Once in Every Life

God, she was tired of being lonely.

"So, kiddo," she said to Caleb, "what do you think about global thermonuclear war? Or the greenhouse effect?do you believe in that?"

He burped a little and spat up.

For a split second there, she'd thought he was going to answer.

She was cracking up. Her scientist-sharp mind was turning slowly, irrevocably, to mush. She was inches? centimeters?away from going stark, raving mad.

The last few weeks had been almost unbearable. She hadn't had an honest-to-God discussion with a human being since the night Jack had yelled at her for breaking some unknown rule. In retrospect, that little tete-a-tete looked pretty good.

She couldn't live like this. She'd tried. She'd told herself to simply melt into the woodwork, do what was expected of her, and everything would be fine.

The problem was, nothing was expected of her. Nothing. Everyone walked around Amarylis as if she were a lighted stick of dynamite?quietly and quickly, without looking back. She felt like a ghost, unwanted and invisible.

Tess couldn't stand it. Here she was, a healthy, hearing woman who spoke with a lilting southern drawl, and she had no one to talk to. And nothing to hear. Just as before, she lived in a world of aching silence and isolation.

They ignored her. Completely.

Oh, Savannah came in twice a day, bearing a tray of food and a pile of folded towels for Tess's "you know, womanly needs." She nodded silently to her mother, occasionally mumbling, "Good morning"?that was a very good day in Tess's book?but more often saying nothing.

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She set the tray down on the bedside table, plucked up Tess's small bucket of used towels, then spun away from the bed and disappeared.

Tess wouldn't see another soul until dinner. Then Savannah went through the same ritual again. Jack and Katie hadn't even peeked their heads in to say hello.

Seeing a single person, and no one else, for over a month, especially when that person looked at you as if you were Typhoid Mary, just didn't cut it.

The first few weeks hadn't been so bad. In fact, it had been sort of nice, being catered to. She'd been in so much pain, and between feedings she'd desperately needed to sleep. But now Caleb was sleeping almost through the night and she felt pretty good. The pain and bleeding had passed, and she was breast-feeding like a champ. There was no re

ason for her to spend all day lounging in this room or this bed.

This was her life now. It was a realization she'd come to accept in the last few days. There would be no further soul switching, no last-minute "It was just a joke" from Carol.

It was done. This was Tess's life. She was Amarylis? she was going to have to do something about the name? Rafferty now, and she damn well had to make the best of it.

If there was one thing Tess knew, it was how to fit in. As a kid, she'd changed foster homes like some kids changed underwear. Things were always the same. She came into the family alone, a skinny, silent deaf girl who didn't?couldn't-?belong. The first few days she spent closeted in her room, trying not to cry, wishing things were different. Then she realized that things weren 't different. She lifted her chin, rolled up her sleeves, and set about fitting in.

It was time for that now. She'd waited and hoped for

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someone to invite her into the family, then she'd moped because the invitation hadn't come.

No more, she decided. It was time to make her own invitation.

Tess bided her time patiently all day, waiting for just the right moment to make her move into the family. With this group, she figured it was like merging into a Los Angeles freeway; one had to move cautiously and signal first.

After feeding Caleb, she crawled back into bed,

awaiting Savannah. As night pressed against the bedroom

window, she began to hear the telltale sound of cooking.

Tess smiled for the first time in days. Soon she would

make her move.