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“Sure,” I tell her as I grab my book bag from the backseat and make my way to the Animal Science building. “I work until nine. I’ll come right after.”
I met Missy the November after I moved to New Amery. I came to live with my grandmother in September. I was so sad and lonely; I spent the first two months in New Amery sitting in an extra bedroom in my grandmother’s house, crying and sketching in my journal, and trying not to kill myself. Finally, my grandmother had enough. She couldn’t stand to see me like that anymore.
“Come on, Brynn,” she said, coming into my room and sitting on my bed. “It’s time to get up and start living your life.” I peeked up at her from beneath my covers but didn’t answer. My grandmother was so different from my own father; at times I couldn’t believe she’d given birth to him. “I want to show you something,” she said, pulling the quilt off of me.
“What?” I asked grumpily. All I wanted to do was pull the blanket back over my head and sleep. Forget that I was such a failure, a loser, a no one.
“Come on, you’ll see,” she said, holding out her hand to help me up. My grandma herded me into her car and drove through the streets of New Amery until she pulled up in front of a long, squat metal building. Outside was a large sign, with the words New Amery Animal Shelter painted in bright red letters.
I sat up straighter in my seat and turned to my grandma. “Why are we here?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.” She smiled at me and I reluctantly followed her into the building. We were greeted by a friendly black lab and a girl my age wearing a red vest, with a name tag that said Missy. She was standing behind a tall counter holding a small orange kitten. I heard the muffled yips and whines of dogs being kenneled in another part of the building.
“Hello, ladies,” the girl said brightly. “What can I help you with today?”
My grandmother looked at me “What can she help you with today, Brynn?”
“Really?” I asked in disbelief. “Grandma, are you serious?”
“Go on and take a look.” She nodded her head toward the kennels. “There is some little critter in there, waiting for you Go find him.”
“Come on,” Missy said. “I’ll show you the way.” Missy opened a door and we were met with yelps and barking that echoed against the walls. The long, narrow room was lined with kennels filled with all kinds of dogs—a beagle, an English setter, labs and lots of mixed breeds. I stopped in front of a puff of reddish-brown fur that looked at me with bright, pleading eyes.
“What kind of dog is this?” I asked Missy.
“That’s Milo. He’s a mix of German shepherd and chow chow. Two months old. He was found out on a gravel road south of town. Poor thing was starving and dehydrated. He’s a busy little guy, but a sweetie.”
I looked at my grandma. “Can I have him?” I asked her, not daring to get my hopes up. He was only a few months old and already had huge paws, and Missy had said he was busy. “I think he needs me.”
“Of course, Brynn. He’s yours,” she said, sliding her arm around my waist.
It was through Missy that I became a volunteer at the animal shelter and learned about the Companion Animal program at the community college. I’m still not sure why pretty, fun-loving and free-spirited Missy befriended safe, boring me, but I’m glad she did. I remember when I was thirteen, my mother made me go to the same sleep-away soccer camp that Allison attended. I was terrible at soccer and screwed up every single time the ball came my way. Allison didn’t acknowledge me once that week. Whenever I tried to talk to her, whenever I tried to join in with her group of friends, she completely ignored me. When I finally couldn’t take it anymore and started blubbering like a baby, Allison rolled her eyes and laughed. I ended up spending the rest of camp in my cabin insisting that I sprained my ankle.
Having a friend, especially one who loves animals as much as I do, is such a relief. I drop my phone back into my purse and my hand grazes the bottle that holds the medicine I’ve been taking for the past year. I haven’t taken my dose for the day. Didn’t take it yesterday, either. I’ve been feeling better. Stronger. Even the news that Allison is out of jail doesn’t bother me as much as it would have a year ago.
Maybe it’s time to stop taking the pills. Maybe I’m ready to try things on my own for a while.
Allison
I look down at the baby doll, its lifeless eyes looking up at me, and I feel weak. It’s been five years and one month and twenty-six days. She would have been five years or sixty-one months or 269 weeks or 1,883 days or 45,192 hours or 2,711,520 minutes or 162,691,200 seconds old. I’ve been keeping count.
