Chapters (60)
She walks briskly back toward the car, phone in hand. She dials Pam’s number, but it goes straight to voice mail.
“Savi ran away,” she says. “I need your help.”
42
BEC
“Dead?” That word—a word I’ve become so familiar with—still sticks on my lips. “Then how did Oliver end up here?”
Maya starts to speak, but Jake stops her. “I’ll explain everything to Rebecca. Why don’t we just take care of logistics?”
I cling to Oliver. “What do you mean, logistics? If he doesn’t have parents, then where does he go?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have to take him.”
Oliver starts crying again, and I gently shush and bounce his tiny body while trying to think of ways out of this. They can’t take him. I’m not ready. Without Oliver, I have no one. “So you just take him and then what? What am I supposed to do about Jackson?”
“We’ll find Jackson,” Toby interrupts.
I stop moving and grow still. “How can you possibly know that?”
“My boys are on it.”
“Why isn’t anyone telling me what’s going on?” I demand. Pieces click in my head, all of the events of the last few days building and releasing. I laugh, a dry, sarcastic bark. “Because you think I’m unstable. You think I’m somehow responsible for all of this, don’t you? That a blind mother who’s lost everything can’t possibly be in her right mind or tell the truth, right? That she can’t take care of an infant, so you’re not even sure you’re going to give that infant back.”
“Rebecca, no one is saying that.” Jake’s large hand finds my shoulder, but I shrug it off.
“Don’t touch me.”
I unstrap the baby and gather him in my arms gingerly, even though I am boiling inside. I lift him up, a fuzzy halo in a green onesie—my very last memory. I bring him to my neck, nuzzle his soft skin, and kiss his cheeks. “I’m going to miss you so much, little guy.” My voice breaks, and a well of emotion floods my chest. Tears slip silently down my cheeks, but I don’t wipe them away. I hold him against my body one more time, gathering his legs in the crook of my arm. His sweet sigh cracks me apart. “You’re going to be okay.” I kiss his cheek again, memorizing him, and then Maya removes him from my secure grip.
The void is instant.
She steps from the room, and I immediately collapse back in my chair, smothering my sobs behind my hands. Another loss. Another person taken. Another life stolen.
No more.
“I need to use the bathroom,” I say.
“It’s just—”