Forever Right Now

“Based on what?” I asked. “What cause?”

But of course, I already knew. The Abbotts had plenty of cause and if they didn’t know it yet, soon they would.

I turned the letter over and over in my hand, the Sensaya Genetic Lab address disappearing then reappearing with every rotation. Beside me, Olivia slept in the middle of my bed. I had barricaded the three-month-old in a ring of pillows to keep her safe but I was still paranoid she’d roll off. I sat beside her, watched her sleep. Watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest, and her rapid pulse beat in her neck.

Was it my blood that flowed in her veins?

Slowly, so as not to wake her, I tore the envelope open. Inside were the test results that would tell me probabilities. The probability that my life would change forever, or that I would turn this baby over to the prope

r authorities and my life would continue on, as planned. But a whisper in the back of my mind told me my life was already changed— probability 100%—no matter what the test said.

I unfolded the paper with shaking hands, and scanned the columns of numbers; they meant nothing to me. It was the conclusion at the end that mattered.

0% probability.

A burden had just been lifted. Eighteen years and more. My life could carry on as it had. On track. Law school, clerkship, federal prosecutor, District Attorney…

I waited for the relief to hit me.

It never did.

I shook myself from the memory. It felt like a bad dream that had been on hold for ten months, and now was picking up where it left off.

Jackson was shaking his head, and his gaze dropped to Olivia. Mine followed. To my little girl, because why did I need a piece of paper to tell me what I felt in my heart? In my goddamn soul?

Olivia looked up at me from her pile of blocks on the floor and smiled. “Bye-bye!”

Forever (adv.): for all future time

Now (adv.): at present time

Darlene

I wiped a rivulet of sweat off my brow, and then planted my hands on my hips to catch my breath. Ryan, my partner, was bellowing beside me, and I fought a wave of irritation. He had mistimed three cues during the run-through—nearly head-butting me, again—and with the show a week away, his clumsiness wasn’t just annoying, it was going to make the rest of us look bad.

We already look bad.

I hated to even think it, but the show completely lacked inspiration and in my humble opinion, Anne-Marie, the lead dancer, was wooden and mechanical. Worse, she was the kind of person who thought she no longer had anything left to learn in dance, or life in general. The kind of person who began almost every sentence with “I know.”

Greg and Paula had watched from foldout chairs at the head of the practice room at the Dance Academy. They shifted in their seats like they were sitting on splinters. There should have been a palpable air of excitement this close to opening night. Instead, the six of us dancers were like humming electrical posts, filling the room with nervous tension.

The director and stage manager put their heads together for a moment. Anne-Marie tossed her blonde ponytail over her shoulder.

“Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to give us notes, or what?”

Greg and Paula murmured and nodded, having come to some sort of agreement.

“It’s…good,” the director said. “It’s coming together well. But it’s short, even for a showcase.”

“We timed it at twenty-seven minutes,” Paula said. “Thirty would be better.”

“We need one more act to fill out the time,” Greg said. “Darlene.”

My head shot up. “What?”

“We’d like you to perform your audition piece. As a solo.”

My glance immediately shot to Anne-Marie who audibly gasped.