Many of the women at Cravenville had children. Some even gave birth to their babies behind bars. I used to run circle after circle around the prison courtyard, my tennis shoes pounding against the cement, the air heavy in my lungs. “Where you running to, Baby Killer? You running from yourself?” I would hear this from a corner of the yard and then a cackle of laughter. I ignored them. When they weren’t calling me baby killer or bitch or worse, they didn’t talk to me at all. They looked through me as if I was just a part of the putrid air on our cell block. Those were women who themselves were killers; they murdered their husbands or stabbed their boyfriends or shot a clerk in a robbery. But I’m worse. A helpless baby, a few minutes old, was tossed into the river to be swept away with the current, to be battered against the bank.
The women at Gertrude House are no different than the women at Cravenville. I have never felt more alone than I do right now. I know how hard it has been for my parents to witness how far I’ve fallen. But all I want is for them to come and see me. It’s been so long since I’ve held my mother’s hand, felt my father’s touch. Heard my sister’s giggle. We were never a touchy-feely family, but sometimes, when I hold very still, I can recall the weight of my father’s large, capable hand resting on my head. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can imagine that things are like they were before everything went wrong. I can imagine that I am back in high school, running on the track and trying to beat my best time, sitting in my room doing my calculus homework, helping my mom with dinner, talking with my sister.
I had a plan. I would ace my college entrance exams, play volleyball for the University of Iowa or Penn State, major in prelaw, go to law school. I had my future all mapped out. Now it’s gone. It’s over. All because of a boy and a pregnancy.
I was in the hospital, hooked up to an IV, when I first met Devin. She told me I was going to be charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment. “Did you think the baby was dead before she went into the river?” she asked me at that first meeting. I shrugged my shoulders and didn’t answer.
“Did you think she was dead?” she asked again, pacing back and forth in front of me. She was relentless. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and die and she kept trying to reexamine everything that had happened.
“Sure,” I finally said. “Sure, I thought it was dead.”
She spun on her heel. “Never call her an it. Do you understand?” she said severely. “You call her the baby or she or her, but never it. Got it?”
I nodded. “I really thought the baby was dead already,” I said, wanting to believe it, but knowing nothing I said was the truth. The medical examiner had already proved I was wrong.
Eventually, Devin had me plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a class “D” felony that carried a five-year sentence, and child endangerment, a class “B” felony that meant I could be confined for more than fifty years, although Devin assured me that there was no way I would serve that kind of time. I didn’t have to take the stand in my own defense. It never got that far. I’ve never told anyone what happened that night, and no one seems very interested in hearing the exact details. I think I remind everyone of someone they could know. A sister, a daughter, a grandchild. Maybe even themselves. Everyone knows the basics of what I did. That’s enough for them. Devin was right. I ended up being sentenced to ten years at Cravenville. As horrible as that sounded at the time, it was much better than the fifty-five years I could have faced. I asked Devin why it was such a short sentence.
“There are many factors,” Devin explained. “Prison overcrowding, the circumstances of the crime. Ten years is a bargain, Allison.”
Then, a month ago, Devin came to see me at the prison. I was running around the courtyard, the July heat radiating off the concrete. I could feel the warmth seeping into my tennis shoes and through my socks. Breathing heavily, I watched as Devin walked quickly over to me, dressed in the gray suit she wore like a uniform and high heels. I’ve never worn a pair of high heels, never went to a school dance, never went to the prom. “Allison, good news,” she told me by way of greeting. “The parole board is going to review your case. You’ll go before the board next week for an interview.”
“Parole?” I asked dumbfounded. “It’s only been five years, though.” I hadn’t dared to think about getting out earlier.
“With your good behavior and all the steps you’ve taken to improve yourself, you qualify for a parole hearing. Isn’t that great news?” she asked, looking questioningly at my worried face.
“It is good news,” I told her, mostly because it was what she wanted to hear. How could I explain to her that after getting used to the confinement, the horrible food, the brutality of prison, after coming to terms with how and why I got here in the first place, I actually found comfort there. For once in my life I didn’t need to be perfect. I didn’t need to plan for my future. It was all laid out for me in prison. Ten long years of just being.
“We need to sit down and talk about the kinds of things the members of the parole board will most likely ask you. The most important thing for you to do is to express remorse for what happened.”
“Remorse?” I asked.
“Remorse, regret,” Devin said tersely. “It’s crucial for you to say you’re sorry for what you did. If you don’t do that, there is no way they are going to grant you parole. Can you do that? Can you say you’re sorry you threw your newborn baby in a creek?” she asked me. “You are sorry, right?”
