Her mother never returned.
Joy went to three other foster homes just that first year. The Grays’ biological daughter bullied her, and when she finally decked the girl, she was placed somewhere else. She loved her second home, but the couple moved out of state because of the father’s job. At the third home, one of the other foster kids—a thirteen-year-old named Devon—made her touch him places she didn’t want to, and threatened to say she was stealing from the foster family if she didn’t.
By age ten, Joy was a husk of the girl she had been. When she cut her wrists at age eleven, it wasn’t because she wanted to kill herself. It was because she wanted to feel something, even if that was only pain.
Staring at Janine all these years later, Joy sure as hell felt. She felt volcanic anger—for having been born to a parent who couldn’t or wouldn’t take care of her. For being judged by a stranger who acted holier than thou. How dare she think Joy was selfish, when in fact, she was being selfless—knowing she didn’t have the resources to raise a child, giving up the one person who might love her unconditionally?
“I was in foster care for ten years,” Joy said. “Trust me. There are not people lining up to adopt the children other parents don’t want.”
“If you didn’t want to get pregnant then why did you …” Janine’s voice trailed off.
“Have sex?” Joy filled in.
Because I was lonely.
Because I wanted to.
Because I wanted fifteen minutes where I was the center of someone’s world.
But Joe, bless his heart, had neglected to mention that he was already married.
The fourth week he came through Jackson, Joe told her that he and his wife had been having problems for a while, and that she had finally accused him of having an affair. For one beautiful, breathless moment Joy had imagined the rest of her life—one in which Joe admitted that he was in love with Joy, chose to be with her, lived happily ever after. But he had come to say goodbye.
It was good, Joe said. To get everything out in the open.
He had looked at her with his beautiful eyes, which no longer reminded Joy of seas she might travel, but of pale glaciers, an ocean of ice.
I should have told you. I would have if … His voice trailed off.
If what? Joy thought. What condition had to exist for her to be loved?
We’re going to Belize. Some place Mariah found that’s off the grid, so that we have nothing to do but talk. I’m taking a two-week leave of absence from the bench.
Mariah, Joy thought. That’s her name.
She thanked God for her prescription for Ortho-Novum.
A few weeks later she discovered she was one of the 9 percent of women who still got pregnant while using the Pill.
She had not let herself think about Joe. Telling him about the pregnancy might have been morally right, but to what end? He had made it clear that it was over.
But now, she gave herself a hiccup of space to imagine where he was at this moment, and what he was doing. She wondered if he had heard the news about a shooter at an abortion clinic. She wondered if she would be a casualty, if when the victims’ names were read by a reporter, he would grieve.
“You want to know why I had sex?” Joy repeated. “Because I made a mistake.”
“Babies are born flawless. They deserve the world.” To Joy’s surprise, Janine started to cry. She reached for Joy’s hands. “Babies are born flawless,” she repeated, “and they deserve the world. I’m not talking about … what you did today. I’m talking about you. I’m sorry that you got stuck in foster care. I’m sorry you didn’t feel safe. Just because you didn’t get that protection doesn’t mean you were born any less than perfect.”
Joy had not cried the night she stabbed a man.
She had not cried when she was taken away to a foster home.
She had not cried when she was told her mother had died of a broken neck after an “accidental” fall.
She had not cried when she was sexually abused or when she woke up in the pediatric psych ward, her wrists wrapped with bandages.
She had not cried when she found out she was pregnant.
She had not cried during this morning’s procedure. Or afterward.
But now, Joy sobbed.
—
OLIVE’S EYES WERE TIGHTLY SHUT, even though the closet was dark. She was trying to block out the heated conversation on the other side of the door by picturing Peg, the shape of her face, the smell of her hair when she just came out of the shower, the sound of her name in Peg’s mouth, blurred by her southern accent: Olive. Olive. I love.
“Are you afraid of dying?” Wren whispered, pulling Olive out of her reverie.
“Isn’t everyone?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about it until now.”
This girl was so young; younger, even, than Olive’s students. They had been wedged together on the floor of the utility closet for three hours now.
“I think what I’m afraid of,” Olive said, “is leaving everyone else behind.”
“Do you have a husband? Kids?”
Olive shook her head, unsure what to say. There were still places in Mississippi where she introduced Peg as her roommate. And she would never have walked down the street in broad daylight holding Peg’s hand.
“Not in the cards for me,” she murmured.
“Same for my aunt,” Wren said. “I never asked her if she was lonely.”
“You’ll be able to, when you get out of here.”
“If I get out of here,” Wren whispered. “My dad used to actually tell me to make sure I was wearing clean underwear. I mean, what a cliché, right?” She hesitated. “I’m wearing Friday.”
“Beg pardon?”
“It’s Tuesday. And my day-of-the-week underwear says Friday.”
Olive smiled in the dark. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“What if I get shot? I mean, it’s clean, but it’s the wrong day.” Wren laughed, a little unhinged. “What if I’m bleeding all over and the paramedics notice that—”
“You won’t get shot.”
In the dark, Olive could see the fierce shine of the girl’s eyes. “You don’t know that.”
She didn’t. To live was always a conditional verb.
There was a flurry of footsteps outside the closet door, and the phone rang. Both Olive and Wren held their breath. Olive grabbed Wren’s hand.
“I don’t wanna talk to you.” It was the shooter’s voice. It got fainter as he moved away again.
Olive squeezed Wren’s fingers. “Peg,” she breathed. “That’s the name of the woman I love.”
“The … oh, okay,” Wren replied. “That’s cool.”
Olive smiled to herself. Yes, Peg was cool. Cooler than she was, anyway. She made fun of Olive for not wearing white after Labor Day and for waiting a half hour after eating before she swam. Live a little, Peg would say to her, laughing.
Right now that was all Olive wanted to do.
“I just wanted to say her name out loud,” Olive added softly.
“At least you got to fall in love,” Wren whispered.
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Wren ducked her head. “I don’t know. If I do survive, after this, I may never have sex.”
Olive grinned. “If I survive,” she replied, “it’s all I’m going to do.”
—
GEORGE ANSWERED THE PHONE ON the second ring. “You know,” Hugh began, as if George had not hung up on him before, “I used to go to church with my kid. Not every week—I wasn’t as good a Christian as I could have been. But always Easter services and Christmas Eve.”
George snorted. “That’s like putting gravy on Skittles and saying you made Thanksgiving dinner.”
“Yeah, I know. It was my fault. I have a hard time sitting still. And I couldn’t handle the holier-than-thous. You know, the guys who sit right up front in the pews and act like they’ve got some special VIP pass to God?”
“It don’t work that way,” George said.
“Hell, no,” Hugh said. “Anyway, it must drive you crazy when you see people acting like that, too. People taking liberties that belong to a greater power.”
“I don’t follow.”
Hugh looked down at the slip of paper one of the detectives had given him. “The Lord brings death and makes alive.”