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My hands tremble as I
set the photo back into place. I suddenly feel weak and even a little lightheaded. I should sit back down, but I’m too numb to move.

“Jackie didn’t tell us about the baby until she was too far along to hide it anymore,” continues Mr. Beitner, sharing a tender look with his wife. “By then she’d been having headaches for several weeks. She was naturally worried and came to us for help. She said she’d been seeing a doctor—for the headaches—but whatever he was doing for her wasn’t helping. Not long before the baby came, she was diagnosed with the tumor. We told her we’d raise the baby if anything happened to her, but she refused. She’d already signed the adoption papers. We tried to convince her to change her mind, but she was adamant.”

Mr. Beitner reaches for his wife’s hand. “We were there when the baby was born. But on Jackie’s insistence, the baby was taken away. We never met her adoptive parents.”

His voice cracks, and he stifles a quiet sob. Tears roll down his cheeks, and I worry that some might start rolling down mine, too. Mr. Beitner pinches his eyes and pulls himself together before continuing.

“Jackie passed away a few weeks later. After that we got pictures of the baby in the mail from time to time, but eventually they stopped coming.”

There is a moment of silence that seems expected for the Beitners, as if it is customary for them to pause in remembrance when discussing their daughter. For me, it feels like a massive void just opened up and swallowed me whole. My reaction to their story is as physical as it is emotional. It takes all my effort to keep myself together.

David must sense the sudden change in me. He looks at his wristwatch. “It’s late,” he tells me, his voice tender. “We’ve got to head back.”

The Beitners walk us to the door. I find myself wanting to embrace them, to tell them not to be sad anymore. But the distance between us remains rigid. I cannot close
the gap—not now—not yet. But suddenly Marie slips her aging arms around me and pulls me close, pressing her cheek against mine. I’m too startled to resist her.

“You’re a sweet girl,” she says before releasing me.

David and I thank the Beitners for everything. David shakes their hands and walks with me to the car. It’s dark now, the sun having set not long ago, and it’s raining—hard. I slide into the passenger seat and shut the door as David gets into the driver’s seat. We sit for a few moments in silence before he starts the engine. Then, he eases away from the curb onto the dark, rainy street.

“So, what do you think?” he asks.

Already I feel the tears burning behind my eyes. I have to say something, and I have to say it out loud. “I can’t…” I stammer. I clear my throat and try again. “This can’t be happening.”

“What do you mean?”

My throat constricts like a fist, but I force the words out. “That photo of the little girl, the Beitners’ granddaughter—it’s me.”

David does a double take. “What? How do you know?”

“Because that same picture is hanging on my bedroom wall, that’s how. Mama took it on Christmas when I was two years old.”

“Are you kidding? Are you sure? Wait. She touched you, didn’t she—when Mrs. Beitner hugged you goodbye. What did you see?”

I shake my head furiously and swipe away a tear. “Nothing. I saw nothing.”

“Nothing at all? You mean like with your dad?”

“I think—” My voice catches in my throat. “I think that’s why I couldn’t see him before, why I can’t see Marie. They’re related to me. They’re my family—my
real
family.”

We reach a stop sign, and the wipers bat futilely at the torrent of rain pelting the windshield.

“We should go back and tell them,” David says as he begins to turn the steering wheel.

Quickly, I grab hold of it. We go straight through the intersection.

“I can’t just announce who I am to these people. I’m a complete stranger to them. For all they know, I might be some lunatic escaped from the mental hospital. And I still have no evidence that Jackie and Papa…”

Jackie Beitner is—was—my mother. And the two wonderful elderly people I just met are my grandparents. But
is
Papa my real father? Did he and Jackie Beitner have an affair that resulted in me? It would make sense that he would take me in if he knew she was dying, and even more why he’d keep the truth from Mama. And yet something doesn’t quite fit, or more like a piece of the puzzle is still missing—a big piece. I just can’t put my finger on what it could possibly be.

David keeps glancing in his rearview mirror. He looks concerned.

“What’s wrong?” I ask him.

“Nothing, I think. It’s just that those same headlights have been behind us ever since we left the Beitners’ house.”

I look over my shoulder at the car trailing behind. Through the fogged-up back window all I can see are the lights and a vague outline of the vehicle. It’s too dark to tell what color or make it is. But what I can tell is that it’s way too close. Right on our tail.

“What the heck?” David presses his foot down on the accelerator. Our car picks up speed, but the car behind us keeps pace. 

I realize that after leaving the Beitner’s I forgot to buckle my seatbelt. I grab for it now, my fingers fumbling with the buckle. I hear the sharp click as it locks into place, then I grab hold of the dashboard with my right hand and David’s shoulder with my left.

