Giftchild Read Online Free Page B

family's life—year one: dating, year two: marriage, year three: adoption of Athena and me. And then year four, the year I turned ten. The first pregnancy.
    Things hadn't changed much since then.
    "Dad wouldn't have dumped anyone over a text message," I said. "Then or now."
    "Not as an adult. Maybe in high school. Boys that young just aren't capable of commitment."
    Mom would know. My biological father split when I was just a baby. "Yeah," I said. "Kara's a mess."
    "How long had she been dating this guy?"
    "A year."
    Mom groaned again.
    "Yeah. She sobbed for three days, and then she saw him making out with some freshman in the quad."
    Mom turned to me. "And that made her cry less?"
    "It made her angry, which is an improvement over weepy."
    Mom gave a sharp nod. "That's what I need," Mom said. "Someone to be angry at."
    "Lily," I said. The name was out of my mouth before I realized it was an inappropriate thing to say.
    "No," Mom said. "I can't be mad at her for loving her baby."
    Mom would have let her love Anna. That's what the open adoption was for. "Well, I think she's crazy for not wanting you to be Anna's mom."
    "You have to say that," Mom said. "You're my daughter."
    I stabbed a finger in the air. "Not true. Most people at school hate their mothers."
    "Ah, right," Mom said. "Maybe you should try that. Tell me you hate me. Be a normal teenager for once."
    "Nah," I said. "I'll save that for a text message."
    For a moment, I thought Mom might smile. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, but then they wilted down again. "We should both go to bed," she said. "I'm exhausted, and you have that test tomorrow."
    "Okay," I said. We kept swinging for a moment longer. I tried to think of the perfect thing to say—something that would really make her feel better. There were no perfect words. I already knew that. We'd been through this before.
    "You are the best mom ever," I said.
    I sounded like a greeting card, but Mom didn't care. She wrapped an arm around me and pulled me into her shoulder. "Love you," she said.
    And I knew that didn't make everything better, but it certainly didn't make it worse.
    We climbed the stairs together, and when Mom opened the door to her bedroom, I could see that Dad still had the light on. Mom closed the door behind her and their voices talked in quiet murmurs; I couldn't hear what they were saying.
    I went into the bathroom, and closed the door behind me, leaning against it in the dark. The latch rattled against the door frame.
    My family couldn't do this anymore. We'd all had enough of believing that this next time would be the right one, that Mom would finally get to have more kids. She'd had Athena when she was my age, married her high school boyfriend, and then had me two years later. They'd lived in his parents' basement until he'd left her, and then she'd spent five years as a single parent, doing daycare to pay the bills. Mom thought when she married Dad that she'd finally get to have the big family she always wanted, but that didn't work out, not through fertility treatments or adoption.
    We couldn't let another birth mom into our home. I couldn't pretend that one more girl my age was supposed to be like a sister to me. I couldn't watch Mom try to open her heart to another one, like she was her daughter.
    I was already her daughter. And if I were pregnant right now, I'd choose Mom and Dad to parent that baby in a second.
    I flipped on the light and looked at myself in the mirror. Lily was only six months older than me, so she'd been younger than me when she got pregnant. If she'd given Mom the baby, she could have done anything she wanted after.
    Mom needed a pregnant girl who didn't want to keep her baby. She needed someone who loved her enough to make her a mother again, since she and Dad couldn't. And if love for a baby was that strong—if someone who liked us as much as Lily did couldn't make the sacrifice—then Mom needed someone who loved her so much that she could.
    Someone just