“I should go soon,” Hannah said, squatting down next to me after hanging up with her mom. “I feel terrible leaving you, but my parents made these dinner reservations with my sister and our grandparents ages ago. It’s probably the last time Lauren will be out with all of us before she has the baby.” She flinched at baby, a look of guilt flashing across her face. “Is that okay? I’ll stay if you need me to.”

“No, you go.” I patted her hand. “Really. You’ve already helped me so much today. You’ve been so amazing. Beyond amazing. I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Are you . . . are you going to tell your mom now?”

“No.” I shook my head, adamant. “Not tonight at least. I need a little more time by myself to let it all sink in, consider all the possibilities.”

“The possibilities,” she said, nodding. “So do you think . . . Does that mean that you might get an abortion? It might be the easiest way, Meen, as hard as it might be at first.”

“No,” I said, without even pausing to consider. The word sounded surprisingly sure and confident coming out of my mouth. But why? Why was that my answer? Hannah was right: it would be easiest. No one else besides her and Izzy would ever have to know about any of this. Not my parents. Not Nate.

But I would know. I would always know.

And I didn’t think I could live with myself if I made the decision to make it all go away. I didn’t feel as if it was even my choice to make.

“You don’t have to decide right this second, Meen. But think about it, at least. Think about what it would mean for college, and for all your big plans, the books you want to write, the places you want to visit. Where would you get the money? And the kids at school . . . What will you tell them if you keep it? Or even if you give the baby up for adoption, everyone will be asking you for explanations once it’s obvious you’re pregnant.”

It was too much, too many questions all at once, and I wanted to shove my fingers in my ears and scream as loud as I could to drown it all out. But I saw the tears on her cheeks, and I knew that it was only because she loved me. She cared about me too much to watch me throw everything away.

I took a deep breath and squeezed her hand. “I don’t know. I don’t think I can decide anything until I see a doctor and get some actual tests done. I guess I’ll just go from there.”

She nodded, satisfied for the time being. “Promise me you’ll go soon, this week. I’ll go, too, of course. I don’t want you to be alone. And like you said, it really could be something completely different that caused those results. We don’t know anything for sure, not yet.”

“Of course,” I said, though I hated leading her on.

“And promise that you’ll call me absolutely whenever you need to talk. I don’t care if I’m in the middle of dinner. I don’t care if I’m sound asleep. Just call me.”

“Yes, yes, I will. Promise. Now let’s go back to the house. I don’t want you to be late because of me.”

While she folded the blanket, I walked to the creek bank and picked up the tests, stuffed them back into the boxes, and buried them at the bottom of my purse. I glanced up at the tree house one last time—we both did—and then we left, arm in arm, walking back through the trees.

• • •

Hannah was helpful in making excuses to my mom, building up the vicious stomach bug that had struck me down out of nowhere in the middle of our otherwise reportedly perfect picnic. I sat, pale and quiet, at the kitchen table. At least I didn’t have to make any effort to act the part of the poor, sick girl.

“I’m so sorry that your picnic was ruined, girls,” my mom said, resting the back of her hand on my forehead to check for a fever. “And only a few days before school starts, too. Such awful timing.” She pulled back and frowned, her eyes looking misty, before leaning over to kiss the top of my head. She was so delicate, so careful, pecking me as if I was a fragile treasure that could crack under the weight of her lips at any second.

A horn honked from out front, and Hannah’s face looked torn between relief and guilt.

“Have fun tonight, Hannah bear,” I said, catching her eye. I winked at her and mouthed a silent thank-you, and she gave a small, tight smile back, probably more for my mom’s benefit than my own. She didn’t need to bother—my mom was too absorbed in her nursing duties, already taking inventory of whether we had enough saltines and ginger ale to get me through the night.

“Bye, Mina. Bye, Mrs. Dietrich,” Hannah said, another round of honks firing from the driveway.

“Bye bye now, Hannah. Tell your parents I said hello, please, and thanks again for taking care of my Meen today.”

“Of course, Mrs. D. Anything for your daughter,” Hannah said, turning to push open the screen door that led to our side porch. “And, Mina, I’m sure I’ll talk to you soon.”

I nodded to myself as the door closed behind her, leaving me far too alone in the kitchen with my mom.

“Where’s Dad?”

“Picking up Gracie from the birthday party and then bringing a pizza home from Frankie’s for dinner,” she said, distracted, her head buried in the depths of our cluttered, overflowing pantry. “They should be here any minute, actually.”

I didn’t want to see either of them, any of them, not then, not that night.

“I’m going to go lie down,” I said, pushing myself up from the table. “I just want to sleep for a while, and hopefully I’ll feel better when I wake up.”

“Are you sure I can’t make you something first?” She pulled her head out of the cabinet to face me, her brow wrinkled in concern. “Scramble some eggs, maybe? Chicken broth? I’d feel better if you had a little something in you.”

“I’ll take some crackers upstairs with me, okay? I’ll be fine.”

She nodded as she came over to give me a long hug, and I could feel her eyes following me as I disappeared up the narrow winding staircase.

• • •

I lay in bed until long after the sun went down and long after the hum of crickets and the flicker of fireflies started up in the darkness just beyond my window screen. I could have turned on the air conditioner, but I wanted to hear the sounds of the night, the familiar country chorus that made me feel less alone. I had listened, too, as Mom chatted to her sister Vera on the phone downstairs in the kitchen, and as Gracie and Dad laughed their way through Toy Story. I had listened to Gracie’s inevitable grumbling as she was sent upstairs for bedtime against her will. She had tapped on my door a few times, cautiously called out my name. I could hear the worry laced in her soft, sweet voice, but I had still stayed silent, playing the sick girl who was too dead asleep to be disturbed, until she gave up and shuffled off to her room. Finally, sometime after nine, I had heard my parents both come up, brush their teeth, and talk quietly in their room for a few minutes before the bedside lamps clicked off.

After sending a few frantic apology texts to Nate for missing all his calls that day, and explaining how terribly sick I was, I shut off my phone for the night.

I couldn’t think about him or about anyone else right now.

How? How could this be my life? How could this be real?

Miracles, divine intervention, supernatural phenomena, whatever you wanted to label it, didn’t really happen—not in the real world, certainly not in the twenty-first century.

And even if somehow, some way, genuine miracles occurred that were totally inexplicable and defied everything we knew about science and the human body—and there couldn’t be, my mind just couldn’t comprehend that for a second—why would God, or whoever was in control of this decision, pick me? Who was Mina Dietrich in the grand scheme of things?

Sure, I was raised as a Lutheran, and my mom and dad were both fairly religious. I went to church a few times a month and volunteered at Vacation Bible School, more to appease my parents and to be a good role model for Gracie than because of any strict religious code of my own. Some of the stories were interesting and entertaining and all, but that was what they’d always felt like, ever since I was old enough to really think about them on my own—stories. Very old, very distant stories that had never seemed wildly relevant to my personal existence.