I let out a huff that’s exasperated in pretense only. “Glad to know I’m your last choice.”
Amity peers up at me, and there’s something in her eyes that’s different from the way I’m used to being looked at. Like there’s more curiosity there than pity.
It’s not all that unrefreshing.
“How old would your baby be now, if they had lived?”
I flinch, digging my nails into the ground as my heart gives a lurch. If Amity notices, she does nothing to amend her bluntness.
“Would they be younger or older than me?” she continues.
“I didn’t know you knew about my baby.”
“Sometimes adults say things you’re not supposed to know when they think you’re asleep.”
I let out a sigh, the agitation in me dissipating somewhat. Again, there’s little pity in the girl’s eyes. Somehow her frank interest doesn’t feel quite as suffocating as the others’ empathy, and I’m tired of being pitied anyway, so what’s the harm?
“Younger than you,” I say, rubbing my fingertips on a blade of grass.
Amity blinks. “How much younger?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how old you are.”
“I’m thirteen.”
“Seven years younger than you then.”
“Oh,” she says, like this information disappoints her somewhat.
“Why? Were you hoping for a different answer or something?”
Amity bites her lip, fighting with her braid. “No. I just think that’s a long time to be missing your baby.”
The breeze picks up, chilling the tears welling in my eyes until they sting incessantly.
“Yeah.”
After a few moments of silence, Amity says, “I overheard them saying that you never got to figure out if it was a little boy or girl.”
I’m having to fight back the tears lest they spill over onto my cheeks. “That’s right,” and though she doesn’t ask, I find myself saying, “If she was a girl, her name was Rose. Because my mother’s name was Blossom, but I couldn’t stand that name, so I thought Rose would be a better way to name a girl after her. And then, if the baby had been a boy, he would have been Theo.”
“Those names are all right, I guess.”
I stare at the girl for a moment, mouth agape, expecting annoyance or rage to well up within me. Some appropriate reaction to this child’s insensitivity.
But all that comes out is a laugh. A laugh that’s somewhere between a cough and a squeal and a sob.
“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” Amity says.
I can no longer hold back the salty tears pouring down my cheeks as my chest spasms.
Something is terribly wrong with me. Something horribly, irreparably broken.
“I know you weren’t,” I say between heaves that pinch my chest. “I’m just…I’m just so used to people having no idea what to say, or saying something they mean to be kind, but’s actually awful in its own way. What I’m not used to is…”
I trail off, while Amity frowns at me, confused.
“Not used to what?”
“Not used to…” I swallow. Because I know exactly who I’m not used to. Children. I’m not used to children, and that fact makes me want to scream. Instead, I steel myself and cough out a “Never mind.”
“Did you have a funeral for your baby?”
Shame washes over me. “No. No, I didn’t know—I thought. Well, it was a stupid thing to think, but I didn’t know until—”
My teeth sinking into Clarissa’s flesh. Me compelling her to fear me.
Amity says nothing. She just hops up and scampers away, leaving me alone with my miserable thoughts.
Amity returns not long after, balancing a stone under each armpit. She pauses when she reaches me, her little arms shaking under the weight.
“Here,” she says finally, laying the stones down in the grass beside me.
In the moonlight, I catch sight of them up close, and my throat closes up.
The rocks are smooth on the surface and almost identical, like Amity’s spent the past half an hour scavenging around for the perfect pair. On each surface are scratched, in huge print with what was probably Amity’s hunting knife, the names Rose and Theo.
“I thought maybe we could give your baby a funeral.” For the first time since I met Amity, she sounds unsure of herself.
