Bella by Lisa Samson Page B

about adoption?”
    â€œDo we have to talk about this right now?”
    â€œNo.”
    She looked out the window, then back at José. “I can’t carry around a living thing inside of my body for nine months and then—what? Leave it on a doorstep in a basket for some stranger? To me, that’s worse than anything.”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be a stranger.”
    Nina grated out a laugh. “So I just start calling up my relatives? My relative ? ‘Hey, Mom, I haven’t talked to you in five years, but I got something for you!’ Or how about this? You can have it. I bet Manny could teach it a thing or two. The Suviran boys can raise little Nina because right now you’re probably the only one in the world I trust.”
    There. That should quiet him down. Put a little of the responsibility on him and see how far it goes from there on out. Maybe he’d head to the clinic with her next Wednesday. She didn’t know if she even wanted that, but going alone would be horrible. Somebody had to know in case she started bleeding afterward or something.
    She reached into the bag and pulled out a tart, green apple. Granny Smith. She handed it to José.
    â€œThank you,” he said.
    â€œYou’re welcome.” Might as well have one too. Amazing how people continued to breathe, walk, ride trains, eat apples, when their lives were falling apart.
    The landscape sped by. Industrial buildings choked with smoke, and she hated cities so much. Why come to dance and then stay when the dream faded? That was silly. She bit into the apple. He bit into his again. Back and forth the sounds of their chomping cut the silence between them.
    It was nice.
    â€œDo you want to dance again?” José asked.
    â€œIt’s been a long time. I’m not conditioned.”
    â€œI think you could do it.”
    Nina shook her head. “I believe you do.”
    She needed someone to believe in her. It had been so long.
    An hour later, they exited the train at the Hampton station. Nina wished she could have grown up at the beach. Memories of her father filled her.
    â€œNina! Nina!”
    Oh. She’d turned the wrong way.
    José put an arm around her waist and directed her toward the stairs. They climbed up toward the sunlight and the smell of salty air.

Fourteen
    T he rusty gate to the front yard creaked in the wind, open to the street. “Loochi!”
    Celia ran, her shoes pounding the heated cement, sending the jarring contact up her spine to the base of her skull.
    And brakes squealed, and her child
screamed, and a dull thump echoed across the face of the buildings.
    Oh, God . A silence settled the air in an instant.
    And Celia knew. She ran through the open gate. And Lucinda lay on the black road, limp. She threw aside the camera as the heat of fear slammed down onto her. “Loochi! No! No!”
    She ran to her child, barely noticing the shiny black car. “No! Oh no!” she screamed, kneeling down next to Lucinda, the blood fanning from the little body out into the street, a river, a crimson river eating Celia alive, consuming her life, everything.
    She could barely breathe.
    â€œSomebody call an ambulance! Somebody help me!” She pressed her ear to the tiny chest. Nothing, not a sound.
    Oh no. Oh, God! Please!
    The face, so pale. The ponytails askew. No.
    Loochi. Oh my baby.
    The driver appeared, his face pale, his eyes drowned in shock. Celia turned on him. “No! You!” she screamed, raising her fists and beating him as he took her into his arms. “No,” she moaned. “No.”
    He whispered into her hair, trying to calm her.
    â€œNo! Oh no!” She pushed away from him and took Lucinda into her arms. Feeling the tiny bones of her daughter’s legs and arms fall against her own.
    But something overtook her at the sight of Lucinda’s face. Dead and dead and dead. And a great groaning released from her core, accompanied by the