“Yes,” I finally said. “I can say I’m sorry.” And I did. I sat in front of the parole board as they reviewed my file. They complimented me on my good behavior while I was incarcerated, my work in the prison cafeteria, the fact that I earned my high school diploma and credits toward a college degree. They looked expectantly at me and waited. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I hurt my baby and I’m sorry she died. It was a mistake. A terrible mistake and I wish I could take it all back.”
My parents didn’t attend the hearing, and I worried their absence would make the parole board think that if my own parents wouldn’t even come to support me, there was no way they could recommend my release. But Devin told me not to worry; my grandmother was at the hearing and my chances of early release were excellent. “It’s all about what you’ve done to make things right while you were in prison. How you’ve tried to better yourself.” Devin was right. She always is. The parole board voted unanimously to release me.
I meet my roommate, Bea, a recovering heroin addict, at dinner. There are only five of us at the table. The rest of the residents are working or at approved activities. I want to know about the different jobs the women have gotten—I want so badly to start earning some money of my own—but I’m hesitant to ask or even speak. Everyone looks at me like I have the plague or something. Except for Bea, that is. She doesn’t seem to be bothered by my history. Either that or she hasn’t heard the sordid details yet. Bea has the thin, pocked face of an addict and hard black eyes that look like they’ve seen hell or worse. She also has thin strong arms that look like they could knock the crap out of any one of us, so everyone seems to give Bea her space. Not that violence of any sort is allowed at Gertrude House. Bea gleefully tells everyone about her first night at Gertrude House, anyway.
“Two ladies got in an argument over who got to use the phone next. There’s a sign-up sheet for a reason. This woman who had been in jail for embezzlement smacked the other gal across the face with the phone.” Bea laughs at the memory. “Blood and teeth flew everywhere. Remember that, Olene?” Bea asks as she stabs a green bean with her fork.
“I do,” Olene says wryly. “Not one of our finer moments here. We had to call the police.”
“Yeah, and because I was new to the house, I had to clean up all the blood and teeth.” Bea shivers at the memory.
“Oh, Bea,” Olene chides her gently. “I helped you.”
After dinner and helping with the dishes, I try to call my parents and then Brynn again. No one answers. I sit numbly on the sofa, the telephone in my hand, listening to the dial tone until Olene comes into the room, pulls the telephone gently from my hand and tells me I’m on my own until seven, when we meet as a group. I’m not surprised when I go up to my room and find another battered doll, headfirst in a tin bucket of water, there to greet me. I swallow hard and a solid knot of rage forms in my chest. How dare these women who themselves have done terrible, terrible things judge me? With a kick perfected my during my second year at soccer camp, my foot connects with the bucket, sending it clanking across the hardwood floor, water splashing and spreading in a puddle at my feet. I hear feet on the steps and snickers coming from the hallway and I turn swiftly and slam the bedroom door, the walls trembling with the force and echoing through the house.
After a few minutes there’s a knock at the door. “Go away,” I say angrily.
“Allison?” It’s Olene. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, I just want to be left alone,” I say more softly.
“Can I come in for a minute?” Olene asks. I want to say no, I want to climb out the window and run away, but I can’t go home and I can’t leave the area. “Allison, open the door, please.”
I crack open the bedroom door and I see Olene’s green eye looking in at me.
“I’m fine,” I say again, but the water from the bucket is pooling around my feet and inching into the hallway. Olene waits, not saying anything, just looking up at me with her knowing eyes until I step aside to let her in.
Olene takes in the overturned bucket, the doll, the lake of water and sighs. “I’m sorry about this, Allison,” Olene says. “You just have to let them get it out of their system. Lay low, do your work and then they’ll treat you like everyone else.” She must see the sadness on my face because she asks, “Do you want me to bring it up at our group meeting tonight?”
“No,” I say firmly. I get that no good will come from confronting these women.
“I’ll go get you a towel.” Olene pats me on the arm and leaves me to my thoughts. I plan to keep my head down, check in with my parole officer twice a month, do my work and mind my own business, but I know they aren’t going to let me off so easily. I know they hate me for my crime. They think they’re better than me. They think they have perfectly reasonable excuses for doing the bad things they did. The drugs made them do it, their boyfriends made them do it, their rotten childhoods made them do it. But me? I had the perfect parents, the perfect childhood, the perfect life. I have no excuses. Olene returns and hands me a stack of towels. “Want some help?”
