I shook my head and sat a little taller. She’d never told me how she and my dad came up with my name. I hadn’t ever thought to ask, but now I wanted to know more than anything.
“Before you were born, I was sick. I had something called cancer. Have you heard of that before?”
I shook my head a second time.
“It’s when bad cells in your body stop the good ones from doing their job. For mommy, those bad cells were growing in a place called my uterus, and they were keeping me from having you.”
“What did you do?” I remember asking her with wide eyes.
I knew what it was like to have bad germs in your body, and there was nothing more miserable than being sick.
“Well, first, I had three rounds of medicine to make the bad cells go away, and then we tried to have you,” she said.
I turned over my shoulder to look up at her.
“Did it work?”
The edges of my mom’s smile slipped.
“Not at first, no. It was hard to get you here. Because of my cancer and losing something called a fallopian tube from a pregnancy that wasn’t quite right, my doctor told me I might not have a baby at all.”
Her brush strokes slowed when she saw me frown, and she pulled me close to her chest.
“But then, a year later, a miracle happened.”
My eyes brightened.
“You were born! Our gift.”
She draped her arms around my neck.
“And you were beautiful and strong—just like I know you’ll be for your first day of school tomorrow.”
When I turned away from her, she lifted my chin with her forefinger.
“But if you need me, I’ll always be here to protect to you, my Theadora.”
Unlike the softness she used that day, the pitch of her voice now suggests fear.
“I’m okay,” I assure her, pointing to the neighbor’s camp trailer.
Even from the dock, the light off the kitchen highlights her profile. Her mouth hangs open and her brow furrows. When she ducks back inside, I track the moon’s shadow.
Whack.
The sound of a screen door slamming has me plunging my feet into the icy lake water, and I jerk around.
Someone from the trailer is running right for me.
CHAPTER THREE
NOW
The guy from the sketch’s eyes widen when he sees my face.
“I’m… so sorry… are you hurt?” he stutters.
“Um…”
