Then Molly leaned forward and put her hand over Sandy’s. And there were the tears in Sandy’s eyes again—seriously? Was this all it took? For some nice, normal-looking woman to be a little bit kind to her, and she totally fell apart?

“Okay,” Sandy said, and that was all she could manage. She nodded and turned toward the window.

“But, Sandy, whatever happened to the baby—and I’m not saying it was you—whoever, whatever was involved. These things don’t just go away, no matter how much you hope they will. And the harder you try to force them down, the harder they push their way back to the surface. I’m saying that from personal experience.” Molly looked sad. “It can help if you tell someone what happened. I can be that person for you, Sandy. And I’m a lawyer—or I used to be a lawyer. I can be your lawyer for the purposes of this. That way no one can make me tell them what you told me. All you have to say is that you want me to be your lawyer.”

“I want you to be my lawyer,” Sandy said.

But that wasn’t what she was thinking. She was thinking: I want you to be my mother.

Sandy hadn’t wanted to go to Hannah’s house for their tutoring session. She’d been hoping she’d never have to see where Hannah lived, never have to feel all that cozy love pouring out from the walls. But Hannah had said she was stuck home, watching her brother. She offered to reschedule, but Sandy wasn’t ready for her math quiz, and if she wasn’t prepared, if it didn’t seem like she’d tried, Rhea would be crushed.

The house was basically the nightmare Sandy had dreaded. Nothing fancy, like Aidan’s, but cheerful as all fuck. To-do lists and chore charts and newspaper articles labeled with Post-its and highlighting. There was one of those personalized calendars, with pictures of Hannah and Cole and a big red circle around March 31: “Hannah’s Recital!”

“My parents won’t be home for at least an hour and a half, and Cole’s watching TV. If it’s okay with you, could we study here at the table? In case he needs anything?” Hannah moved a stack of place mats and a little vase of flowers, then dropped her books in the center of the table. “Do you want something to drink or anything?”

“I’m good,” Sandy said. She just wanted to get the whole thing over with and get the hell out of that house. Because it was so fucking hard to breathe in there. It was how Sandy always felt whenever she was anywhere too normal for too long. Like someone was crushing her chest in a vise.

They were about half an hour in when Hannah went to check on her little brother. “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Do these problems while I’m gone.”

But Hannah was gone forever. Long enough for Sandy to do all the problems and then wait and wait for her to come back. Sandy listened to see if she could hear Hannah talking to her brother, but there was only the sound of the TV. It wasn’t until Sandy checked her phone that she realized more than fifteen minutes had passed. They needed to finish before Hannah’s parents got home. It was one thing for Sandy to deal with being in Hannah’s house, but she wouldn’t be able to cope chatting up her parents.

After a few more minutes, Sandy didn’t have a choice. She had to look for Hannah. Though it wouldn’t be some kind of disaster if Cole saw Sandy, she was hoping to avoid talking to the kid, too.

When she peeked out into the living room, Hannah’s brother was sprawled out asleep on the couch, light off, TV on. Hannah was nowhere in sight. Where the hell had she gone? Sandy made her way around the rest of the downstairs looking for her, wanting to call out but not wanting to wake the kid. And she hated the feeling of going somewhere in the house she hadn’t specifically been invited. If something got stolen, guess who would be to blame?

At last Sandy spotted a door with a light on underneath it. The bathroom. “Are you okay?” she called through the door, knocking gently.

Hannah didn’t answer, but Sandy could hear this noise inside, a steady thud, thud, thud.

“Hannah?” she called again. “What the hell are you doing in there? I’m going to have to take off soon.”

Thud, thud, thud, quiet. Thud, thud, thud.

“Hello?” Sandy called more loudly when Hannah didn’t answer. “Jesus. I’m going to open the door, okay?”

Sandy turned the doorknob, waiting for it to be locked. In which case, she’d just go, before Hannah’s parents got home. But the door wasn’t locked. Sandy pushed it slowly, waiting for Hannah to shout for her to stop, to say that she needed privacy. That she would be out in a minute.

There was no shout. No Hannah. Nothing except thud, thud, thud.

Sandy saw the puddle of bright red paint first. It was on the white tile floor, coming from behind the door. She saw it on the toilet, too, as she pushed open the door. More paint. On more of the floor. What the hell was paint doing all over the place? Hannah was painting something?

Not paint. It’s not paint. Sandy was thinking those words before she could figure out what they meant. Not paint. She was still pushing open the door. And there was more and more of it, there was red all over everything.

Blood.

It’s blood.

And then there was Hannah, crouched on the floor in the corner behind the door, naked from the waist down, rocking so hard that her elbows kept whacking against the tile wall behind her, thud, thud, thud. Her face was snow-white and still. Her hands were clenched into blood-covered fists. And there on the floor next to her was a pile of lumpier blood and something else coiled.

Attached to it was something that looked like a baby, except it was grayish-purple. Covered in blood and white waxy-looking stuff, too. And not moving.

“Holy fuck!” Sandy said, rushing over, slipping on the blood-slicked floor. She grabbed the towel ring, almost ripping it off the wall. “Hannah, what happened?”

Hannah just kept rocking.

“Are you okay?”

“I tried to get the cord off her neck,” she whispered finally. “I did it. I did. But it was so . . . my fingers kept . . .” She stared out. “Slipping. But she was alive for a minute.” Hannah gazed up at Sandy, her face equal parts wonder and horror. “She opened her eyes. She looked right at me.”

“We have to call an ambulance.” Sandy looked down at her blood-soaked shoes.

“She’s going to kill me.” Hannah clamped a hand over her mouth suddenly. Like the thought of her mother had only just occurred to her. “She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill me.”

“But you’re bleeding.” Sandy pointed toward the floor. Her hands were trembling. “And the—” She was going to say “baby.” But one look at the gray-purple skin and it was obvious that if she’d ever been alive, the baby was long past saving.

“She’s going to kill me.” Hannah lurched toward Sandy, wrapping her bloody hands around Sandy’s wrists. Her eyes were huge. “Please, you have to help me. She’s going to kill me.”

All Sandy had was questions. Did Hannah know she was pregnant? Did she hide it on purpose? Did she invite Sandy over because she knew she was going to have a baby? Who the hell was the father? What about that saving-herself-for-marriage bullshit? All of it, lies.

But then, Sandy knew about lies. The weird way they had of seeming just like the truth. And she knew about being scared and feeling so totally alone that you pray you’ll disappear. Sandy looked around at the bloody floor. And again at Hannah, a girl who’d never been anything but nice to her. Who’d tried to help her when most people never bothered. Hannah wasn’t a strong person. She wouldn’t be able to do this alone. And she was right about her mother—she was going to kill Hannah.

But Sandy could do this. She could sweep up all these broken pieces. She could clean up somebody else’s mess, like she’d done for Jenna a thousand times before. And so Sandy sucked in some air and swallowed down all of it—the fear, the blood, the actual dead human baby on the floor, inches away from her.