Stan gave Virginia a generous donation that very day. He said it was from the Fathers and Mothers to cover her heartbreak at the loss of her child and to give her enough for a clean start in a different town, where she wouldn’t always be reminded of her lost child. It was clear it was a bribe, though Stan never said as much. Virginia, drunk, took Stan’s money, and she stayed drunk for the next five days while Lilydale was overrun with papers and police.

On the sixth day, a Sunday, Virginia sobered up, broke into Stan and Dorothy’s house while they and all the Mothers and Fathers were at church, found me catatonic in the basement just as she’d suspected she would, and fled Lilydale with me. The Mothers and Fathers wanted me back because I was half Lily, but they didn’t want the police to find me, because Virginia could reveal that Dorothy had been the one who’d kidnapped me. So no one reported Virginia missing, they burned down her house to destroy any evidence she might have left, and they encouraged rumors that Virginia had killed me and then fled town to escape justice. Dorothy, for her part, kept reading the city papers for any word of Virginia and Paulie, because she believed I was hers.

I am still crying when Ronald finishes his story, because I know what he doesn’t. Virginia moved to Florida, taught me to paper over the bad memories and remember only the good until those years in Lilydale were a nightmare, changed her name to Frances and mine to Joan, and we would have made it . . . if I hadn’t written the obituary against her wishes.

Ronald makes an exasperated noise. “Stop all that blubbering. Deck is a good man. He doesn’t deserve all this worry. You really should be a better wife.”

The baby kicks my kidney.

He sees me flinch. He guesses what it is and rests his hand on my belly. I want to shove it off, but I’m too afraid.

“It won’t be so bad,” he says, flashing his teeth. “We’re going to have the biggest party when this baby is born! We’ll welcome him into the Mill Street family. We’ll all be there. Everyone who matters. We’ll restore order.”

That’s when I understand that not one part of me is my own.

Never has been.

Ronald turns away. He picks up the sailor suit and drops it into the trash. His back is to me as he speaks. “We’re all Lilys here, you know.”

I’m crying by now, but he won’t stop.

“All of us on Mill Street. Direct descendants of the only two of Johann and Minna’s children to survive. You have the purest bloodline in the nation.”

CHAPTER 58

July turns the air into liquid. I find myself constantly drenched in sweat. We have fans set up in every room of the house, but it doesn’t matter. My body is cooking in the world’s oven.

I’m living at Dorothy and Stan’s now.

They let Slow Henry move in with us.

Dorothy is thrilled to finally have her “daughter” home.

The Mill Street Mothers will not let me out of their sight, not even to use the toilet, certainly not long enough for me to escape. They take shifts watching me.

If I’m good, I can live, and I can hold my baby.

I must make them believe I’m good.

I laugh at my previous Nancy Drew plan, the idea that I could snap photos of Ronald’s questionable business practices and drive away. No, these people will not let me go so easily.

I finally know what I’m up against. I also have one chance of escape, a sliver of light in a raging sea of dark. Ronald unwittingly gave me the idea when he mentioned the party they’d have when my baby was born. The elegant, impossible timing, so much balanced on a razor’s edge. I can’t think about it. I just plod toward it, knowing there are only two ways it will end: I will be dead, or I will be free.

I seldom leave the sauna of the house. I grow more ponderous in my pregnancy, and as I do, I write articles, but they are about the joys of being pregnant and cooking and gardening. I’ve not been asked again to join the Mothers.

They allow me to attend get-togethers at Catherine’s house. There, I let them teach me how to crochet. We make blankets for the less fortunate. There is talk of Shirley Chisholm, and we all make faces of disgust. I learn the value of saving flower seeds from one season to the next.

Sometimes I spot Regina around town, but I’m never without one of the Mothers. I hope they leave her alone, but I’m too deep in the soup to warn her. The heat and my growing body conspire against me, making me slow and clumsy. Mildred reminds me it’s a precious life I’m carrying and that I should be grateful.

She doesn’t need to tell me. I know it.

I’m leaving Dr. Krause’s with her when she realizes she left her purse in the examination room.

I’m momentarily alone when the car pulls up.

A woman steps out.

I cover my mouth to stifle my scream.

She looks at me, then past me. I’m used to this invisibility as a pregnant woman. Lilydale tells me I am serving my purpose and don’t deserve a second glance. But she gives me one. Her eyes widen.

“Joan?”

It’s Ursula. She will destroy everything by being here. I hiss and back toward the door. I hope Mildred comes out. Grim-faced Catherine would be better at getting rid of Ursula. Mildred will help me, though. I can’t do it alone.

“Jesus, Joan. Are you having quintuplets?” She’s walking toward me, staring at my belly, grinning. The smile falls off her face when she meets my eyes.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“Benjamin called me,” she says. She’s gorgeous, truly a Sharon Tate, so trim and cosmopolitan and out of place in Lilydale. “I’m sorry, Joan. I should have been a better friend. He said he’s worried about you, for real worried about you, and that he can’t reach you at your old number. He found something out. Something he wanted me to tell you.”

I peer over my shoulder again at the clinic. Mildred is laughing with the receptionist. She’ll be out any minute. I must get rid of Ursula.

I walk up to her and shove her. “You have to go.”

She stumbles back, her expression wounded.

“Joan?” It’s Mildred. Finally. She’s behind me, her voice uncertain.

I turn to reassure her, stepping away from Ursula. I grab Mildred’s hand and lead her across the lawn so we can avoid the intruder.

“Minna and Johann Lily were brother and sister, Joan. Their first child was born horribly deformed. Minna went mad and threw it down a well.” Ursula’s voice starts shaky but grows louder as we walk farther away. “That’s not the crazy part, though. She and Johann kept going, having one freakish child after another. Do you hear what I’m saying?” She’s yelling now. “That’s some Olympic-level incest. This town is haunted. Fucking haunted. You okay? You okay, Joan?”

Mildred wraps her arm around me, and we scurry away.

Clean. Rested. Hydrated. Fed.

I’m ready.

It’s time for me to join them.

It’s time for me to get my child (Frances, I will call the baby, boy or girl; God, what my mother sacrificed for me) and escape Lilydale, for real this time. Forever. This must work out. My plan balances on a pin—so much could go wrong—but I can’t think of that.

One way or another, I’m getting out.