Immaculate

I couldn’t fight the feeling that this wasn’t the first time Jesse had thought through his suggestion—it seemed too polished, too logical for him to have come up with it on the spot. Had he been thinking about this exact setup that day on the beach in LBI, talking about the future? Maybe if things had gone differently from there, if I hadn’t said what I did on New Year’s Eve . . . would we have had this conversation sooner? Before things had gone so far?

I would never know. But I could accept the offer now. I could walk into this new era, start my new life—and I wouldn’t have to be alone.

“I think it makes sense,” I said, before anyone else could challenge me with a list of reasons for why it couldn’t possibly work.

“I agree,” my dad said, clapping a hand on Jesse’s shoulder.

“Me, too,” Izzy said. “But I’ll miss you. At least it’s only two hours away . . . I can visit. We can all visit.”

“And if I go to NYU . . .” Ha

My eyes drifted from face to face, and in each expression I saw the same mix of fear and hope and acceptance that I felt pulsing through me, growing thicker and heavier with every breath. Maybe the plan was rushed, maybe flaws would snag us somewhere along the way, but this was the best we had. This was the only way forward I could see.

“Well, then,” I said, my gaze stopping on Jesse, my cheeks burning when I found his warm brown eyes finally meeting mine. “I guess we’re going to New York City.”

• • •

Jesse’s uncle Carl volunteered to drive us up to his sister’s home in Brooklyn as soon as we could be packed and ready to go. We left in the middle of the night, the back of Carl’s van filled with my new crib and stroller and all the presents from the shower. My parents had wanted to come up, too, but we decided it was for the best that they lie low, and keep the reporters and any lingering detractors or followers guessing about when and how I had left. Dr. Keller had executed her role in the whole scheme perfectly—in the interview that was looping over television and the Internet, she played the part of the devastated, infuriated doctor so well that even I could almost believe she was telling the truth: “A baby has been killed. A young woman is heartbroken, destroyed. Robbed of her child’s existence. Because of senseless violence and ignorant hatred. I hope those responsible acknowledge their blame in this. I hope the country—the world—has learned a valuable lesson about the media’s power of destruction.”

I had pla

“Jesse’s song request for our grand entry. Welcome to New York, kid,” he sang out over the lyrics, rolling down his window to let in a blast of frosty winter air.

We pulled out of the fluorescently lit tu

There were people everywhere, but they weren’t the Times Square tourists who were still asleep in their hotel rooms, hours away from starting on the day’s itinerary. They were New Yorkers, real New Yorkers—heads ducked against the early morning cold, walking so briskly and with so much purpose that I could barely catch a glimpse of them as they streamed along the sidewalks.

I found Jesse’s hand on the seat next to mine and squeezed it in my palm.

This wasn’t anything like Green Hill. This was an entirely different world.

By the time we crossed the bridge into Brooklyn, the fresh orange sun shining along the East River, I knew that I would be okay.

I knew that this could be home.

• • •

I stuck to my plan of having a home birth, though the home itself was very different from the house on Hopewell Lane that I’d pictured. But Jesse’s aunt and uncle, Maria and Tony Russo, had made me feel as if I belonged in their homey, well-worn brownstone from the minute I arrived. They cooked all my meals and refused to let me lift a finger toward housework no matter how much I insisted, and they were always adding to the growing collection of diapers and bottles and wipes to prepare for the baby’s arrival. So I spent my days instead studying with Jesse under Maria’s instruction, determined to get through as much material as possible before the baby arrived. My senior year might have been very different from the one I’d imagined for myself for so long, but I would still have a diploma at the end, and I would still have options, open doors, for my future. I wouldn’t be Green Hill High’s valedictorian, but I had achieved so much more than just a string of perfect scores.

When my mind couldn’t absorb any more equations or theorems or definitions, I busied myself with knitting, another subject Maria was well versed in, and I’d already finished my first pair of nearly identifiable baby socks. Knitting kept me sane, distracted me from thoughts of the world beyond our brownstone. The television news was rarely on, and I used the Internet strictly for studying—no Virgin Mina site updates, no social media—but from the bits and scraps that I did see, I could tell that I was no longer a major story. The anchors had moved on—all hoping to wipe away any unpleasant reminders of their guilt as quickly as possible.

But not everyone was forgetting and forgiving themselves so quickly. According to my parents, the town of Green Hill in particular was attempting to absolve itself with an onslaught of casseroles and flower displays and fruit baskets. Sympathy cards were flooding our mailbox from across the globe, more and more each day—so many that the post office was making a separate trip to our house every afternoon with an overfilled sack of paper apologies. Someday maybe I would open them. But I wasn’t ready for any pardons. Not yet. Not until my baby was safely, finally in my arms.

I felt the first contractions two weeks after the day we arrived, a week before my official due date. Dr. Keller and my parents and Gracie were all packed in the van and on the road within minutes of my call, and were somehow, miraculously, knocking on the door almost a half hour before we expected them.

My mom and Dr. Keller never left my side during the next fourteen hours of painkiller-free labor, rubbing cool cloths along my forehead, counting my breaths, letting me claw against their arms as I did my best not to scream, terrified that neighbors would alert the cops if they heard.

I felt as if I were being pulled apart, inside out, and in my most delusional flashes of pain, I was tormented with the fear that this was to be my ultimate punishment—that I was becoming unmade and undone, nothing more than a heap of broken, bloody pieces. But in the darkest moments, I imagined Iris’s voice in my ear—or was she really there somehow, inside my head?—whispering encouragement, telling me that I’d be fine, that it would all be over soon.

Just when I thought that I couldn’t take a second more, that my body and mind couldn’t possibly go through any more torture, I heard the cry. A long, earsplitting wail that was without a doubt the most beautiful noise I’d ever experienced. I pushed again with Dr. Keller’s command, harder, pulling together every last bit of energy I could find.