“She’s gorgeous,” Miles said, coming up beside his son, cupping the baby’s small head in his long surgeon’s hand.
Jude looked down into her granddaughter’s small face, and time seemed to fall away.
For a second, she was a young mother herself, with a baby in each arm and Miles beside her.
Grace looked exactly like Mia.
The same bow-shaped lips and muddy blue eyes that would turn green, the same pointed chin and white-blond eyelashes. Jude drew back instinctively.
“Mom?” Zach said, looking up at her. “Do you want to hold her?”
Jude started to shake. The cold in her heart radiated out to her fingers, and she wished she’d brought a coat. “Of course.” She made herself smile and reach out, taking Mia—no, Grace—in her arms, holding her close.
Love her, she thought desperately, beginning to panic. Feel something.
But there was nothing. She stared down at her own granddaughter, this baby who looked enough like Mia to fool anyone, and Jude felt nothing at all.
*
Physically, Lexi healed quickly. Her boobs shrank back to their normal size, and her milk dried up. Within a month, a few pale silvery lines on her lower belly were the only evidence that she’d ever had a child.
She felt as faded as those marks. Pregnancy had changed her. A girl named Alexa Baill had gone into that hospital, chained to a bed, and given birth to the most beautiful baby in the world. She’d seen the boy she loved one last time. And then it was all gone, and an older, wiser Lexi had come back to Purdy.
Before, she’d been fragile, even hopeful; she saw that now, the way you saw a missing fence post. The lack stood out. She’d been damaged, broken by the terrible thing she’d done, but she’d believed in redemption, in the power of justice. She’d thought that going to prison would be an atonement and that with atonement she could be forgiven.
What a crock.
Her lawyer had been right. She should have fought the charges, said she was sorry and young and stupid.
Instead, she’d done the right thing and been crushed. She’d lost everything that mattered to her, but nothing hurt more than the loss of her child.
In the two months since Grace’s birth, Lexi had tried to hold on to who she was, but the best parts of her were draining away. Day after day, she attempted to write letters to her daughter, and each new failure stripped away a piece of her, until now there was so little left she felt transparent. Especially today.
She was in the yard, sitting on a bench beneath a pale denim sky. Over to her left, some khaki-clad women were playing basketball. The trees outside the prison were in full, vibrant bloom. Every now and then a pink blossom floated over the skeletal mountain of razor wire and landed on the ground like an impossibly kept promise.
“You look like someone who could use a boost.”
Lexi looked up. The woman standing there had a carrot-colored crew cut and a blue kerchief tied around her shorn head. A snake tattoo peeked out from her collar. She was a stocky woman with powerful hands and skin that looked like someone had scrubbed at her cheeks with steel wool.
Lexi knew who this woman was. Everyone did. Her nickname, Smack, said it all.
Lexi got slowly to her feet. In all the time she’d been here, she’d never spoken to Smack. There was only one reason women befriended Smack, and once you started talking to her, you never stopped.
“I can make your pain go away,” Smack said.
Lexi knew it was wrong, dangerous to listen to that promise, but she couldn’t help herself. This pain of hers was unbearable, especially today. “How much?”
Smack smiled slowly, revealing black, ugly teeth. Meth. Mouths like that were a dime a dozen in here. “For the first time? A sweet thing like you? I think—”
“You get the hell away from her, Smack.”
Lexi saw Tamica barreling this way like a mama grizzly bear. She put a paw-sized hand on Lexi’s chest and pushed her aside hard. Lexi stumbled, almost fell. She regained her balance quickly and surged forward. “This is my business, Tamica. You can’t tell me what to do.”
Tamica went toe-to-toe with Smack. “Back off or I’ll take you apart like cheap-ass furniture.”
Lexi pushed in between the women. “I need it,” she said to Tamica, almost pleading. “I can’t stand it anymore. I don’t want to feel anything.”
“Hold out your hand,” Smack whispered.
“No,” Tamica said. “I won’t let you do this, hermana.”
Lexi made a roaring, wailing sound of pure unadulterated pain and punched Tamica in the nose.