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TANA STRUGGLED TO SHAKE off the effects of the anesthesia. Her body didn’t work right. The bed shuddered as the camper sped up. She tried to speak, but her throat hurt and words wouldn’t come. Her memory fragmented, she remembered nothing.
A baby cried.
She was going to have a baby soon, too. Tana felt for the familiar swelling. Gone. A foreign ridge of numb tissue, sutures bristling to hold it together, marked her bikini line beneath the smock. Her brow furled in concentration to make sense of the change.
The cries came again.
Had she already given birth? She couldn’t remember. Tana whimpered and pulled herself into an awkward seated position. Her muscles wouldn’t obey, and the weakness made Tana tilt and nearly fall sideways onto the floor. She squinted. Three car seats sat on the floor with an infant strapped securely in each. The twin girls slept, oblivious, but the tiny newborn screamed.
Her baby! Tana’s eyes brimmed and an overwhelming joy bubbled from deep inside. Never mind she couldn’t remember anything, she’d puzzle it out later. Right now, she needed to hold her baby.
Tana stumbled across the jouncing camper and fell to her knees. She clutched her abdomen. Something deep inside ached, muffled by the drugged fog. She marveled at the beautiful newborn. Unstrapped the infant, snuggled it close.
The camper stopped. Footsteps. The driver stood over her, surprised and then angry she’d awakened.
He wrestled her baby away and held the screaming infant beyond her reach. Told her lies. Said Tana’s baby died. Said the newborn belonged to Rosalee, already signed away. Three sets of adoptive parents awaited. Tana must leave. Now.
She shook her head, tears streaming, arguing, pleading with him, offering anything. But he lifted her upright and dragged her to the exit. Tana grabbed hold of anything to impede his progress: the chair back, the kitchenette table, the door frame.
He unlatched and kicked open the door, then stepped down onto the dirt path. He dragged Tana after him.
Her hand grappled and found an empty wine bottle toppled off the table. In a repeat of the action that set her on this path, Tana hit him. He dropped like a stone.
Tana closed and locked the camper door, scrambled to reach the screaming baby. She crooned softly, smoothing the down-soft blond hair for only a moment. The doorknob rattled, followed by pounding. The flimsy lock wouldn’t hold for long.
The other two babies awoke. The camper resounded with whimpers and sobs. Tana’s own cries drowned out the infant chorus.
He’d left the keys in the ignition. She forced herself to strap the baby back in the carrier. Then Tana lurched into the driver’s seat, shoved the camper into gear, and drove away, into her new life.