We near another intersection. The road is nearly deserted, just a few cars parked alongside the road. The signal turns red, but David doesn’t stop.  He hits the accelerator and speeds through the light. I turn to see if the car behind us stops. To my relief, it does. We drive a few more blocks before turning onto a side street.

“It’s gone.” I lean back against my headrest and let the anxiety seep out of my body.

David pulls the car into a gas station and turns off the engine. The lights above the gas pumps are bright, a beacon in this dark, wet night.

I’m still holding onto David’s shoulder, so I let go. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to grab you so hard.”

Leaning forward, he rests his head on the steering wheel. “It’s gonna leave a bruise,” he says, laughing nervously. He sits up and takes a couple of deep breaths. We look at each other and giggle like little kids.

“For a second I thought…”

“Me, too.”

David smiles, relief in his eyes. We’re both feeling a little silly. Why would anyone want to follow us? Who knew we were even here in Bakersfield anyway?

“I need a soda,” I tell David. “Do you want anything?”

“No, but I might as well fill my tank while I’m here. It’s a long drive back.”

While David pumps the gas, I go into the mini-mart. I’ve got a ten dollar bill burning a hole in my pocket. I wander down the aisle of junk food while an acne-faced attendant eyes me warily. Glancing up at him, I smile, which seems to set him at ease a
little.  I grab a couple of candy bars and head for the refrigerated section. Opening the frosted glass door, I reach for a Coke.

I don’t know what makes me look up just then, but I do. David’s right outside the window leaning against the trunk of the car, his hands buried in his pants pockets. And…is he whistling?

The refrigerator door swings shut. I haven’t taken anything. I’m not thinking about Coke right now. I’m thinking about the pair of headlights that just turned onto this street a block down, two small orbs of light floating in the darkness. David’s facing the other way. He doesn’t see them.

I take a step toward the window. The rain comes down like a hurricane, blurring the headlights. Suddenly, the lights jolt forward. In a spasm of speed they race toward the gas station—straight at David!

I drop everything and run, shouting out the mini-mart door.

“David!” I scream. “Get out of the way!”

David jumps when he sees me, but he doesn’t move. He’s staring at me, confusion in his face. The headlights—the phantom car—is close now. Its tires skid as it turns into the gas station parking lot with an ear-splitting squeal.

The car, now fully illuminated by the station lights, is an older black sedan. David turns and sees it just as I reach him. We grab each other and run back toward the safety of the mini-mart, but the car swerves directly into our path as if it means to hit us. Shifting our course, we bolt out of the beacon of light into the rain. We run down the deserted road, our feet slamming against the pavement in unison, icy water splashing against our legs. The headlights are on us like spotlights. We’re fleeing prisoners without a chance in the world of escape.

The street we’re on is narrow, lined with brick storefronts all closed and dark for the night. Only the pale yellow glow of intermittent street lamps and the harsh glare of the lights behind us cut through the night. There’s nowhere to go. No alley to duck into. No bridge or magic porthole in which to hide. The car is going to mow us down like road kill, and all I can think of is,
why
?

Suddenly I feel a sharp jerk on my right arm as David grabs me, yanking me right off my feet. There’s a loud crash, the sound of shattering glass. I hit the ground so hard it knocks the breath out of me. The air splits wide open as a piercing alarm sounds. Tires squeal once again, peeling out against the wet black top of the road. Then the sound of the car engine fades as it speeds away.

I blink open my eyes. The alarm is so loud my eardrums are pulsing. I try to sit up, but something crunches beneath me. Glass. I’m lying on a bed of glass shards, and I’m no longer outside. I’m inside—inside a shop staring at the wide jagged opening where a window used to be. All around us I see the dim outlines of sofas, dining tables, and rocking chairs. We’re in a furniture store. I lift my hands, not wanting to get cut, but in the dim light leaking in from the street lamp outside I can see crimson spider webs on my palms and fingers. Then, suddenly, there’s a third hand grabbing my sleeve and pulling me to my feet.

“Are you all right?” David asks, his voice filled with fear.

“Yeah,” I reply shakily. “I think so.”

“Did you get a good look at the car?”

“Sort of,” I tell him, wishing now that I’d had the sense to look at the license plate.

“Did you recognize it? Or see who was driving?”

“No.”

David hisses through his teeth, and I can’t tell if it’s because of pain or frustrat
ion.

“We’ve gotta get out of here,” he says, “before the police arrive—or that guy, whoever he is, comes back.”

R
unning again. Hugging the shadows
. Back to David’s car at the gas station. My hands throb from the dozen or so shallow cuts on them. I think I may have one or two on my face as well, since my right cheek hurts too. But that seems to be the extent of my damage. David, on the other hand, is limping—badly.