I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’ve got it.” She comes into the room, anyway, and picks up the bucket and the doll, then closes the door gently behind her. I wipe up the water from the floor and lie down on the lower bunk bed and try to close my eyes, but each time I blink I see only the dull, dead eyes of the doll behind my own.
When I think back to that night, I remember that the baby didn’t cry like you see in the movies and on television. First, there’s the mother, gritting her teeth and groaning, bearing down for the long push, and then the baby appears and greets the world with a wail, as if angry at being brought from her warm, dim aquarium into the bright, cold world. That cry never came.
I could see the terror in Brynn’s eyes as she offered the baby to me. I told her no. I didn’t want to touch her. So with shaking hands, Brynn cut the umbilical cord and laid her gently in a little bundle on the floor in a corner of the room. “You need a doctor, Allison,” she told me, her voice cracking with concern as she brushed my sweaty hair from my forehead. I was unbelievably cold, shivering so hard that my teeth clanked together. Brynn glanced over at the still, silent baby. “We need to call someone….”
“No, no,” I chattered, trying to cover my legs, now conscious of my nakedness. I tried to control my mouth, forcing the words to come out smoothly, forcefully. If they didn’t, I knew that Brynn would fall apart. “No. We’re not going to tell anyone. No one needs to know now.” I knew I sounded cold, cruel even. But, like I said, I had a plan: valedictorian, volleyball scholarship, college, law school. Christopher was a mistake, the pregnancy an even bigger one. I just needed Brynn to keep a cool head, to go along with me.
“Oh, Alli,” Brynn said, her chin trembling, tears running down her face. Barely keeping it together. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she told me, arranging the covers around me carefully. “I’m going to throw away these sheets.” I wanted to sleep, so badly. I wanted to close my eyes and just disappear.
I used my arms to push myself up from the damp bed and slowly swung my legs over the edge of the bed, nearly crying out from the burning pain between my legs. I waited until the sting dulled into a throb and stood, reaching for my bedside table for support. I looked over to the far corner of the room where Brynn had left the baby. I can do this, I told myself. I have to do this.
As I steadied myself, I looked down and saw the rust-colored stains on my thighs. Brynn had tried to clean me up as best as she could, but blood was still dribbling down my legs and I moaned. There was so much blood. In the corner I saw the bundle of towels that Brynn had wrapped the baby in. It seemed so far away. I needed to get dressed and get things cleaned up. It would be dark soon, and there was always the chance that my parents would come home early. I had to make a decision. Through the sound of rain pounding on the roof I thought I heard Brynn downstairs and the slam of a screen door. I knew what I needed to do, where I needed to take her. It would be like she was never even here, like she never existed. After, I would rush to finish cleaning up my bedroom and I would pretend that I had the flu for the next few days. Then everything would go back to normal. It would have to.
But it never seems to actually be finished, this thing. It has attached itself to me and to Brynn and even to my parents like some kind of malignant tumor, and we will never be free of it. I begin to cry. I’ve done everything right my entire life and then I made one mistake and my life was ruined. One mistake. It just wasn’t fair.
Claire
As Claire steps into the old Victorian that she and Jonathan bought and restored twelve years ago, she makes a mental note to give Charm a call in a few days to see how she is doing. Over the years she has developed a fondness for Charm, a round, soft-spoken girl who has a fascination with self-help books. When she purchased The Legacy of Divorce, Claire learned that Charm had lived with Gus, her stepfather, ever since she was ten, even after her mother divorced him and moved on. Then when she bought Brothers and Sisters: Bonds for a Lifetime, Charm told her that she hadn’t seen her older brother in years, but wanted to be prepared if he ever came back. When Charm was ready to start college she came in with a textbook list and Claire learned she wanted more than anything to be a nurse and that Gus had been recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Charm came to the store and bought books for her friends, a book about baseball for her first boyfriend.
