Stained red along the edge with crimson fingerprints.
Birdie’s fingerprints.
A thought dawns on Vanessa like a new morning.
The baby isn’t coming yet. But it will be. Any time now. She reaches a hand for Birdie’s belly to feel the child.
The girl sits on the edge of the bed, exhausted and weakened. Her breathing ragged, she feigns labor. Vanessa indulges her, instructing her on how to breathe. She waits to feel the baby move. The baby that she knows hasn’t moved since Birdie was shot.
And then it does.
A flutter of kicks that look for all the world like a small mammal being digested in the belly of a python. And Vanessa smiles.
The child is alive and there is hope.
But she has to get them out of here. Tom can’t take this baby from her.
Not a second time.
VANESSA
7 YEARS AGO
Tom excelled at nothing so much as being the center of attention. So, when he decided to throw his first party after receiving tenure at the university, it didn’t surprise Vanessa in the least.
She’d been working late at the hospital, taking on more shifts than she probably should have. Sometimes she slept there and might not come home for over thirty-six hours. She dedicated herself to her work, much as her husband had. But it was sometime close to then that she realized something in their marriage wasn’t working anymore.
He’d taken to working late and spending more time with his students than Vanessa thought was entirely appropriate. And there was a particular professor that he spent most of his time with when he wasn’t lavishing it on female students. Mark Rose.
Another professor in the writing department, Mark had received tenure the year before. He was slightly older than Tom. Good looking and charming. Also married and had a child in the fourth grade. A little girl. She did gymnastics. Vanessa remembered his wife telling her that at the last party of Tom’s that the Roses attended.
Tonight, the Roses were planning on coming over for one of the famous Wolsieffer parties. Students would show up, Vanessa was sure. And usually she made it a point to be working whenever Tom invited his pupils. The whole idea of him drinking with them was enough to set her teeth on edge. Tom wasn’t the most well-behaved drunk and she knew that he liked to perform when he had an audience.
But tonight, he’d begged her to stay.
So, she’d gotten ready, leaving the preparations for the party to Tom. He’d gladly accepted the responsibilities. As a host and entertainer, no one was on par with him. There was a reason the parties were famous across campus.
She slipped through the house like a spirit, letting him guide the caterers and make sure the string lights were just so on the patio. She stayed out of his way but snuck a bottle of wine out of the kitchen before the party started.
She made small talk with some of the students who bothered to entertain Tom Wolsieffer’s wife. She wondered why they would, since she couldn’t guarantee them a fellowship like Tom could. She smiled hollowly at their compliments and laughed at their jokes, a forced and artificial sound that made her ears ring.
She excused herself and went to the patio. She drifted out towards the pool on her own and pulled her dress up. She crouched down and slung her legs into the water. With September closing in on October, it would be winterized soon, and she made a mental note to make the most of the remaining warm days that they’d have.
She kicked the water, watching the surface ripple with the movement of her legs. The angle of the light distorted her calves, making her legs seem to bend at an odd angle.
The sound of her skin parting the water was soothing. She wondered why she didn’t spend more time alone out here. She’d let herself become so consumed with her work that she’d forgotten almost entirely how to relax. It seemed there was always a knot at the nape of her neck, reminding her that there was still much work to do.
But tonight, she tried to let that go. She sipped the red wine in her glass, letting it grate against the concrete as she set it back down. She leaned back on her palms and let her legs get accustomed to the temperature of the water. For a moment she thought about skinny dipping.
It wouldn’t be the wildest thing that had happened at one of these parties, she was sure.
She closed her eyes, leaned her head back, and kicked the water, letting a buzz settle over her. When she opened her eyes, Mark’s face, upside down, peered at her from above.
“Shit!” Vanessa almost shouted. She jerked forward, her hand grazing the wine glass just enough to send the warm liquid into the pool. It billowed out like a jellyfish—like blood summoning a shark—and dissipated slowly in the chlorinated water, becoming a murky pinkness that seemed like a spreading infection.
“Sorry!” Mark hissed. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you like that. Mind if I join you?”
“Where’s Teresa?” Vanessa asked, not spotting Mark’s wife. She clung to him like a stick tight, her spiky edges lodged firmly into the fabric of his clothes. But tonight, he was alone.
“She stayed home. Molly’s sick. She didn’t want to leave her with the sitter,” he kicked off his shoes and took a seat next to her on the concrete. He rolled off his socks and tossed them carelessly into the grass behind them. Vanessa laughed.
Mark pulled his pants up and dipped his legs into the water next to her.
“Nice night,” he said.
“Indeed.” She hated small talk.
Mark’s leg brushed against hers under the water. She felt the hair on his calf tickle her own.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s alright,” she responded with a smile. His lack of self-assurance in having accidentally touched a woman was so foreign to Vanessa. Tom had
