The turquoise package holds a Polly Pocket play set, all right—but it’s the Shetland Pony Stables, exactly the same as the one I already have.
“Do you like your toy?” Mom’s mouth stretches over her big teeth into the smile she gets when she’s pleased with herself. “It’s really cute, isn’t it?”
I try really hard not to cry.
Mother’s forehead gets that ugly frown that makes my stomach feel like someone’s pulling a belt too tight around my insides. “What’s the matter?” she demands.
I don’t dare tell her. She’ll call me an ingrate and get mad like she did at Christmas. I’m not crying because I didn’t get the right Polly Pocket; I’m crying because my mommy doesn’t know which one I already have, even though I play with it all the time. There must be something with wrong with me, because my mother doesn’t pay attention to me the way my friends’ mothers do. She’s always telling me I’m a big bother.
But I can’t tell her that’s the reason I’m fighting back tears. “I don’t want you to go out and leave me by myself,” I say.
“You won’t be,” she says. “Jade’s coming over to babysit you.”
I don’t like Jade. She’s the thirteen-year-old daughter of Mom’sfriend and she never wants to play. She just watches grown-up TV shows and talks on the phone, and if I say something to her, she tells me to shut up and leave her alone.
“Don’t leave me on my birthday,” I beg Mommy.
She takes a big slurp of wine. She tells me I’m selfish and childish, and I have no idea what she’s going through. She’s the one who gave birth to me, so she should be the one to get presents on my birthday, anyway. I should feel bad for being such an ungrateful daughter.
And I do. I feel so, so bad that I cry. She gets even madder at me for crying, so I go back outside and wait for Daddy. He doesn’t come. Instead, Michelle drives up, drops off Jade, and...
“Auntie Quinn?”
I open my eyes. Lily is standing by my bed, sobbing. Her thumb is in her mouth, and Sugar Bear is clasped in her other hand.
I abruptly sit up. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?”
“I had a bad dream.”
It seems to be a night for those. But I wasn’t really dreaming, was I? It doesn’t count as a dream if it really happened.
“I’m so sorry, honey.” I swing my feet to the floor and hold out my arms, and Lily climbs into my lap, dragging Sugar Bear with her. I feel her tears on my shoulder as she snuggles her head there. I pat her back, between her slight shoulder blades. “It’s okay. Dreams aren’t real.”
“It felt real.”
“Sometimes they do.” My fingers sift through her hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She nods. “I was lost-ed in a big crowd of peoples. I kept lookin’ an’ lookin’ for Mommy, but I couldn’ find her. An’ then I looked for Grams or you or someone I knew, but no one had the right face.” She wraps her arms around my neck.
I put my chin on top of her hair and pull her close. “Oh, sweetie—that was a bad dream, for sure. But it wasn’t real.”
“But what if it ’comes real? What if everyone I love dies an’ goes ’way?”
“That won’t happen, Lily.”
“But Mommy died, an’ Grams is in the hospital.”
“I know, sweetie, but I’m taking care of you. I love you and I’ll always be here for you.”
“But what ifyoudie? If Mommy could die, you could, too.”
Poor honey.And oh, dear God—I can’t deny that she has a point. “That’s very, very unlikely to happen. And anyway, you have other people who will always love and take care of you. There’s Alicia’s mother, and Miss Terri, and Miss Sarah, and Miss Annie, and...” I run out of names. In truth, I’m naming people who might babysit, not people who are lined up to actually take her if I can’t. I need to figure that out—both for Lily and for the baby I’m carrying. I push the troubling thought aside to deal with later. “You’ll never be alone, sweetheart. I promise. You just had a really bad dream.”
“It made me feel ’fraid and terr’ble.”
“Bad dreams can make us feel that way.”
“But this feeling is the ’wake kind, too.”
