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Mae glances at the closed door.

“Please.” I grab her wrist. “Don’t let them hurt her.”

“I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

My mother tries to come into the room twice, but Mae forces her back out. After that, time disappears inside pain and fear. I push when Mae tells me to push. I cling to her hand because there is no one else.

I want Sean.

I want him so badly that his name becomes a scream trapped inside my chest.

He promised he would always love me.

We used to sit beside the creek behind his house and talk about leaving this town together. Sean wanted to go somewhere with mountains and endless sky. He said he would build me a house where nobody could tell us what to do.

He kissed me beneath an old oak tree on his nineteenth birthday.

That’s the night we made our daughter.

I never saw him again.

“One more push,” Mae says.

“I can’t.”

“You can. Do it for your little girl.”

I bear down with everything I have left.

Then I hear her.

One small, furious cry.

My baby.

My daughter.

A sob tears out of me. “Is she all right?”

“She’s perfect.”

Mae wraps her in a towel and places her against my chest.

The entire world stops.

She has a tiny pink face and a head covered with pale hair. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and her little mouth opens as she cries.

“Hello,” I whisper. “I’m your mommy.”

Her fingers curl around mine.

I count every one of them.

Ten tiny fingers.