“Holy shit,” she said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Holy shit. The dates match up to when Lily disappeared, and this girl thinks she’s Lily. She drove up here from Wilmington because she thinks I’m her mother.”

“Is it her?” Haley asked.

“I remember Lily so well,” I said. “I remember her like someone painted her in my brain, and I don’t picture her growing up looking like this girl. And yet—”

“I want to meet her!”

“Are you sure? It’s going to seem weird, Haley. And you don’t know if she’s your sister or not. You have to keep that in mind. Not get your hopes up.”

“I definitely want to meet her. I’ve wanted to meet her my whole life.”

“But she might not be—”

“I want her to be Lily so much!” she said.

I remembered when she was diagnosed with leukemia this time, she told me she wished I had Lily so I wouldn’t be alone if she died. I’d been touched by her bravery. Her generosity. Yet I didn’t want her to feel that way. Not at all.

I reached for her foot where it was covered by the blanket. “You know that no one can ever, ever take your place, right?” I asked.

“Let me meet her, Mom,” she pleaded, shooing me away from her bed with her hands. “Go get her before she disappears again.”



51

Grace


I folded my hands in my lap and sat very still. As freaked out as I was about what might happen next, it was my mother who kept popping into my mind. When would she have figured out I was gone? When would she figure out I wasn’t in Chapel Hill? She would be so worried. She’d call Emerson then, maybe, and Emerson would tell her that I wasn’t really her daughter. My chest hurt just thinking about it and I pressed my hands together hard. My mother would feel totally alone then. No husband. No daughter. She’d think about her real baby, the one who died, and wonder how amazing that baby would have turned out. Probably brilliant, like her dad, and a bubbly social butterfly like her mom. Nothing like the girl they’d ended up with.

But my mother loved me and, right then, I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be able to let her know I was okay, but that I needed to work something out on my own. I was afraid to call her, though. I was going to be in so much trouble.

This Anna woman was cold. I’d expected something totally different. I’d expected her eyes to light up with joy when she heard who I was. I’d expected her to pull me into her arms and be filled with the kind of instant love all mothers had for their children. There’d been none of that. She was suspicious of me and all she really cared about was her other daughter, Haley. I was falling through the cracks between two worlds. My real mother—Anna—had long ago given me up for dead and focused all her love on her other daughter, while the mother who raised me was by now probably grieving for the baby she’d lost.

Mom. Why did I always push her away? She was worried about me. I knew that. She’d be seriously freaking out right now.

I pulled the phone from my backpack and dialed her number. It rang a couple of times before she picked up.

“Hello?” she said, and I could tell with that one word that she was a mess.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Grace! Grace! Where are you? Are you okay? Where are you calling from? You left your phone—”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know that. I have to do something and then I’ll—”

“Are you at Children’s Hospital?”

I didn’t know what to say. How could she know that?

“I’m on my way there with Emerson and Jenny,” she said. “Is that where you are? I love you, Grace. I love you so much. I’ve been so scared, honey.”

“Mom. You don’t have to come here. I’m—” I looked up to see Anna standing in the doorway. “I have to go,” I said, and flipped the phone closed.

“Was that your mother?” Anna asked. “You spoke with her?”

I nodded. The phone rang and I dropped it into my backpack.

“You don’t want to get that?” Anna asked.

I shook my head.

Anna smiled at me. She did have a really nice smile. “Haley would like to meet you, if you’re willing,” she said.

I stood. Anna put an arm around me as we walked into the hall. It felt like the arm of a stranger. She rested it lightly on my back, the way you’d guide someone you didn’t know well from one room to another. My mother’s voice echoed in my ears. I love you, Grace. I love you so much. I smiled a little to myself.

“My mother said she’s coming here,” I said.

“Oh, that’s very good,” Anna said. “We need to get some things straightened out, don’t we? How far away is she?”

“She’s in Wilmington…except she said she was already on her way, so I don’t know how close she is. My best friend and her mother are with her.” I pictured the three of them driving together.

“Here we are,” Anna said. We were back at the door to Haley’s room. “Come on in.”

I followed her into the room and stood just inside the door.