Once, she even bought a copy of Mother: A Cradle to Hold Me by Maya Angelou for her mother, with whom she was trying to patch things up. “She didn’t get it,” Charm told Claire later. “She thought I was making fun of her by getting her a book of poetry and slamming her for her mothering skills. I just can’t win with her.” Charm said this so sadly that Claire takes comfort in the knowledge that she tells Joshua every single day how much she loves him. That even though she makes mistakes, like the time she wrongly accused Joshua of feeding Truman all of his Halloween candy, she is confident that he would never, ever doubt her love for him.
Claire finds Joshua rolling a tennis ball across the living room floor to Truman, who lazily watches it glide past him. “Go get it, Truman!” Joshua urges. “Go get the ball!” Instead, Truman heaves himself up on squat legs and leaves the room. “Truman!” Joshua calls disappointedly.
“He’ll be back,” Claire says as she bends over, picks up the ball and takes it over to him. “Don’t worry.”
“On TV there’s this bulldog named Tyson that knows how to skateboard,” Joshua says as he picks at the frayed hem of his shorts. “Truman won’t even chase a ball.”
“Truman does other cool stuff,” Claire says, scrambling to think of something.
“Like what?” Joshua asks bleakly.
“He can eat a whole loaf of bread in three seconds flat,” she offers, but Joshua doesn’t look impressed. She sighs and situates herself on the floor next to Joshua. “You know that Truman is a hero, don’t you?” Joshua looks at her skeptically. “When you came to us, you were pretty little.”
“I remember,” Joshua says sagely. “Six pounds.”
“One night, after you were with us for a week or so, you were sleeping in your crib. Dad and I were so tired we fell asleep on the couch even though it was only seven-thirty.”
Joshua laughs at this. “You went to bed at seven-thirty?”
“Yes, we did,” she tells him, and reaches for his hand, which without her realizing had somehow lost its soft pudginess. His fingers were long and tapered and for a fleeting moment she wondered where he had got them. From his biological mother or father? “When you were a baby you didn’t sleep much, so whenever you slept, we did, too. So there we were, sleeping peacefully on the couch, and all of a sudden we heard Truman barking. Your dad tried to take him outside to go to the bathroom, but Truman wouldn’t go. Dad kept chasing him around the house, but he just kept running around and yipping and yipping. It was actually kind of funny to watch.” They both smile at the thought of Jonathan sleepily stumbling after Truman. “Finally, Truman ran up the stairs and waited, barking, until we came up after him. When we got to the top he ran into your room. We kept whispering, ‘Shhh, Truman, shhh. You’re going to wake up Joshua.’ But he kept right on barking. And then all of a sudden Dad and I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. With all that barking you should have been crying.”
Joshua’s forehead creases as he thinks about this. “I didn’t wake up?”
“No, you didn’t,” Claire says, shivering at the memory, and pulls him onto her lap.
“Why not?” he asks while he twists her wedding ring off her finger and places it on his own thumb, moving it back and forth so that the diamond casts a mottled rainbow on the wall.
“Dad turned on the light in your room and you were in your crib and it looked like you were sleeping, but you weren’t. You weren’t breathing.” Joshua’s hands still, but he doesn’t say anything. “Dad snatched you up out of the bed so quickly he must have scared the breath right back into you because you started crying immediately.”
“Whew,” Joshua says with relief, and begins rotating the ring again.
“Whew is right,” Claire says emphatically. “Truman saved the day. So he might not know how to skateboard, but he’s pretty special.”
“I guess so,” Joshua murmurs. “I’ll go say sorry.” He slides the ring back onto his mother’s finger, springs from her lap and runs off to find Truman. What she doesn’t tell Joshua is how, during the endless seconds between when Claire and Jonathan saw him lying in his crib, blue and still, to when they heard his angry cries, her own breath escaped her. How could I lose him already? she had wondered. Did God change His mind? It wasn’t until air filled his tiny lungs that she breathed again, too.
Claire slowly gets to her feet, mindful that she is every bit of her forty-five years. When Joshua celebrates his tenth birthday she will be fifty. When he is forty she will be eighty. Motherhood is the hardest, most terrifying, most wonderful thing she will ever do. Perhaps the greatest joy she’s gotten from having Joshua coming into her life, besides hearing him call her Mom, is watching Jonathan and Joshua together. Together they pore over home restoration magazines and, entranced, watch old episodes of This Old House. Claire has to laugh when Joshua, asked what he wants to be when he grows up, answers Bob Villa or his dad. As they scrape, sand and varnish together, refurbishing fireplace mantels, armoires, banisters, when she watches as Jonathan teaches Joshua how to hammer a nail or twist a screw, her heart swells with pride.
