Rebecca poked her daughter in the stomach with a grin. “Grandma Janice will have to throw her own slumber parties.”
Beth laughed at the thought of her great-grandmother sleeping on the floor, surrounded by other gray-haired ladies in curlers and house shoes, watching the news while they ate ice cream right out of the bucket. “I mean, when will we see her? She’ll miss me!”
“Yes, she will, but we’ll go see her at Christmas. You can bring her a present.”
The child’s eyes lit up at that thought. “Can I tie a big red bow on it? Grandma Janice likes big red bows.”
“Yes. Of course you can. But we can’t plan slumber parties or Christmas presents until we get to our new house and unpack your new room. So will you please get back in the car?”
Finally, Elizabeth climbed back into her booster seat and let her mother buckle her in. “I’m hungry.”
“Here.” Rebecca dug into the plastic bag and pulled out a snack-size packet of cheddar-flavored crackers, which she opened and handed to her daughter.
Beth crunched into a cracker as her mother backed the car out of the parking lot. “How many minutes until we get there?”
“We’re still counting in terms of hours, hon.” Rebecca turned onto the on-ramp and merged smoothly with highway traffic. “It’s a long way from Tennessee to Oklahoma.”
“Will there be another Beth in my class in Oklahoma?”
“We won’t know that until school starts.”
“Because I don’t like other girls named Beth. Or Elizabeth, either.” The four-year-old crunched into another cracker, then spoke around it. “That’smyname.”
“There are lots of girls named Elizabeth, honey.”
“I think their mommies copied. Once, Beth Williams copied my coloring sheet. The one about days of the week. Maybe her mom’s a copier, too.”
“Or maybe her mom just liked the same name I liked.”
“Why did you like my name?”
For a moment, Rebecca was silent as she considered her answer. In the four years since she’d found a baby in the bathtub of her grandmother’s house, she’d gotten good at telling little lies to explain her daughter’s presence, because telling the truth would have been dangerous. Babies don’t appear out of nowhere through human means, and any baby that appeared through nonhuman means would be suspect. And might be taken into custody by the government, on suspicion of being a surrogate. Or at least a cryptid.
So Rebecca had told her lies and kept her secrets, to protect the child in her care. A child who’d been unwanted both by her birth mother and by the cryptid woman who’d removed her from an unwelcoming home. That poor child had lost everything before she was even old enough to hold her head up, and the least Rebecca could do was let her keep her real name. Her only connection to the life she’d been ripped from as an infant.
Elizabeth.
“I saw it written somewhere, and I just knew it was your name.”
The name had been written on her daughter’s original birth certificate, which Rebecca had spent several weeks tracking down. Though Charity Marlow had called her toddler Delilah, the baby she’d given birth to had been named Elizabeth.
“Why is your new job in Oklahoma?” Beth asked, and Rebecca was relieved by how quickly and easily distracted the four-year-old still was by her own endless series of questions. “Why can’t you teach kids in Tennessee?”
“I probably could. But I thought you and I could use a fresh start.”
“But why?”
“Because I finally graduated. Remember the ceremony? Remember all the people throwing black hats?”
Beth nodded solemnly. “I threw my hat, too. But then I couldn’t find it.”
“Well, that’s why we’re moving. Because I graduated and Grandma Janice is going to live in a special place with other people her age. So this is the perfect time for us to put down roots someplace new.” In a cute little town just half an hour from Franklin, Oklahoma, where Delilah Marlow lived with the woman who chose her over Elizabeth. Where Rebecca’s new teaching job might give her an occasional glimpse of the baby sister she’d lost, then found, then given up.
Where she might be able to watch over Delilah—even if only from afar.
Delilah
“Delilah, that isn’t even possible,” Lenore insisted. “You are ten years too young to have been the baby exchanged for Erica Essig, or any other surrogate.”
