Page 72 of A Thousand Little Goodbyes

“And you won’t tell her, right? Not ever? No matter what?”

Of all the rules Scarlett had attached to the upcoming adoption, that was the one Chrissie had caviled about the hardest. In almost every other regard, she and Chrissie were on the same page. The name Kathleen—to honor her grandmother—had been an easy one. The apartment in Medford and the funds from the life insurance payout had been transferred with just a few quick phone calls. Even Scarlett’s plan to go to Paris, albeit on her own, had been surprisingly drama-free. Instead of balking at being left to care for a newborn baby all by herself, Chrissie had voiced her wholehearted approval.

“The entire point of this is so you can live your life, Scarlett,” she’d said as they’d shopped together for all the things the two of them would need—diapers and baby bottles for Chrissie, luggage and a Frenchtranslation guide for Scarlett. “If your life requires exotic world travel and endless adventure for the next fifty years, then I’m all in. Just don’t forget to call sometimes.”

Which was why it had been such a surprise when the one thing Chrissie couldn’t understand—the thing shewouldn’tunderstand—was Scarlett’s need to cut all ties to this child.

“The moment I put her in your arms, she’s yours,” Scarlett said now. She was desperate—not just to get this baby out of her, but to hear Chrissie confirm one more time that she could walk away after all this was done.

Guiltless. Untethered.Free.

“Please, Chrissie. I can’t tell her. I’d never want her to think that I—”

She screamed then, but not from the pain. This was frustration, pure and simple.

“You don’t have to say anything more,” Chrissie said when the sound finally ebbed away. “I promise. If that’s what you need to get through this, then I’ll do it. I’ll never tell her anything about her real birth mom.”

That moment marked the first true rift in their friendship. Chrissie didn’t feel it, since she was busy scooping ice chips and holding them to Scarlett’s lips, but Scarlett felt it twinge inside of her, so deep that she knew the baby must have felt it, too.

What she couldn’t seem to put into words, no matter how many times she tried, was that she knew exactly how this baby would feel if Chrissie told her the truth about her parentage. To grow up knowing that her mother didn’t want her, that her mother hadneverwanted her, would ruin any chance the poor little scrap had of real happiness.

She knew because she’d lived that feeling every day of her life. Chrissie might be able to forgive and forget, to somehow become a better person despite her upbringing, but this child had Scarlett’s blood. She’d resent the woman who gave her away and spend her wholelife wondering what it was that had made her so difficult to love.

“Let’s see how things are progressing, shall we?” asked the nurse as she stepped into the room. Scarlett tried not to react as her legs were pried open and an intrusive hand shoved between then, but when these actions were accompanied by an excited “I do believe we’re ready to get this show on the road,” she cried.

She continued crying for the next twenty minutes as people shouted at her to push and told her how brave she was being. She cried as her insides were ripped out of her body, followed by a gushing sensation that felt like a waterslide pouring through her. She cried even more when a warm, wet, squirming bundle was mistakenly placed on her chest instead of being handed to Chrissie.

The nurse must have realized her mistake because she immediately snatched the baby away.

“No—wait,” Scarlett cried. “Give her back for a second.”

Even though the most important and highly underlined part of the birth plan had directed every staff member to give the baby to Chrissie, to defer to Chrissie’s wishes, to treat Chrissie as the most important person in the room at every turn, Scarlett tossed all of that aside the moment she caught sight of that red, squished, angry little face.

Nothing about what had just happened to her was a miracle. There were still people doing unmentionable things to her body, and her baby was covered in a slimy substance that smelled just as unmentionable. So far from being an angelic vision, the baby looked like she wanted nothing more than to tell the people in the room exactly what she thought about the horrible treatment she’d just undergone.

It was that look that halted Scarlett in her tracks.

“I feel the exact same way, kid,” Scarlett said, unable to stop herself. “What did either of us do to deservethat?”

“You can change your mind, you know.” Chrissie flicked a finger to touch the baby’s wet cheek. In the back of her mind, Scarlett realizedthat Chrissie’s face was equally wet, streaked with tears that none of them had heard fall, but the way she smiled down at them indicated nothing but complete joy. “Women do sometimes. I read about it, and I’m not going to hold you to any promises except the ones you choose to keep.”

“I don’t want to keep her,” Scarlett said quickly—too quickly, her voice harsh enough to cause the baby to let out a protesting squall. “I just want a second to tell her something.”

The baby squirmed awkwardly in her arms, as if aware that the person holding her had no idea what she was doing. But then she blinked and looked up at Scarlett, and everything shifted.

The amount of love—of trust—in that gaze was almost more than she could bear.

“I wasn’t going to do this,” she told the baby in a low voice. She was dimly aware of the medical staff stepping out of the room to leave her with Chrissie and the baby, but it didn’t matter. Privacy had gone out the window the moment she’d put her feet in the stirrups, and any respect the nurses had for her had disappeared once they realized she was really and truly going to hand her baby off to her eighteen-year-old best friend to raise on her own. “I was going to give you to your mom without a word so you wouldn’t get attached to my voice. It seemed safer that way…for us both.”

Chrissie made a motion to follow the rest of the staff into the hallway but Scarlett gave a slight shake of her head. What she had to say was for Chrissie’s benefit almost as much as the baby’s—Kathleen Genevieve Thomas, a big name for a small person, and the only thing Scarlett planned to give her before she ran away as fast and as far as her legs would take her.

“I’m sorry I can’t do better than this,” she said, still in the low voice that sounded strange to her own ears. “And I’m sorry that you’llnever get to meet the great-grandma you’re named for. You’d have liked her—and she, I know, would have adored you.”

But not me. She’d have beensodisappointed in me.

She started crying then, and was annoyed with herself for indulging in tears. She didn’t deserve them. Not from herself, and not from anyone. As if recognizing her distress, the baby began crying, too.

“I know, kid. It’s awful.I’mawful. But I’m doing you a favor in the long run, I promise. A week from now, you’re going to wake up in your beautiful bassinet to the sight of your beautiful mother, and you’ll realize that you’ve got the best possible life ahead of you.” The baby stopped crying long enough to blink up at her. Scarlett leaned down to press a kiss on her puckered little forehead and then drew a deep breath. “The next time I kiss you, it will be as your cool, worldly Aunt Scarlett and nothing more. I’ll buy you all the candy you want and teach you about Paris and tell you stories about all the ways your mom pulled me out of trouble when we were kids.”