Picture Perfect

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Epilogue

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Prologue (#ue3922b53-1c39-52b3-a21e-b444c5ff5ebd)

Los Angeles11 May, 1996

The girl shivered and hugged her new baby closer to her chest. It had been a restless night in the hospital room, her friend shifting uncomfortably in the hard plastic chair, while the baby snuffled into her chest, trying to find the source of the scent of milk.

She felt sick, but she wanted it finished. Every second she was with the baby was another second that might change her mind.

Her friend sat watching her, her slim legs in skintight jeans, chewing gum and sipping from the can of Mountain Dew she’d bought from the vending machine down the hall. She was swinging one foot, a habit that her friend knew came from nerves, not restlessness.

‘She’s gonna have a real nice life,’ her friend said for the millionth time.

‘I know,’ she answered numbly.

‘Better than anything we ever had.’

The baby stirred and she shifted her up onto her shoulder, and she felt her breasts ache. She was bottle-feeding, as they had all agreed, but her body yearned for the feel of her baby on her skin.

Her milk was coming in, the nurses had told her this morning, as the baby rubbed her little face against the bare skin on her neck.

Skin hungry, she thought, her tired mind recalling what she’d read about babies trying to bond with their mothers.

Is this what love feels like? she wondered, and then she felt the let-down of her milk, soaking her one good T-shirt.

‘Goddammit,’ she said and stood up from the bed. ‘Take her, I have to dry this,’ and she handed over the warm bundle.

Her friend took the baby with the confidence of someone who had grown up around younger children.

‘Hush now, little one,’ she said to the babe, and started singing about Jesus.

All her friend’s songs were about Jesus, thought the girl as she went into the bathroom and plugged in the hairdryer from the cupboard under the sink. This was a real nice hospital, with fancy toiletries and hairdryers in each room. Better than the apartment she shared with her friend. She waved the hot air over her milk-stained T-shirt. She saw the milk had left a shadow of two eyes on her front.

Proverbs 15:3, she thought. The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

What was he thinking as he watched her now?

A knock at the door made her jump and drop the hairdryer.

‘Give her to me,’ she said, rushing out and snatching the baby back. Time is precious, don’t waste a moment, she heard the preacher say in her head.

Her friend walked to the door and opened it. ‘Hi there,’ she said, like she was about to serve them at the Pick ‘n’ Mix candy store.

She heard the woman’s breathless voice answering and she walked to the window and stared out unseeingly at the parking lot.

If the Lord was watching her, and he knew how she was feeling, then he would have found another way, wouldn’t he?

‘Sweetheart?’

Turning slowly, she saw the woman who was about to become her baby’s new mother.

The first time she met the woman she had been a tired, scared teenager, heavy with this child. Everything had ached.

Now everything ached for a different reason.

This woman had everything she didn’t and she had the one thing the woman couldn’t have.

Too old to adopt, the agencies had said.

The woman didn’t look at her, just at the beautiful baby in her arms.

‘How is she doing today?’ she asked, lines of worry and age on her face.

And here was she, too young to keep the baby without family support.

Who was anyone to say this woman shouldn’t have a baby just because she was older? It was unfair, but then the girl had always known life was unfair.

The woman didn’t dress like anyone she knew. No one in her life wore smart suits or scarves, not even in church.

The baby mewed. Though the girl’s breasts still yearned for the sweet mouth of the baby, she held her out to the woman.

‘Do you want to hold her?’ she asked shyly.

The woman pounced on the baby and cooed and clucked her tongue at the child.

‘She’s perfect,’ she said, looking up with tears in her eyes as she took her from the arms of the young mother.

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ she said quietly. ‘Not even a teeny, tiny baby.’

But the woman didn’t seem to notice anything but the baby.