that. If I haven’t already.
Sally takes the clipping with shaking hands and studies it, her lip beginning to quiver with emotion. Underneath the headline is a picture of Jack Hardwick leaving the hospital with his young wife, a baby with a bandaged face in her arms. Laura is standing by a waiting car, the wheelchair she’s just climbed out of off to the side. The byline reads, “Suspected baby snatchers or unwitting victims from another Gertie conspiracy theory?” The sarcasm isn’t difficult to note, but when the town joke is the accuser, sarcasm is the easiest defense.
“Where did you find this?” Sally asks, looking up at me. Finn reaches for the photo and scans it, his gaze sliding from top to bottom.
“Yeah, where did you find it?” He leaves out thewhy didn’t you tell me about itpart. It’s all over his face as he stares at the clipping.
I swallow and focus on Sally. “In your file at county records. There were other things too. Records about the hospital fire, other interviews the townspeople gave.”