We reach the gas station but hesitate before leaving the safety of darkness to step into the umbrella of light. Our eyes dart about in every direction looking for those hellish headlights, or worse, no headlights.  In this ink black night, a car is all but invisible until it’s right on you. Not entirely satisfied, but desperate to get out of the rain, we make one last mad dash to the car. Sirens blare in the distance.

“Give me your cell,” I say. “I’ll call 9-1-1.”

“What for?”

“What for? Someone just tried to kill us!”

David shakes his head. “We just busted into a store, Mira. We’ll be arrested.”

“Who cares about the store? We’ll explain about the car. I’m the future governor’s daughter. They’ll believe me.”

“Please. Don’t call the police.”

“Why the heck not?”

David doesn’t respond. He just opens his door and slides in behind the steering wheel. Only when we’re both inside with the doors closed do I notice his face; it’s contorted in pain. David retrieves his key from his front pocket and tries to stick it in the ignition, but his hands are shaking too much.

“You’re hurt.” My words seem so obvious, so stupid. I should have noticed before, should have said something, but I was so scared. All I wanted was to get away. I turn on the overhead light so I can see better. The leg of David’s jeans is sliced open from the knee to the hem. And there’s blood. A lot of it. I carefully grasp the edge of the wet fabric and pull it aside. I gasp when I see the gash in his calf—at least five inches long, and pretty deep.

He looks at me and musters a half-hearted smile. “I cut it going through the window,” he says apologetically.

“You need stitches. I should call an ambulance.”

“No.”

I had no idea David could be so stubborn. I huff impatiently. “We at least need to stop the bleeding. Just hold on.”

I’m out of the car in a second and run into the store.

“First aid kits!” I shout. The kid behind the counter just glares at me. I ignore him and head up the toiletries aisle. Nothing but bandages barely big enough to wrap around a toe can be found. In frustration, I throw all the boxes to the floor. I do find one self-adhesive Ace bandage, the kind for wrapping a sprained ankle or knee.  I go a little farther and snatch a bag of Kotex off the shelf.  On my way out the door, I toss my ten dollar bill at the jerk.

Back in the car, I tear open the plastic Kotex package and pull out three pads.

“What are you doing?” David asks, his teeth clattering. It could be because he’s wet, though the air is warm, or maybe it’s shock. I’m not going to take a chance that it’s the latter. After tearing open his pant leg the rest of the way, I place the three pads across his wound and wrap them tightly in place with the ace bandage.

“So, are you going to tell me why you won’t let me call the police?”

David winces as I tuck the end of the bandage into place. “I’m, uh, not supposed to be here.”

“What are you talking about? You mean here in Bakersfield?”

“No. I mean in this country.”

I sit up and stare at him. “You’re illegal?” I half laugh, half snort. “Oh, this just gets better and better.”

“My uncle needs me.” David’s voice is pleading. “I’m all he has. I’m trying to get the correct legal documents, but the waiting period is so long.”

If he had told me at any other time, I might have been angry, or at least irritated. But David just risked his life to protect me. And after what we’ve just been through, I don’t have the heart or the time to hold it against him.

Instead, I hop out of the car and hurry around to the driver’s side. “Move over,” I order, opening the door. David manages to climb over the emergency brake and settle into the passenger seat. I turn on the ignition and crank up the heat.

“If you won’t let me call for help then I’ll have to take you to the hospital myself. We can look for one here or, if I step on it, we can get back to the Valley in a couple of hours.”

“Let’s get home,” David says.

“Okay,” I agree. “But I swear, if you pass out or something, I’m pulling over and dialing 9-1-1.”

During the trip back to the city, I spend as much time looking in the rearview mirror as I do at the road ahead. I can’t go any faster than I am for fear of hydroplaning. But my nerves are on edge waiting for that car to appear out of nowhere and run me off the road. Luckily, we make it all the way back without incident. At least the rain has stopped. It’s after ten by the time we finally reach the ER.

The waiting room is full of people in varying stages of pain and illness, but when I tell the receptionist who I am we’re immediately escorted to a closet-sized exam room.

“We’re kind of busy tonight,” says the nurse, an Asian woman expressing a little too much enthusiasm for this late hour. “At least you’ll be comfortable in here while you wait, away from all those people out there with the flu. These crazy summer storms always bring on the worst of it.” She hands David a paper gown and instructs him to remove his pants. Her eyes roam across my face and down to my hands. “Better have the doctor examine both of you. Those cuts don’t look so good.”

There’s a small TV mounted in the upper corner of the room. The nurse reaches up and turns it on. She flips through a couple of channels. For a split second I see Papa’s face flash on the screen, before the shopping channel appears with some woman demonstrating an onion chopper.

“This all right?” asks the nurse.

“Would you mind going back one?”

It’s a recap of the nightly news. Papa’s face is gone, but Rawley Pharmaceutical’s logo is on the screen behind the reporter’s head.

