I suppose I should have been scared at the idea of being a single mother, but I wasn’t. You made up for everything else, sweetheart. The things I’d been through in life had led me to that one moment. Of course, I had no idea if I was having a boy or a girl, but in my heart, I knew you were a girl. Rebecca Colder would have a daughter to share her life. I began to talk to you right away, telling you the things we would do together. I sang to you. I wrote poems for you. I know you don’t remember any of it, but I like to think that I’m back there somewhere, that my voice is tucked away in a little corner of your brain.

You’re probably wondering if I ever called Tom Ginn to tell him what happened to me, or to tell him that I was pregnant. I didn’t. Oh, believe me, I was tempted. I can’t tell you how many times I picked up the phone and then put it down. I knew if I called, he’d be at my side in an instant, but it didn’t seem fair to push my way into his life like that. He had his father to take care of. He had his own responsibilities. And this sounds so vain, but I looked terrible in those weeks after the beating. I didn’t want him to see me like that. In his mind, I was pretty. An angel. A perfect little fantasy, the girl who’d saved him. Instead, he would come to me and see a woman who was swollen and cut and bruised and bedridden. He’d stay out of obligation, not desire. I hated that. When the weeks of my recovery had finally passed and I looked like myself again, I felt that too much time had gone by to reach out to him. His life had gone on. I half wondered if he’d even remember me, although my secret heart said he thought of me every day. But I let him go. I never called.

I assumed I would never see him again.

I was wrong.

*

At the end of April, I went back to work. No, not as a deputy. Jerry got his wish. After my behavior on the night of Jay’s death, the sheriff could have fired me. Even Darrell wouldn’t have defended me for leaving the scene of a suicide and not reporting it. But Jerry didn’t like the optics of firing a deputy for dereliction of duty while she was in a hospital bed after being raped and nearly beaten to death by her husband. So I got a reprieve. Jerry was actually very sweet, visiting me a couple of times during my recovery and making sure I had everything I needed. As I say, people can surprise you.