Chapter 27

Sofia

I never do make it back downstairs after Lucas gives me that reprieve from cooking the hamburger. I cannot stand the smell of anything too savory, particularly in the evening. I end up lying in bed, nauseated and overheated, praying that the feeling will abate. According to my secret Internet research, it probably will—next trimester.

The positive pregnancy test is in the bathroom trash, strategically buried under layers of wadded up toilet paper.

I’m going to tell him. I just don’t know when. Or how.

Or what the hell we’re going to do.

The mornings aren’t too bad for me, and I can’t keep hobbling around like a seasick cow, so I force myself to get up at six, as usual. It’s the last day of school before Christmas vacation, and both Madison and Charlie are obnoxious with excitement, bouncing around in the backseat like toys with no off switches. It’s only going to be a half day, and the day after tomorrow—Saturday night—will be the middle school’s Christmas play, in which Charlie is a broken soldier on the Island of Misfit Toys. He walked out to the Jeep like he was made of wood, and now he practices his lines, both of them, in the car on the way.

“I’m a soldier with a bent gun!” he cheers. For now, he’s forgotten his bully and the Christmas season gives everyone a little extra sparkle in their eyes. “No one will ever want me!”

We pull up to the school and I park. He shoves the back door open and clambers out of the backseat.

“Good luck out there,” I call to him, sticking a peace sign against the passenger side window. “See you at noon.”

“Bye, Maggie!”

I watch as Charlie rushes into the building with his bulging backpack, hoping that he does have a good day. Then I circle the Jeep back around and cut through Fallaway Peak, stopping when I notice a maternity store for the first time. I go inside and ogle the various dresses and blouses, the special bras and the special lotions and all the products for the perfect new mother, wondering if I could really do this. I can’t even picture it.

I accidentally kill way too much time inside Mama 2 B and have to hurry back to the cabin if I want any lunch prepared for the kids when they get home. Lucas, embroiled in yet another random outcropping of incompetence—something about a typo on a billboard—stays up in his office and I’m back out the door and in the Jeep to pick the kids up before he ever sees me.

It’s good this way, because I don’t know how long I’ll be able to keep my pregnancy from him, anyway. I can barely stand to look at him now without blurting the words.

I collapse into the driver’s seat of the Jeep, thankfully out of that bitter cold, and turn the engine over to get the heat pumping. I’m huffing hard into my cupped hands as I stare at the house, shivering. All the windows are lit with warm yellow light, just like they were the first time I ever saw this place, and it brings me to pause. I manage a little smile as I remember. It seems like that rainy November afternoon was so long ago, it came from another world entirely.

I wonder what the hell I’m going to do. What am I going to do? This wasn’t the plan.

A light snow falls across the windshield, flakes of white kissing the glass and then skittering away. My hands fold over my abdomen, and I press my lips together, thinking about everything at once. The little life inside me, probably the size of a grain of rice right now. My eyes pan to the third-story window of Lucas’ office. A shadow crosses the lit blinds and a tiny smile twitches at my lip. Will he be happy? Could we be a new family?

Astrid’s face floats in my mind’s eye, along with Agent Callahan’s, and I figure that I’m probably a dreamer. But I’ve never had a child in my body before, and it doesn’t matter what the outside world harbors against us. Me and this baby, with or without Lucas, will be fine. Even if I’m having it in jail.

The front door opens, and Lucas comes traipsing out, startling me. He’s in a thick olive coat, a black turtleneck, jeans, and boots. He beams at the sight of me and jogs to catch the Jeep before I can pull out, even though my hands are nowhere near the gears right now anyway.

Lucas taps at the window, and I obediently roll it down for him.

“Hey,” I say, hoping that he can’t read my crazy mixed thoughts on my face. “What’s up?”

“Nothing, I was heading downstairs for some coffee and I caught a glimpse of you in the window, sitting here in the driveway. I never got to see you again after you went upstairs, all sick. You feel better?”

“A little,” I say. It’s half-true. I do feel better. I also won’t technically feel better for another eight months. “Hey. Can we talk when I get back?”

Lucas cocks his head to the side, and the skin around his coffee-dark eyes crinkles. “Of course,” he says, like the question is confusing. “We can always talk, Sofia.”

He stretches his hand into the cabin of the car and rubs his icy thumb over my warm cheek. I exhale, unable to stop the butterflies from going nuts all through my body. I want him so bad, still. What will he say when he learns the big news?

“OK,” I breathe, and he takes his hand away again, eyes sparkling. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

“OK.”

I put the car into reverse and back out of the driveway, jostling along the road, trying not to psych myself up for the big talk. I hope he doesn’t ask me to get an abortion. I couldn’t take that.

I go to the middle school first this time, because Charlie gets bullied, and I don’t want him to wait any longer than he has to. I climb out of the Jeep and head toward the mass of tweens all thronged up at the entrance, filling the sidewalk.

I furrow my brow and scan for Charlie’s flaxen hair, always sticking out in a crowd. That’s him over there, isn’t it?

And then his blond head vanishes, and I pick up the pace, panic surging in my chest. “Charlie!” I call out to him. He’s on the sidewalk, on his back, pinned to the ground by his bulging backpack.

I go to help him up, but before I even get there, he slides his arms through the nylon straps and jumps back onto his feet. The freckled, dark-haired boy looms over him, several inches taller with eyes narrowed with aggression. Charlie mentioned this kid: Rufus. His tormentor.

“You’d better stop that,” Charlie commands, gruffly, reminding me of his father. He draws himself to his full height, and his eyes don’t dare dart away from his target.

The dark-haired boy smiles, but the smile looks cruel. “Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Rich Boy, sir,” Rufus sneers. “Anything you say.”

Charlie looks his assailant up and down, then turns on his heel and takes a step away, toward me.

“But before you go,” Rufus adds, snatching at Charlie’s arm. “Have a nice trip!”

Rufus puts his leg out in front of Charlie and moves to shove him, but Charlie grabs the bully’s arm with both of his, and the momentum sends both tumbling to the ground. He plants a solid punch—just like Lucas taught him—into his bully’s gut. The boy flounders and gasps for breath.

Meanwhile, Charlie struggles to his feet and scoops up his backpack, then he walks over to me, a triumphant little smile on his face.

“You’re going to regret that, rich boy!” Rufus sneers at his back, clambering up to his feet. Charlie doesn’t give him even enough credit to turn and look at him, but I see Rufus charging behind us and I whirl, placing myself firmly between my charge and this charging bully.

“He doesn’t call you poor boy, does he?” I wonder, evenly. “Maybe you should return the kindness of learning his name. It’s Charlie.”

“Ooh, Charlie has a new stepmom, everybody!” Rufus jeers. “Do you go to school here, or are you in high school now?”

My mouth sours, and I think about how easy it would be to punt this kid across the parking lot, but I don’t. I shake my head and turn my back. “I’m his nanny,” I explain over my shoulder, following Charlie to the car. I don’t want to make things any harder for him than they already are.

Rufus makes kissy noises at our backs as we climb into the Jeep.

“Don’t let him get to you,” Charlie tells me with a proud little smile. Even though we didn’t leave Rufus in a cowering bundle, we know Charlie still came out on top. Now Rufus knows that he can and will defend himself. “He’s like that with everybody.”

“Everybody but you,” I remind him, laying my palm in the air for a low-five. “Nice punch back there, kiddo.”