Midmorning meant people inside would be awake. Bright sunlight meant I wouldn’t go unnoticed.
I could wait until darkness and steal her back, but then I ran the risk of stumbling into the wrong bedroom and being caught. I could wait until Social Services arrived tomorrow and grab her, but then I ran the risk of being grabbed myself.
Or—and this was really my only option—I could march up to the front door, knock, and demand Della be given back to me.
I looked over my shoulder at the forest in the distance, seeing my dream of living alone vanishing bit by bit.
I wasn’t afraid of darkness or predators or being completely vulnerable with no one to rely on but myself. But I was afraid of taking Della to such a place.
She was useless.
She was a baby.
I already knew she didn’t fare well in the wild thanks to the previous few weeks we’d survived. She’d inched closer toward death every day.
Only because you weren’t prepared for her.
Only because you didn’t take what you needed.
It wasn’t because I didn’t know how to live off the land, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t provide for us.
She’d been a surprise.
And this time…I had shelter, tools, and equipment that meant we’d flourish not perish.
She wouldn’t be a death sentence anymore, merely a complication I willingly chose.
I stepped back from the house.
Wait, did I willingly choose this, or was I doing it out of fear? Was living with me better or worse than living with another? Just because I’d been sold and the girls sharing the barn with me cried themselves to sleep every night, didn’t mean that would happen to Della.
Perhaps the best thing for her would be to wait for a foster family to take her, love her, house her in a pretty little home and feed her with supermarket purchased food instead of being carried for miles by a boy then bedding down in a tent with a belly full of hunted rabbit.
After all, wasn’t that what I tried to do by leaving her with a family who already had a baby? Why didn’t they want her? They already had one. What was the difference in raising two?
Mclary had sixteen and managed.
The sun beat down on my head, making my back sweat against my pilfered gear. I had to make a decision. I had to leave town before I was noticed—before the owner of the camping store saw his merchandise walking down the streets unpaid for; before the supermarket manager noticed his broken window.
But…Della.
My eyes shot back to the house.
The front door swung open, revealing a woman with a lemon dress and a blue dish cloth in her hands. Her brown hair hung down her back while pink spots decorated her cheeks from chores.
I froze.
We stared at each other.
We stared some more.
Slowly, she lowered the dish towel and stepped off her porch then down the pebbled path to the front gate.
My knees jiggled to sprint. My thighs bunched to flee.
She smiled, cocked her head, and said, “Hello.”
I swallowed.
I hadn’t spoken in days. I’d almost forgotten how. Before I could be polite, she added, “I saw you in the window. Are you okay? Are you lost?” Her gaze landed on my backpack, questions scrolling over her face. “What’s your name?”
Her questions were landmines, and I didn’t want to get blown up.
Looping my fingers under the straps of my bag, I raised my chin, narrowed my gaze, and said coldly, “You have something of mine.”
“Excuse me?”
“I made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“I left something behind.”
She frowned. “Left what—” Realization widened her eyes. “Wait, are you talking about—”
“Della Mclary.” I nodded sternly. “She’s mine. I want her back.”
I noticed my stupid error too late.
I’d given her true name.
I’d revealed her family—the name connecting her to everything I was running from. Once again, I looked over my shoulder at the forest with its waving leafy arms and the message on the wind to hurry, hurry, hurry.
“Give her to me.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “Now.”
Her gaze slid over me from head to toe. “But…but you’re a kid. What do you mean, she’s yours?”
My heart sped up. I hadn’t thought this through. How could I tell a stranger the truth of how Della and I ended up as a we?
The reality…I couldn’t.
So, I told the first lie of many.
I boldly looked into a stranger’s face and spun the beginnings of a tale that would last the rest of our lives.
“She’s my sister. And I want her back.”
* * * * *
It took what I assumed was fifteen minutes or thereabouts.
I couldn’t tell the time, but the sun’s shadow didn’t move from the beginning where I stood on the street and demanded a baby, to the ending when I bolted from the house with her in my arms.
The woman was home alone with two of her own children, harried and split in all directions, so I was yet another mess to her already messy morning.