“I wish you could come to the U.S. with us,” I said. “I don’t want to still be here in seven weeks.”
She smiled. “Your parents already offered me a fortune to come with you,” she said. “I’m thinking about it, but my family’s in Reykjavik, and I’m not licensed to practice in the States. You’d need a local midwife or doctor to oversee your case.”
“My parents could arrange that.”
She smiled. “I’m aware.”
When I didn’t smile back, she gave my shoulder a light squeeze.
“What’s going on with you?” she asked.
At her kindness, I blinked back sudden tears. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said. “How am I going to be a mom?”
“Take a deep breath,” Freyja said. “You’re just going to live it. You’re going to keep it real, day by day. Your baby’s fine right now, and so are you, right? That’s enough, right?”
I nodded. I felt miserable.
Freyja smiled gently and came around to give me a hug. “You’re so young,” she said. “Have you talked to the dad yet?”
“No.”
“Maybe that’ll help, elskan,” she said.
I doubted it would. I didn’t know him from a doorknob.
“Have you thought about names?” she asked. “Maybe a nice Icelandic name?”
She made me laugh and gulp at the same time.
Later, when I mentioned this to Diego and Madeline, they had plenty of name suggestions, especially family names, and Madeline happily jotted down lists for a boy or a girl. Since they had declined to know the gender of the baby, preferring to speculate, I decided not to find out, either. They seemed delighted to talk about the baby as long as nobody brought up Tom. It was also increasingly difficult not to blurt out to them that I wasn’t their daughter, especially when Diego would give me a quiet, curious look.
When Madeline eventually led a prayer and they said good night, I was worn out. She straightened the rosary next to the flowers.
“Are we Catholic?” I asked.
Madeline touched her thumb to my forehead, drawing a cross for a blessing. “Yes, of course,” she said. “Now rest easy.”
My need to talk to my own mother was stronger than ever. Something about hearing the baby’s heartbeat and seeing the ghostly figure on the ultrasound had thrust my pregnancy into reality, and turning into a mother made me miss my own. So much had happened to me, and she didn’t know any of it.
After the nurse turned my lights low, I huddled down in my bed and calculated seven hours earlier to Arizona. It was Saturday around two in the afternoon there. Ma might be home. I tapped my home number into my phone. I knew Ma wouldn’t recognize my new voice, but I’d find a way, somehow, to explain who I was. Ma would believe me. I stared absently out to the hallway as I waited through the rings.
“Hello? Who’s calling?” Ma said.
Her mumbly, sleepy voice made my heart soar. I could picture her taking a nap on the couch.
“Ma? It’s me. Rosie.” My voice choked off. “Did I wake you?”
“Rosie?” she said slowly. “You sound different.”
“It’s really me! My voice has changed, but it’s me,” I said. I sat up, keeping the phone close to my ear, and I tried to pitch my voice lower, like mine had been. “How are you? Are you good? How’s Dubbs? Does she miss me?”
A rolling noise came from her end of the line. “Tell me where you are,” she said. “Are you all right? Is Berg hurting you?”
“I’m okay. I’m in Iceland at a clinic,” I said. “Berg isn’t even here.”
Her voice became doubtful. “Iceland?”
“It’s complicated to explain,” I said. Suddenly I didn’t care at all anymore that she’d messed up my guardianship. I missed her so badly it hurt to breathe. “I want to come home.”
“What happened to your voice?” Then, through a muffling, “She says it’s Rosie.”
“I had a surgery,” I said. I struggled to think how to begin. “A lot about me is different.”
A bumbling noise came from the other end, and then my stepfather’s voice came on. “Who is this?”
“Larry, it’s me,” I said. “It’s me, Rosie. Let me talk to Ma again.”
“You think I don’t know Rosie’s voice? You’ve got some nerve, harassing us in our own home. We can trace your call. We’ll prosecute the crap out of you.”
“It’s me,” I said loudly. “You punched me in the face when I told you to get a job. Remember? Last spring? You told Ma to pawn your gun that same night, remember? So we’d have enough to eat? Dubbs was starving.”
His end went silent. I could picture him frowning by the couch. A faint pounding noise came, like someone was working outside. I heard Ma’s voice in the background, and then she abruptly stopped talking, as if he’d raised a hand to warn her into silence.
“You never got that out of Rosie,” he said.
“We own an orange plaid couch,” I continued, searching my way. “You read a lot of mysteries, and the antlers over the TV came from your brother’s place after he died.”
“Who is this?” Larry asked.
I clenched the phone anxiously. “I said. I’m Rosie. Your daughter. Let me talk to Ma again, please.”
“You mean ‘stepdaughter,’” he said with a bark of a laugh. “You blew it, kid. Rosie always threw that ‘step’ in my face. Now leave us alone.” The line cut off with a slam.
“Wait!” I said, but it was too late. The dead connection shocked my ear. Despair clamped my heart. I had so much proof! I’d thought for sure they would know me, despite my voice. Ma did. Larry was the problem. He was always the problem. I immediately called back again, but they didn’t pick up. Our landline had no voicemail, no answering machine. I was blocked.
I sat in my shadowy hospital room, stunned. A machine made a soft hissing noise behind me, and I stared bleakly at the bumps of my feet under the blanket. What if no one from my old life ever believed who I was inside? The possibility horrified me. How could I prove I was me without my own voice and body? My parents wouldn’t even let me try.
I lay down again and rolled over heavily. I couldn’t bear another night of being lonely, with no one to talk to. I was afraid I’d vanish if I didn’t find someone who knew me as Rosie.
I chewed the inside of my cheek for a minute, remembering how cool it had been talking to Linus at night when I was at Forge. I’d loved trying to guess his expression from the sound of his voice. The rest of the school would be asleep, but I had my walkie-ham in my sleep shell with me, like a lifeline to the outside world. What I wouldn’t give to have that now. I still hadn’t heard from Linus despite repeated tries over the last few days. I hadn’t heard from Burnham, either. In fact, the only person who had tried to contact me was Tom, Althea’s old boyfriend, but I had no idea what to say to him. His messages were piled up on my new phone, unlistened to, like too many valentines from the wrong guy.
What I really needed was Linus’s phone number so I could text him directly. I did a search for Otis, Linus’s friend and landlord, the old guy who worked the camera in the lookout tower at Forge, and found he had a listed number. I tapped it in and listened to the rings.
“Hello?” a man answered.