“These people are leaving.”
“Now, Tabby.” Mr. Brighton had the patient voice of a man used to dealing with irrational customers and hormonal women. Molly wondered what he did for a living. “Let’s be rational. It’s not just you anymore. You’ve got the baby to think of.”
“I am thinking of her.” Tabitha wrapped her arms more tightly around Cosette. “The last people in the world I want around her are you.”
“And on that note—” Cecile reached for the baby. “Why don’t I take little Cosette down the hall so you all can talk and she can sleep undisturbed?”
Tabitha gave the nurse her daughter—but not without saying, cuttingly, “All right. But just remember, I’m the only one allowed to take her from this hospital. Don’t let them do it.”
“Tabitha!” Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked shocked. Even the nurse looked mildly offended.
“Around here we only allow babies to go home with their parents,” she said to Tabitha. She shot the Brightons a stern look as she wheeled Cosette, in her bassinette, from the room. “Their legal parents, the ones on their birth certificate.”
“Now, see here,” Mr. Brighton began, but Mrs. Brighton put a hand on his arm and shook her head. Not now, dear.
This reunion was going exactly the way Molly had feared it would, which was why she’d warned John against it in the first place. She felt obligated to jump in. “Maybe I could be of some help here.”
“And who are you?” Mr. Brighton demanded, his patience beginning to wear thin.
“I’m Molly Montgomery, the island’s children’s media specialist—”
“She’s the lady who found me,” Tabitha interrupted. “She found Cosette, too. If it weren’t for her, neither of us would even be alive.”
“Oh.” Mr. and Mrs. Brighton looked at Molly with renewed interest. Molly ducked her head modestly.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.
“No, it’s true.” Tabitha was doing up her hospital gown now that Cosette was gone. “She’s been really nice to me. Everyone here has, even though I don’t necessarily deserve it.”
“Oh, well—” Molly had been about to assure Tabitha that of course she deserved it when she remembered what she and her fellow Sunshine Kids had done to the media room in the new library. She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
“Can we just talk sensibly here for a minute?” Mr. Brighton said. “Of course we’re very grateful to you, Ms. Montgomery, for helping our daughter and granddaughter. But what exactly is your plan, Tabby? You have a child of your own now. How do you intend to support her? Where do you plan to live? Don’t you think it’s time you gave up on all this ‘living off the land’ foolishness and came home?”
“Yes, darling, do.” Mrs. Brighton reached out to squeeze her daughter’s hand. “Daddy and I would love to have you and—Cosette, is it?”
“Thank you for the invitation,” Tabitha said stiffly. “Really, thank you. But I already have a place to live, and that is with the father of my child.”
Tabitha then launched into her speech about how she and Dylan and baby Cosette were going to sail around the world together, just as soon as Dylan could get a boat.
“Dylan says our first stop on the boat is going to be Tahiti. I’ve never been there, but he says you can just walk up to a tree—any tree—and if it has fruit growing on it, you can pick the fruit and eat it, and nobody hassles you for stealing their fruit. Not like here in this country.”
Both the Brightons seemed somewhat stunned upon hearing this, so Molly asked, more out of politeness than anything else, “Did that happen to you here, Tabitha? People got angry because you were eating their fruit?”
“Did they ever! We walked by this key lime tree here over by the courthouse, it was bursting all over with fruit—I don’t know if you’ve ever had key limes, but they’re delicious—and Dylan climbed it and started shaking the fruit down to me, and I was catching it in my skirt, and this mean old lady came out of her house and started yelling at us to quit it because we were stealing her fruit.”
“Well,” Molly said slowly, “it was her tree. Maybe she was going to make a key lime pie later.”
“Whatever,” Tabitha said, dismissively. “There was more than enough to share!”
It was a very romantic plan, and Molly wanted to believe in it as much as Tabitha did.
There were just two problems with it. The first was that Molly knew for