Pretty Girl Thirteen. Liz Coley

and when I walk by a mirror it’s like I’m seeing the ghost of Angie-yet-to-come. It’s creepy.” She stuffed the whole wedge of dripping pancakes into her mouth. The sweetness stayed on her lips after she swallowed. She sighed. “I don’t know. Who do you see?”

      Mom took her left hand. “Just my daughter. A lovely girl on the verge of becoming a young woman.” She rubbed Angie’s knuckles, her fingers stopping on the strange silver ring. “Pretty,” she commented. “I don’t remember this ring from … from before.”

      Angie didn’t either, but something stopped her from admitting that. “Sure. I’ve had it for a long time.” A half-truth.

      “Oh. Okay. Guess I’m getting old. So, what would you like to do today?” Mom asked. “Shop for a few clothes that fit? And school supplies? Your appointment isn’t till three, but I took the whole day off.”

      “Wait. You work? Since when?” Mom was a stay-at-home full-time volunteer.

      “The library finally got a budget increase about two years ago, and since we needed … well, since I’d been such a faithful volunteer, they hired me.”

      Angie didn’t miss the slip. “You needed the money? Did Dad lose his job?”

      Mom’s silver-brown curls jostled as she shook her head in quick denial. “No, no. Everything’s fine there. He even got promoted to district sales manager. No. We just … it was expensive looking for you. Private detectives, advertising. And for God’s sake get that look off your face. Don’t think either of us regrets a single penny.”

      Angie shrugged off the sudden feeling of guilt. It wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t a runaway or a juvenile delinquent. As far as she knew.

      “It’s okay, hon. We’ll all be fine.” Mom gave Angie an extra-hard squeeze as if to convince herself. A drop of syrup spilled onto the quilt.

      Angie dabbed at it and licked her finger. “Have you told anyone else yet? I mean, there aren’t a bunch of reporters on the lawn waiting for me to finish my breakfast and shower, are there?”

      Mom made a show of going to the window and pulling back the curtains to check. “Nope. Not even one camera crew. Phil, Detective Brogan, is doing his best to keep any leaks out of the department until you’re ready. That’ll be hard. You, my dearest, were a very high-profile case.” She gazed out the window into the far distance. “So speaking of telling people, are you going to call Livvie today?”

      Oh God. What would she say? Hi, Livvie, I’m back from the presumed dead? I didn’t get ravaged by cougars. What’s new with you? Definitely not a conversation she wanted to face right now. “Uh, no. I think I’ll wait till after the psychologist.”

      Mom’s eyebrows pressed closer. “But maybe your friends …” She stopped, readjusted. “No, sorry. Of course. You need time to absorb the idea yourself before you deal with other people. That’s sensible. But I did call Grandma, of course. Last night after you fell asleep. Uncle Bill is driving her down on Saturday.” Mom let the curtain drop.

      “Yuncle Bill?” Dad’s much younger brother was only eight years older than Angie, hence the nickname she gave him when she was six and he was only fourteen—young uncle was “yuncle.” She hadn’t seen him for ages. “What about Grampy? Isn’t he coming?”

      Mom’s face froze. The silence lasted a beat too long. Angie bit her lower lip. Oh no. Please don’t say it, she prayed.

      But Mom did. “Oh, Ange, hon. Of course you wouldn’t, couldn’t know. We lost Grampy six months ago.”

      The bottom fell out of her stomach. Her cheeks went numb. Silent tears splashed onto her pancakes. What else had she missed?

      She choked out the words. “What else, Mom? Anything else I need to know? Anything else I missed?”

      Mom’s left hand darted to her stomach, her right to her mouth. Her eyes searched the room. “I … no,” Mom said.

      A blind person could have told she was lying. “What, Mom? Spill it. Could anything possibly be more heartbreaking than never seeing Grampy again?” And then an awful possibility crossed her mind, watching Mom clutch herself like that. “Cancer? Oh God. Please, please don’t tell me you have cancer.”

      “Oh, honey, no! It’s not … it’s … it’s good news, at least.” Mom bit her lip. “We’re expecting.”

      Angie’s mind blanked. “Expecting what?”

      “Angie, hon, I’m pregnant.”

      A swooshing sound drowned out her mother’s next words. She saw the lips moving, but she couldn’t hear for the raging storm in her mind. Oh God. It was true. A new baby. They had given up on her. They really had.

      And even worse was the thought that while she lay lost and shackled, maybe hungry and cold, maybe tortured and scared, Mom and Dad were kissing and planning and baby-making and moving on without her.

      Without warning, she heaved up all over the plate, all over Grandma’s beautiful hand-stitched quilt. Mom slammed both hands over her own mouth and ran from the room.

       You helped our mom clean up your vomit in embarrassed, tense silence. Girl Scout wanted to help restore order, but we had agreed to give you this chance. It was too soon to bring you back inside. It was too soon to give up hope that you could manage on the outside.

       While the laundry ran, our mom suggested shopping again. And since your old clothes didn’t fit our body, you agreed. You knew you would need them for school soon, anyway.

       Mom tried to resurrect the old ritual at the mall, stopping first for cinnamon pretzels the way you always did before, wanting to re-create the closeness, the innocent times. You forced yourself to eat the whole thing, while your stomach cramped. At least it made her smile.

       The salesgirl at Abercrombie looked at you funny when you said you didn’t know our size. You took an armload into the dressing room alone and stripped down to try everything on. It was the first time we had seen our whole body in front of a mirror, and I let each of the girls borrow the eyes, just to peek, until our mom knocked. “Everything okay? Need any different sizes?”

       I suppose I let them take longer than I should have. You startled as we retreated and you found yourself with a roomful of untouched clothes and your hands cupped over your breasts, weighing their unexpected fullness.

       “Hang on,” you snapped at her. “I haven’t even started. I’ll let you know.” You finally tried on all the clothes, but alarmed at the price tags—thirty-five dollars for a T-shirt?—picked only three shirts and one pair of jeans.

       “That’s all you’re getting?” our mom asked. “I thought this was your favorite store.”

       “That’s all I wanted from here,” you said. “Let’s go somewhere less designer.”

       Mom let a little relief show on her face. Money must be even tighter than she’d let on.

       When you left the mall, there was a little surprise waiting for you in the shopping bag for later. One of us had very expensive taste and very light fingers.

      Detective Brogan came by at two o’clock to explain a few things before Angie’s appointment with his psychologist. Dad had gone to work, as if it were an ordinary Monday, back to the usual routine. Mom and Angie sat on the sofa with the empty cushion dividing them. Brogan glanced between them, and one eyebrow lowered slightly.

      “Everything okay here?” he asked. He was wearing a dark suit instead of weekend clothes, his chin was shaved smooth, and the faint scent of citrus wafted from his aftershave.

      “Of course, Phil,” Mom answered cheerfully, while Angie thought, This guy doesn’t miss a thing.

      Studying