I ran across the bare front yard—and what kind of home for a kid didn’t
even have any grass—shoved the car seat onto the front seat of the truck
and jumped in.
“Go!” I yelled at Justin.
He stared at me with his mouth hanging open all stupid. “Jesus, Evie,”
he said. “What the hell did you do?”
“Will you just drive? C’mon. Move the goddamn truck. Go!”
“Go where?”
I leaned across the car seat and smacked his arm. “I don’t care.
Just get us out of here now.”
Finally.
Justin put the truck in gear and pulled away from the curb. I frigged with
the seat belt, trying to thread it through the bottom part of the car seat. The
baby was still asleep.
I got the belt buckled, sat back and fastened my own. We got to the stop sign
where the road from the subdivision crossed the old highway. “That way,”
I said, pointing to the right.
Justin looked over at me. Then he looked at the baby. But he turned and started
up the old river road. “You said you just wanted to see her,” he said.
“So I lied.”
“Evie, you can’t just take someone else’s kid.”
I reached into the car seat and stroked the baby’s cheek with one finger.
It was the softest thing I had ever felt. Bits of dark hair, the same color as
mine, stuck out from under her pink hat. “I didn’t steal someone else’s
kid, Justin,” I said. “She’s mine and I’m keeping her.”
