“I was hoping ...” She lowered her eyes, then raised her gaze to mine. “I was hoping that you and Dickie would take my baby.”
I suddenly felt disoriented and breathless, like I’d fallen from a tree, knocking all the air from my lungs. “That’s insane.”
“No, it isn’t.” Words rushed from her mouth, her expression both calculating and desperate. “I’m due in October, just like you were ... no one knows I’m here. No one knows I’m pregnant. And no one knows you’ve had a miscarriage, except for that doctor out in San Diego. I can’t support a child as an unwed mother. But you could raise my baby. I’d feel so much better knowing the baby was here, in a good home, with you and Dickie.”
I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. I couldn’t steal another woman’s child and pretend it was mine. This was wrong.
Wasn’t it?
I pressed my fingers into my forehead, trying to put my thoughts in order. “I ... I need to talk to Dickie,” I finally said.
“He knows,” she interjected, refusing to meet my eyes. “He knows all about it. That’s why he brought me here. I left the dealership just before I started to show. But before I left, I told Dickie the truth. He offered to pay my rent and my expenses if I promised to stay out of sight and tell no one about my pregnancy.”
“And you agreed to this?” I asked, incredulous.
Her features hardened, and it changed her completely, squaring her jaw, narrowing her lips. She looked like a boxer. Determined. Exhausted. Dangerous.
“My only other option was one of those homes for unwed mothers.” She gazed at me, eyes challenging. “And I’ll never do that again.”
I swallowed. “Again?”
She nodded and turned away. “I was sixteen. In high school. It was like a jail. But worse.”
“Worse in what way?” I asked, once again feeling sympathy in spite of myself.
“The shame.” Her thin shoulders slumped forward. “They made us put on fake wedding rings anytime we left the home. They told us we were neurotic, crazy, unfit for motherhood. They forced me to give up my baby. I held her once and then gave her to strangers.” She looked up at me again, her gaze so fierce that I drew back. “I’ll never do that again.Ever.”
I’d heard of these places. Sometimes during high school a girl would just disappear for a while. Her parents would tell everyone she was going to visit her aunt, or that she wanted to try boarding school.
And then six months later she’d return, spouting vague stories about her fun stay with relatives in Cleveland or Dallas or Sacramento.
But whispers clung to these girls like spiderwebs as they moved through the halls, nebulous and sticky, about where they really went, and why they went there.
“I won’t go back to a place like that,” she repeated, jutting her chin. “I’ll have the baby here, and then I’ll leave. You will raise my baby.” She stroked her stomach. “It’s almost time now. And that’s why Dickie brought me here.”
My mouth dropped open. Dickie couldn’t swap wives without being tainted by the scandal of divorce and losing Daddy’s money and influence. So he’s arranged toswap babiesinstead, trading my dead twins for this woman’s living son or daughter.
“But . . . you can’t just . . .give usyour baby.”
“Of course I can,” she argued. “That’s exactly what I’d be doing in the hospital or a home for unwed mothers ... I’d be giving my baby to strangers. At least this way I know where my baby is going.” She looked around her wistfully. “You have a nice house ... lots of money. And you’re a kind person. I know that. Everyone at the office loved you ... my baby will never want for anything, here with you.”
“How well do you know Dickie?”
She lowered her eyes. “I don’t know him well, but he’s always been nice to me. And fair. If he hadn’t suggested this ...” She shuddered. “I don’t know what I would have done.”
She looked up at me, eyes hard. “This is the only way.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Kiersten
Piper lowered the diary, and her gaze met Kiersten’s.
“Holy shit,” Piper said.
“Iknow.”
Piper rose from the couch and began to pace in front of the fireplace in Kiersten’s family room. “What do we do now?”