The nurse clucks her tongue. “You’d think since they cured so many other things, they could find a cure for the flu. Then I could go home early tonight.” She laughs at her own joke, and then leaves the room, shutting the door behind her.

Whatever the news was saying about Papa and Rawley is over now. The news moves on to a story about a break-in at a furniture warehouse in Bakersfield. Officers arrived at the scene of the crime to find the front window shattered, but nothing was missing from the store.

I turn to David and find him fumbling with his belt buckle. His hands are still shaking.

“Here, let me do that.” I release his buckle and deftly undo the button and zipper of his jeans.

“I feel so helpless,” he says.

I turn back to the TV to give him some privacy. “Don’t be such a baby,” I say to him, but not in a critical way at all. I mean, he’s probably still in shock. I hear him wrestle out of his clothes and slip into the gown. Next, I hear the crinkle of paper as he sits down on the exam table.

“All right,” he tells me. “I guess I’m as decent as I’ll ever be.”

I grin when I see him sitting there wrapped in baby blue paper that barely reaches halfway down his thighs. One hand is behind him, holding the back of his gown closed.

“You do look helpless,” I say, laughing a little.

David rolls his eyes. “Oh, shut up.”

I snatch a pair of surgical gloves from the counter and pull them on. I inspect the Ace bandage on David’s leg and the lumps of Kotex underneath.

“That’s going to be embarrassing.” David cringes at the sight. “After the doctor sees that, what little is left of my masculine dignity will be utterly destroyed.”

“Well, you can’t beat them for absorbency,” I say, stifling another laugh. I stand and look into David’s face. He looks forlorn, like a sad little puppy. Something about his expression tugs at me. I step closer, my stomach touching his knees.

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about.” I try and comfort him. “That maniac wanted to kill us—he would have killed us—but you saved us.”

“I threw us both through a plate glass window. We could have died anyway.”

“But we didn’t. David, you saved my life tonight.”

David’s head remains bowed, studying the floor. What is he thinking? For the first time since I’ve met him, I really want to know what’s going on inside his head. He blinks a couple of times and then slowly lifts his face until his eyes meet mine. Only inches apart, I can feel his breath against my skin. A prickly sensation races down my spine, and I shiver. From the corner of my eye I see his free hand rising, ever so slowly coming near. Inside of me, my heart pumps faster, every instinct telling me to back away. But I remain still, my eyes locked on David’s. His eyes locked on mine.

His hand brushes against my hair. I feel the minute ripples of movement in my scalp. His hand is at my cheek, his palm a millimeter away from my skin—so close I can feel the warmth of him. His fingers trace the outline of my brow, the bridge of my nose, the curve of my lips—but not once does he make contact. It would be so easy. All I have to do is tip my face forward just the slightest bit. I could reach up and take his hand, press my lips to his palm. …But I can’t. I won’t. My heart is wildly out of control, but the rest of me remains horribly, excruciatingly still.

He leans toward me, just a little, his face coming to rest so close to mine that I can smell peppermint on his breath as his lips graze the molecules of air between us. God, I can’t stand it. To feel him so close, to want him so much—and yet we might as well be miles apart. It would be the same. No. Distance would be easier.

There’s a light rap on the exam room door, and the gap between us instantly widens. I back away, pressing myself against the wall. The door opens, and a female doctor in her early thirties struts in. Her short blonde hair is tucked casually behind her ears, and she’s all smiles.

“Mr. Valdez? I understand you’re in the market for some stitches. Is that right?”

She asks him a few standard questions, such as his address and date of birth. Then she begins to un-wrap the Ace bandage.

“Um…I’m going to step out, okay?” I say. In truth, I don’t want to see the wound again. Normally, I’ve got a weak stomach for those sorts of things. I’d be better off in the lobby.

“That’s fine,” the doctor replies. She takes a quick glance at my hands and face. “My nurse told me about you. Those cuts don’t look too bad, but I would like to put some antiseptic on them and maybe a band-aid or two. Why don’t you check in at the nurses’ station while I take care of your boyfriend.”

My boyfriend? I start to correct her, but then I shut my mouth. I actually like the sound of it. I smile at David before leaving. He smiles back, but his expression is a little fearful. If I could, I’d stay and hold his hand, but then I guess he’d really have no dignity left.

I close the door behind me and lean back against it. My heart is finally slowing down. I need a moment to get my bearings, to think straight. I feel like I’ve just stepped off the craziest roller coaster ride of my life. I look at the clock down the hall near the nurses’ station. It’s nearly eleven p.m.

I step away from the door through which I hear David asking something about a needle and how much it will hurt. This is probably going to take a while, so instead of going to the nurses’ station, I head for the nearest elevator.

I want…I need to see my mother.