the ones who had said, “Oh, you’re pregnant!” versus “Oh. You’re pregnant.”
Rafe popped one of her cookie dough bites into his mouth. “Well, now I’m glad you punched that guy. You should’ve punched your ex, too.”
Grace raised her plastic spoon. “Hear hear,” she said, and he clinked his spoon against hers. “Next time for sure.”
“So is it weird . . . you know, now? After?”
Grace lowered her spoon. “Do you always ask strangers questions like this?” Her own parents hadn’t asked her that question. Come to think of it, nobody had asked her any questions at all. Though she guessed that was the smart move. Rafe was basically chipping away at the Hoover Dam, and there was a lot of water behind that wall, just waiting to get out.
He shrugged at her question, though. “Do you always answer strangers’ questions like this?”
At that point, Grace would have answered questions about the clothes dryer’s lint trap from the lady behind the makeup counter. She was starved for conversation.
“It’s not weird, it’s just that everything is different. I mean, I don’t have any friends anymore, my parents are on eggshells around me, nobody texts me—”
“Really? Because your phone keeps buzzing at you.”
“That’s probably just my mom. Or Maya. She’s my . . .” Sister. Another word that felt strange in her mouth. “It’s a long story.”
Rafe paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth. “My favorite kind.”
“She’s my biological sister. We just met each other. And our brother, Joaquin.”
“Your bio— Wow.” Rafe started to laugh. “Look, Grace, I don’t know what you’re planning on doing next year to top this year, but it’s going to have to be immense. Like, skydiving-while-being-devoured-by-piranhas immense.”
“I’ll take a rain check on that experience,” Grace replied. Her yogurt still wasn’t sitting right with her, even though Peach was gone. She pushed the cup toward Rafe. “But Maya’s basically the only person who texts me now.”
“No friends, no texts. Your life sounds a lot like mine.”
“Pretty pathetic.”
“Yep.” He bit a head off a gummy bear, then sighed. “We can’t even get dates. Terrible.”
Grace smiled despite herself.
“Well,” Rafe said, looking at his phone. “I have exactly four minutes before I have to get back to the store and clock in. Want to walk me back?”
Grace pretended to think about it.
“I’ll let you wear the apron if you want.”
“Pass,” she said, but stood up and followed him out.
He held the door for her. Max had once done that, too.
Grace waited to look at her phone until she was back in the car, the doors locked and the windows rolled up. It was hot in the car, the air too still, the outside sounds of people muffled from the windows being rolled all the way up.
Grace almost felt like she couldn’t breathe.
It was a text from her mom.
There’s something in the mail for you.
Grace drove home at the pace of the snail, if a snail could get its driver’s license and didn’t really want to go back home. She knew what was waiting for her in the mailbox, she just knew it, the same way she had known from the beginning that Peach was not hers to keep.
When she got home, her mom was standing in the kitchen. There was a small manila envelope on the kitchen counter, glaring against the white tiles, and Grace looked at it and then at her mom.
“It’s for you,” her mom said, and Grace knew that her mom was all too aware of the envelope’s return address, the adoption agency’s address. Daniel and Catalina had promised to update Grace on Peach’s progress every month for the first year via emails and pictures, and Grace wasn’t surprised to see the first update.
Grace ignored her mom’s look, then picked up the envelope and took it upstairs. She knew her mom wanted her to open it in the kitchen, wanted to see everything that was in that envelope, but Grace was afraid that as soon as she slit it open, she would shatter across the floor, and she wanted to be alone if that happened.
It had been over thirty days since she had given Peach to Daniel and Catalina. Thirty days to take Peach back, contest the adoption, grab her daughter, and bring her back into her arms. On that thirtieth day, Grace had huddled in bed and watched the clock tick down. When her phone flipped to 12:01 a.m., something in Grace wilted.
Thirty days had passed. The adoption was official. Peach was truly gone.