“Haley, this is Grace,” Anna said. “Grace, this is Haley.”

Haley was sitting cross-legged on the bed and she was hooked up to a bunch of bags and poles and wires. She had very short brown hair that had either been shaved that way or was just growing in.

“Hi,” I said.

“Wow, you are so not what I expected Lily to look like,” she said.

I had the feeling I was disappointing both of them. I clutched my backpack to my chest. “Well, I didn’t expect to have a sister, period.” I tried to smile again, but seemed to have lost the ability.

“And you may not have a sister,” Anna warned. “Grace’s mom is on her way here, Haley, so we’ll get some answers then. Right now I’m going to call your dad.” She glanced at me. “Why don’t you have a seat, Grace?” She pointed toward the couch across the room from Haley’s bed. I walked over to it and sat down, still hugging my backpack. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Anna said, and then I was alone with Haley. My phone rang again and I pulled it from my backpack and turned the ringer off.

“Maybe that’s your mother,” Haley said.

“That’s okay.” I wasn’t sure what to say to Haley. I felt sorry for her for being so sick. I knew she was a lot braver than I’d be, hooked up to all that stuff. “How do you feel?” I asked.

“Mom explained the whole thing about the midwife and all that drama,” she said, like I hadn’t asked her a question. Her eyes bored into me while she talked. “You look freezing.”

I was shivering, though I didn’t think it had anything to do with the temperature in the room. “I’m okay,” I said.

“Look under this techno bed,” Haley said. “Grab a blanket to wrap up in.”

I got up and pulled a blanket from the shelf beneath her bed. It was pale blue and soft and I wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Do you really think you’re my sister?” Haley asked.

“Did your mother tell you about the letter?” I reached into my backpack one more time and pulled out the letter. I handed it to her and watched her read it.

“Omigod,” Haley said when she finished the letter. “This is totally crazy! It would be so cool if it’s real, though. I mean, me and my mom have made it, like, our job to find Lily. I never expected her—you—to just pop up like this.”

I took the letter back, folded it in half and slipped it into my backpack.

“What are your parents like?” Haley asked. “The people who raised you? Did you ever feel like you didn’t belong?”

“All the time,” I said, although it wasn’t quite the truth, was it? I’d belonged to my father, just not my mom. “I never felt like ‘oh, I’m adopted’ or anything like that,” I said. “But I don’t get along with my mother at all.”

“What about your father?”

“He died in a car accident in March. One of my mother’s students—she’s a teacher—killed him because she was texting while she was driving.”

“Holy shit,” Haley said. “That’s so terrible!” A machine on one of the poles next to her bed started beeping and she turned off the sound with a push of a button, like it was no big deal. “I never really knew my father until now,” she said. “I mean, I knew who he was and everything, but he left when I was little. When I got sick this time, he sort of showed up. I actually like him. I mean, I’m pissed at how he wasn’t around for most of my life, even though he sent money and everything, but Mom says he was just really immature and he couldn’t take it when I got sick so he just pulled out of the picture. First Lily disappeared and my mom was sick and all that was hard for him to handle, and then I got sick and it was too much for him, which totally screwed up my respect for him. I mean, my mom didn’t have the luxury of walking out, right? But he’s back now and he’s trying to be a dad. He’s doing this big drive to try to find bone marrow donors for me.”

“He’s my father, too,” I said, still shivering beneath the blanket.

“If you’re Lily, then, yeah,” she said.

I thought of how that must feel to Haley. She finally got a relationship going with her father and then this strange girl shows up to claim part of him. “I didn’t ask for this,” I said. “I’m not trying to step on your toes or anything. I just need to—”

“Hey, chill,” Haley said. She was smiling. “If you’re Lily, we want you, okay? We’ve prayed to find you. Or, at least, I have. My mom doesn’t really pray, but I’ve been looking for you since I was a little kid.”

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Almost thirteen.”

I couldn’t believe she was more than three years younger than me. She was pale and a little puffy and it was clear she was sick, but she seemed so together. So confident and sure of herself, like Jenny. I already felt in competition with her and I’d known her five minutes. “You’re so…you’re not like me at all,” I said.