“What did you name her?”
She didn’t answer as she turned to leave.
“Please.”
“Isla,” she finally said with her back facing her.
They sent her home with another envelope, thicker this time. She held it against her chest in the basement apartment and cried for something she didn’t know she wanted. There was a part of her missing—no, many parts missing—as if every one of her organs had been torn in half and taken from her.
She went back to their house a few months later. She knocked. They were home. She had watched them in the window at first, Patrick holding the baby so carefully as Stella cleared the dishes away after dinner. She had already grown so much.
“Let me see her,” she said to the door.
She knocked urgently.
“Please. Let me see my baby,” she said louder.
She reached up to knock again but the door opened, and he grabbed her wrist.
“Quiet,” he said through gritted teeth.
Her baby cried somewhere in the house, and she heard Stella comforting her.
“I want to see her. Just once.”
He held on tighter, and the thin skin around her wrist burned with his grip.
“Don’t ever come back here.”
His eyes were dark, and she could see that he wanted to do more than hold her wrist.
She felt like vomiting. Even the contents of those envelopes could not help her. She couldn’t turn to anyone for help.
She was not someone in a position to ask for help.
Something had to replace her void, the space inside her growing to where she felt it twisting, thick and ferocious up through her throat. Something had to take its place.
She walked around in search of it. Julien smiled at her from the window of the restaurant as she passed. He held on to her tight later that night, telling her how much he liked her. How much he had wanted to be with her. She nodded, breathing hard and trying not to let him see her tears as he lay between her legs.
The next morning, the bus fumes gave her a headache as she sat in the back.
It was warmer where she had decided to go. She quickly wanted to rethink that decision, as the extreme summer heat made her already-swollen feet feel like the skin over her toes would split open from the pressure. Her belly was already round again.
It was another girl.
But this time . . . this time she felt no elation. The disappointment, the hope that this would cure what she saw as her ailment ate away at her like acid. This new, tiny body that squirmed in her arms felt like an intrusion. A reminder of how far away she was from what she was trying to reclaim.
This little girl had her eyes. She took her by the hand and led her from city to city until she couldn’t take it anymore.
She went back to where it all started. Where she was forbidden from ever returning to.
She watched them again. This time the three of them. The trees of the forest near the lake were her guardians, shielding her from being exposed.
This time would be different. This time he would listen.
CHAPTER 58
ISLA
Labor Day: September 7, 2020
The force of my cheek hitting the ridge of his backbone speared pain up my jaw and throughout my skull. I wrapped my arms around his neck, yanking it upward. His arms seesawed up and he reached for me, clawing at my forearms. I tightened my grip and screamed out. His legs pulled up under him and tipped us both into the water.
Three seconds. Three seconds of abrupt peace took over me.
There was nothing to see but liquid darkness, inky and composed. My legs made a slow, thick dance, kicking to break through. When I came up, hair floated toward me, slithering out in waves.
She was face down in the water.
I grabbed at her, not knowing, not even sensing whatever piece of her my hands had gripped and dragged up. She sputtered and weakly grasped at the nearest plank. I pulled myself up first and then clutched her hands as she toppled sideways onto the dock.
I twisted forward, searching each side to find him climbing up a few yards away from us. I could hear the heavy sound of water pouring from his wet clothes, each hard step coming closer to us as we instinctively reached for each other.
Who was this man? Older than I had ever seen him, defeated, with shoulders that sloped so narrowly. This was not the father I knew.
“Why?” It was the only word I could utter.
He lumbered two more steps toward us and then sank down onto his knees. His hands were flat on the dock as he caught his breath.
