“Are you jealous?”
“Of course! Jealous and hurt and overwhelmed and—” And just like that, Olivia cracks open wide, sobbing, the fa?ade dropped. She hates herself for breaking down, and that makes her cry harder. Finally, she chokes out the rest.
“The worst thing is, I don’t even blame him. I wanted him to do this. I asked him to. Yes, he should have told me, yes, he was trying to protect me, my feelings, my inadequacies. But I was the one who suggested it in the first place. And now the police are digging into our lives, and it’s just so damn unfair.”
“Being infertile is not an inadequacy, Olivia.”
“Whatever. I’m just so upset with him, and really, I have no right to be.”
Benedict makes a noise in the back of her throat. “You have no right to feel betrayed that your husband didn’t tell you flat out that he had donated years before when you, realizing you might never be able to bear him a child, offered that gift to him? No, don’t argue with me. It was a gift, a damn gracious one, too, and he should have told you right then and there. No question about it. Do you understand why he didn’t? Why he’s hidden this incredible secret from you?”
“He didn’t want to hurt me.”
“Exactly. So why do you want to be hurt, Olivia? Why do you want to be punished?”
Olivia blows out a breath. “That’s harsh.”
“It’s true. You’re punishing yourself for not being able to hold on to a pregnancy. You’re punishing yourself for something completely out of your control.” A quick glance over Olivia’s shoulder. “I hate to end on that note, but our time is up. Please, do me a favor and think about this. Think about why you want to blame yourself for a biological glitch. Would you blame yourself if you got diabetes? If you caught a cold?”
“This is different.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She stands, and Olivia, who has shredded a tissue into confetti in her lap, stands as well, gathering the tiny pieces into her hand.
“Can I give you a hug?
It is the first time Dr. Benedict has offered more than a handshake or a box of tissues, and the gentleness of it nearly breaks Olivia in two. But she holds on, the tears thankfully staying away.
“Strength,” Dr. Benedict whispers, and sees her to the door.
Strength. Yes, she’d had another tragedy. Yes, Park has betrayed her. Yes, they are inside a snow globe of personal drama that is about to be shaken, hard.
But Olivia is not a weak woman. She is not going to let circumstance rule her. She’s going to try, at least.
In the car, she checks her messages, sees nothing from Lindsey but one from the fertility clinic. She plays the message—it’s Dr. Jameson. So many doctors.
“Hi, Olivia. Brigit told me you miscarried. She said it was complete, but why don’t you come on in and let us take a look, just to be sure. Put our minds at ease. And we can talk about our next steps. This was the last embryo for this cycle, so we could try a simple IUI since your body is all tuned up or discuss another round of stims and egg retrieval. Either way, whatever you decide, let me know and I’ll make a spot for you in the schedule. Hang in there.”
Olivia’s new life, reduced to a thirty-second voice mail.
The decision hits like a lightning strike—no more! No more interference. No more pills and shots and hope and dreams. No more feeling inadequate, no more pitying glances from Park. She can’t keep on like this.
She is not going to be a mother, and she will simply need to come to terms with it.
Her heart is pounding, and she has the urge to weep, but there’s relief there, too. She’s been torturing herself—let’s not pretend fertility treatments are anything to laugh at—but it’s not that. Desire conflated with stubborn pride is a corrosive beast.
She takes a deep, shuddery breath. You’re okay. Strength.
24
THE DAUGHTER
The halls of the school are buzzing with girls in hunter-green plaid uniform skirts and white button-downs. Scarlett moves among them, smiling and laughing, waving to her English teacher as he leaves for the day, hugging her BFFs, before they all pile into her car for the after-school Starbucks tradition.
So normal. So right. This is what being a teenage girl is supposed to look like—beautiful, carefree, surrounded by excitement and energy, leggy colts just coming into their sexual and intellectual powers.
She shakes her head, and the fantasy dissipates. Yes, she is standing in the halls of the school, but there is no one with her. She is alone, as usual. She’s never felt like she fit in here. Maybe because she doesn’t come from the deep pockets of Southern money, maybe because she’s not good at playing the game and kissing the ring, maybe because she doesn’t have the completeness of a family unit—who knows? She doesn’t have any super-close friends, only a few geeky girls like her who smile and chat during chemistry labs. She eats alone, she goes to Starbucks after school alone. She pretends it doesn’t bother her, that she doesn’t need the companionship of a pod of girls, but sometimes, seeing them screaming and falling all over each other and laughing, it hurts.
She’s still not sure what she did that set her apart. Things had started well. She wore the same hairstyle—as much as she could manage with her curls—she wore the right shoes, had the right phone and case and pop socket, watch, even her own car, though not a Mercedes or BMW or Wrangler. There used to be invitations, there used to be open seats. Sometime, somehow, over the past few months, that’s changed, and she can’t pinpoint what she did wrong.
Maybe she’s too smart. Her grades always have been off the charts, and smart women who don’t play the game can be terrifying to their peers. She’s always been more comfortable behind the screen of her computer or the pages of a book.
Maybe it’s her mom. The weirdness started after a sleepover she’d hosted. She’d thought the night went great—Peyton had even shown up. Her handsome, friendly, already-off-to-college brother had been mooned over by several of the girls. Maybe he never returned their texts. Maybe that upset them. But one by one, they started peeling off until it was just her again.
It doesn’t matter. Another two years and she’s out of here entirely. And now she’s found another family, and who needs the approval of the Chastains and Gillians and Ashleighs of the world when you have actual sisters and brothers to discover?
Scarlett skips her normal after school-coffee—there she is again, lingering by the sweetener and milk, hoping someone asks her to join them, titter, titter—and uses the library’s computer to do some more research. She doesn’t want her mother hanging over her shoulder. Now that Darby knows, now that she has Scarlett’s password, she needs to find another path to her family.
She knows the email addresses of a couple of the Halves by heart. She opens a fresh email account, sends them notes—my mom busted me, she knows about the Halves, so do the police, and they’re looking for the one of us who killed that woman—careful not to share that she is the one who ratted them out, then digs into one of the databases she’s been using and looks at the group’s structure.
There’s a new match. Her heart flutters. Another girl, another sister, and she’s sixteen, too. These shadow selves are fascinating to her. There are now four of them, sweet-sixteen half sisters. Scarlett sends her a message—Hi, don’t want to shock you, but I’m your half sister. Want to chat?—and leaves her new email address.