Even though Joshua is their only child, Claire knows that he isn’t quite like other children. For the longest time she thought of him simply as a dreamer. His head is so full of creative, imaginative ideas, she can almost ignore the fact that he often doesn’t appear to hear them when they speak to him. They can tell him to do something many times and Joshua will seem to understand, but he rarely follows through. There are times when he seems to leave their world completely, can stare into space fully absorbed by she doesn’t know what, and he’s gone until they bring him gently back to them. It’s as if there is a buffer that surrounds him, keeping the harshness of the world away. Without it, she believes, he would be left exposed and vulnerable. Claire doesn’t know if it had to do with those moments when he was deprived of oxygen or if something traumatic happened before he came to them. Sometimes she fears their love hasn’t been quite enough to renew Joshua’s trust in the world around him.
Claire runs a finger along the row of photos that line the sofa table. The pictures capture the day they brought Joshua home, the day he was legally theirs, the first time he ate pureed squash, his first Christmas. Every single day Claire says a little prayer of thanks for the girl who left Joshua at the fire station five years ago. Because of her, she and Jonathan have their son. Sometimes she wonders about her, the woman who gave birth to Joshua. Was she from Linden Falls or did she come from far away? Was she young, a teenager who just didn’t know what to do? Was she an adult who already had several children and couldn’t take care of one more? Maybe Joshua has brothers and sisters out there somewhere who are just like him. Maybe his mother is a drug addict or abused. Claire doesn’t know and doesn’t really want to. She is grateful that the girl chose to give him up. In that single act of altruism or selfishness—she’ll never know which—that girl gave her everything.
Brynn
There are dozens of us crammed into Missy’s one-bedroom apartment, which she shares with two other girls. The only person I know is Missy, who is on the couch, making out with some guy. I’m standing awkwardly in a corner, trying not to watch their frantic kissing, the way his tongue pokes into her mouth, the way he has his hand up her shirt. I gulp from the glass that someone has pressed into my hand and welcome the pleasant numbness that begins to spread throughout me. I’m not supposed to mix alcohol with my medication, but it’s okay because I haven’t taken my pills in days. A boy I think I recognize from campus squeezes through the bodies and comes up to me. “Hey,” he says loudly, trying to be heard above the pounding music.
“Hey,” I respond, and mentally roll my eyes at the lameness of my social skills. He is short, but still taller than I am, and his blond hair stands up in gelled spikes.
“I think I know you,” he says, leaning in toward me. His breath smells sweet, like wine cooler.
“Oh,” I say carelessly, trying to act as if this happens to me every day. I take another swig from my cup and find it empty. The skin on my face feels loose and I touch my cheeks to make sure they are where they need to be.
“Here, you can have mine,” he says, and gallantly wipes the mouth of the bottle with his T-shirt. He has a sprinkle of brown freckles on his nose and I want to reach out with one finger and count them. I feel dizzy and lean back against the wall to keep my balance.
“Thanks,” I tell him, taking the wine cooler and drinking from it because I can’t think of anything else to say.
“I’m Rob Baker,” he says with a grin.
“It’s nice to meet you,” I say, smiling back. “I’m Brynn.”
“I know,” he says. “You’re Brynn Glenn.” My smile widens. He knows my name.
“Yes, I am,” I say flirtatiously, and take a woozy step closer to him, wondering what it would be like to kiss him. To feel his tongue against mine.
“I’m from Linden Falls,” he says, and my heart seizes. “We used to go to the same church.” I can see it coming. He isn’t looking at me because he’s seen me around campus or because he thinks I’m pretty. “Your sister is Allison Glenn, right?” I can’t answer. I stand there blinking wordlessly back at him. “Allison is your sister, right?” he repeats. I see him glance back over his shoulder at a group of boys who are watching us.
“No,” I say, and from the look on his face he knows I’m lying. “Never heard of her.” I peer over his shoulder as if I’m looking for somebody.
“We went to the same church. Our moms volunteered at the bake sale together. You’re Brynn Glenn,” he says forcefully.
