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With a few more simple lines, the bump turns into an outline of a baby in a womb.
I turn the page.
And another.
I watch the baby become a toddler, a little girl, and her face…
Me.
I sink to my knees as I flick through the sketchpad faster. I should be careful not to damage the pages, but I can’t think because this is me.
Not everything is right, the nose is too fine, and the top lip too thin, but every single drawing on this sketchpad is of me.
Olive Deane didn’t watch me grow, yet she drew me as if she’d lived each year of my life by my side.
Finally, I reach the last picture.
A young woman in a ball gown, smiling, happy. Beautiful.
The book slips from my hand and falls to the floor as tears slide down my face.
I thought nothing would hurt more than knowing Mom has been caged in this place for years. Yet, somehow, this does. All this time, she was thinking of me, dreaming of me, and we were so close—in the same city—but I never knew it.
All this time, we could have been together, and we were apart.
“They’re me. All of them are me.”
I’m staring at the last picture, so clearly me, I can’t believe I wasn’t sitting for her, when the lightest touch on the top of my head makes me look up.
Olive Deane is peering down at me with that same dreamy look in her eyes.
I sniff back more tears to say, “I’m not a dream, Mom. I’m real.”
Slowly, oh so slowly, the soft, dreamy look fades away and she sits up taller in her chair. “Everleigh?”
I nod, not daring to breathe, speak, or even move in case I do the wrong thing.
“My baby,” she whispers. “My baby is here.”
I lose control of my tears, sobbing because this is real. My mom is alive and she’s here.
She draws me close, smoothing a hand up and down my hair as my tears soak through her skirt.
Chapter57
Everleigh
Between Mom and me, we cry an ocean of tears. Enough to drown the world.
We certainly nearly drown each other.
But when my tears run dry, I lift my head from my mom’s damp skirt, look her in the eye, and for the first time in my life, I’ve never been more certain of what I intend to do next.
“I’m getting you out of here.”
She smiles, and although her voice is hoarse from disuse, she nods. “I would like that.”
Before I get up, I ask her a question I’ve been thinking about since the waiting room. “They said you didn’t talk.”
