All that activity took up most of the summer that year. Life settled into a routine, or at least as much routine as I could expect while I waited for you to join me in the fall. I did my job. I lived day to day. For a while, I stayed something of a recluse, but gradually, I let the town see me out and about again. Occasionally, I’d stop by the 126 and chat with Sandra and some of the other girls. Enough time had passed that they saw me not as a victim but as Rebecca Colder again, the girl they’d known their whole lives.

In many ways, that was the happiest summer I’d ever spent. I read a lot, particularly old classics. I did some writing myself, mostly poetry, most of it very bad. I took guitar lessons and found I had a little bit of a knack for it, so I began to write some songs and play them to the trees in the national forest. When I looked in the mirror, I would catch myself smiling. That was a new experience for me.

Most of all, I was excited about you that summer.

I could feel you moving, kicking, shifting, as if you were impatient to be out in the world with me. As the time passed and my due date got closer, I began to allow myself to dream that I had a future. That we had a future.

It still makes me sad to realize those hopes were a mirage.

Just as I got to the last month of my pregnancy, everything fell apart. That fragile confidence I had in my life blew away like a spiderweb in the wind. In a single moment, I knew that happiness wasn’t in the cards for me.

You see, the Ursulina came back.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Darrell showed up at my door before dawn on a Sunday morning in early October. That had once been a common experience for me, but it hadn’t happened in a long time. I could tell from the strange look of horror on his face that something was wrong. He apologized for getting me out of bed, but he asked me if I could come with him to a crime scene.

Quickly.

At that point in my life, I didn’t do anything quickly. Walking anywhere was an effort. Even getting in and out of bed took ten minutes. I had one of those pregnancy bodies where the rest of me stayed skinny, but you presented like a Thanksgiving turkey big enough to serve a family of twenty, and the weight of you meant I had to pee every hour on the hour. I was still a few weeks from my due date, but I had the feeling you would be coming sooner, rather than later. So I wasn’t anxious to stray far from home.

“Look at me, Darrell,” I said. “Are you kidding?”