“What’s this for?” I asked.
“St. Francis is the patron saint of the archdiocese of Denver,” she explained. “And last year I found out he’s also the patron saint against dying alone. I think that’s the worst way to die, so I keep this as a… well, it helps me remember why I do what I do. No one should have to die alone.”
She paused for a moment and then recited the words I’d read the day before from Keats’s poem about the pot of basiclass="underline" “‘For Isabel, sweet Isabel, will die; will die a death too lone and incomplete.’ When you read that yesterday, I thought of the pendant, but I kept forgetting to give it to you.”
“I can’t take this, it’s-”
“Please. I thought that if you had this at Basque’s trial, it wouldn’t hurt. I don’t know… I just… As a reminder. I want you to have it. I can get another one easy enough.”
Even though she’d mentioned yesterday that she’d gone to Catholic school, I could see now that she was much more devoted to her faith than I would have guessed. She must have noticed my surprise because she said, “What’s wrong?”
“I’m just a little… I didn’t know you were so religious.”
“Hard to pigeonhole, remember?”
“Right.” I didn’t really believe in relics, praying to saints, or good luck charms, but the gesture meant a lot to me. “Thank you.” I slipped the pendant into my pocket.
A moment passed. “Well,” she said. “I’m going to swing over to visit Kelsey Nash, see how she’s doing; then maybe check in with the officers who are keeping an eye on Bryant.”
I realized that my feelings for Cheyenne were growing stronger and more intense by the hour, and I began to wonder how much the stress from the case might be affecting my attraction to her-maybe my heart was reaching out to her because it needed something she seemed to offer-comfort, strength, intimacy. Probably all three.
“I’ll have Tessa’s cell with me,” I said. “Keep me up to speed, OK?”
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
I gave her the number, and she programmed it into her phone. She looked like she wanted to say more.
I hated to consider the possibility that I was using her as a crutch, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was.
“I should go,” I said hastily.
“Yeah.”
Then, before the conversation could slip into anything more personal, I said a hurried good-bye and left for my car.
And I didn’t look back because I was afraid she might be watching me, and even though part of me hoped that she was, another part of me had started to wonder if it might be better for both of us if she wasn’t.
Tessa reached the entry dated November 15 of her mother’s sophomore year at the University of Minnesota-just two months before she was conceived.
And her mom was still seeing Brad.
Tessa didn’t know if he was her father, but it was appearing more and more likely that he was, and whenever she read his name she began to feel that old mixture of pain, anger, and heartache that she felt whenever she thought of her absentee dad.
Then she read:
November 29
No, no, no, no, no!
So he tells me today he likes this other girl, that he’s just “not into me anymore.” Not into me anymore??!! We’ve been going out for six months! And why did he have to tell me he likes someone else? Why couldn’t he have just said it’s over? Why did he have to mention her The entry ended abruptly, but then her mother spent the next dozen or so entries sorting through her feelings about the breakup, and Tessa discovered that her mom had done pretty much the same things she did when she broke up with a guy-ranted, cried, pretended that she’d never liked him in the first place, and then found another guy a little too quickly and fell for him a little too hard.
And that’s what happened to her mother on December 20th.
This guy’s name was Paul.
Tessa felt a wisp of fear and anticipation flutter through her, and she just couldn’t wait anymore. She had to know. She scanned the pages. Raced through the next few weeks.
Into January-her mother broke up with Paul. But they’d slept together a few times. So, unless there was someone else she hadn’t written about Then February, March.
Her mom had started getting queasy, sick more and more often. Yes, it has to be him.
April.
She’d missed her last couple periods, wasn’t ready for exams, just wanted vacation to come and was trying to find a job for the summer If there was someone else, if she’d slept with someone else, she would have said so…
And then Tessa read the entry her mother had written on May 5th, and the world tipped upside down.
Dear Diary,
This morning I found out I’m pregnant. It’s Paul’s. I don’t know what to do. I can’t have a baby. I can’t! This was the worst day of my life.
And Tessa sat motionless, speechless, staring at the page.
Obviously it would be hard for a teenager to hear that she’s going to be a single mom. Obviously. Tessa knew that. But still, the words knifed through her.
“This was the worst day of my life.”
Her throat tightened so much that she could barely breathe, and her fingers were shaking as she turned the page.
But the next entry was not written by her mother.
Instead, it was a handwritten letter pasted onto the page.
A letter from Paul.
82
Christie,
I’m sorry for how things are, for how they’ve been. But please, I’m the father. Don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want-pay the medical bills, help raise the baby, find someone to adopt it, but please don’t do this. Whatever you think of me, I’m a jerk, OK, I’m a loser, but let me do something right here. Let me help. Let me do one good thing. Please, keep our baby.
– Paul
Tessa did not breathe for a long time. She let her eyes walk through the words two, three times.
All of her life she had hated her father, had thought that he didn’t want anything to do with her. So now, even though the main intent of the letter should have probably struck her the most, her initial reaction was shock that her biological father, her real father, had wanted to be part of her life.
His name is Paul.
Your dad’s name is Paul. And he wanted to help raise you.
But then the deeper, more obvious impact of the words settled in.
“Please don’t do this…” he’d written. “I’m the father.”
“I’ll do whatever you want-pay the medical bills, help raise the baby, find someone to adopt it, but please don’t do this.”
“No…” she whispered. “Oh, please no.”
“Keep our baby.”
The truth slammed into her.
Harsh and brutal.
Her mother, the person Tessa had loved and trusted more than anyone else on the planet, had wanted to abort her and her father, the man she’d always hated, had begged to save her life.
83
Everything Tessa had believed about her mother and her father, all of it, everything, had been a lie.
A lie.
A lie The front door to the house banged open, and she heard Patrick’s voice: “Hey, guys. I came to say good-bye.”
He knew about this. He had to have known!
She snatched up the diary and, using her finger to mark the place, stormed downstairs and into the living room. Patrick stood beside the door. “So, Raven, how’s the-”
“What do you know about this?” She held up the diary.
“What do you mean?”
Martha emerged from the kitchen.
“Tell me. Don’t lie to me,” Tessa said to him. “Did you read it?”
“I told you before, I didn’t read it. What’s going on?”
“Did you know about this!” She flipped the diary to Paul’s letter.
“It’s a letter from my dad, my real dad. And he’s telling Mom that he doesn’t want her to get a… a…” Her voice broke apart, and she couldn’t finish her sentence.
Patrick looked at the page but didn’t answer.