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Teresa backed up until her legs hit the love seat. She sat down on Big Bear, and he groaned something in his mechanical voice.
The girl came closer.
“Mommy,” she said. “Why. Did. You. Kill. Me?” She enunciated each word as if English wasn’t Teresa’s first language.
“I–I don’t know what you’re talking about. How did you get in here? Who are you?”
The girl put her small hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at Teresa, an expression Teresa had used many times with Maggie. Teresa’s mother made the same look throughout Teresa’s childhood and beyond. Disbelief, disappointment, and a healthy dose of are-you-completely-incompetent-or-just-stupid.
“Once upon a time, Mommy,” the girl said, shaking a finger. She took a step toward Teresa, and Teresa pulled Big Bear onto her lap.
“Don’t call me that,” she said. “I don’t know you.”
The girl only laughed. “Once upon a time, you had a baby, and you were so sad.” She exaggerated the words, drew them out. “Then you killed me, and here I am as I would be if I hadn’t died. Aren’t I so cute?” The girl twirled around, skirt and hair flying outward.
“It was an accident,” Teresa whispered. “I only left for a second. I needed air. I needed . . .”
“Why did you replace me? And on my birthday, too.” She crossed her arms and pouted.
Maggie had arrived three months ago on what would’ve been the baby’s seventh birthday.
“I didn’t . . . I never . . .” Teresa cringed behind the stuffed bear. “Daddy decided. Not me.”
Partially true. When they couldn’t get pregnant again, Derrick brought up adopting a child. Perhaps he didn’t trust her to be around babies. He never believed her about what happened. He never said those words, but she could tell. She only said yes to please him. To make him happy. All she ever wanted was for him to be happy.
To love me again.
“Never mind that now,” the girl said. She pranced toward Teresa and shoved Big Bear off her lap. She placed her hands on Teresa’s. “Here I am, and maybe I forgive you.” The girl grinned.
Teresa searched her face. The dark eyes—Derrick’s eyes. The pointed chin—her chin. The pale hair. The dress—white and lacy and frilly. It was a replica of the dress she’d buried the baby in.
“T–Tiffany?” Teresa tested the name she hadn’t said in so long. The name she refused to even think. Saying the baby’s name in her thoughts made it hurt that much more.
The girl nodded.
“How is this possible?”
“I have a friend who lives in the old house outside of town.”
“The abandoned funeral home?” Teresa asked.
Tiffany nodded. “He is glorious in all his power.” She grinned.
Teresa pulled her left hand free and held the golden cross at her neck. Tiffany placed her hands on Teresa’s knees.
“He will give us another chance to be together. We just need to help him.”
A second chance? Teresa’s heart fluttered at the idea. “What do I have to do?”
Tiffany stomped over to Big Bear.
“If you love me, you’ll do anything to have me back.” She kicked the bear onto his side. “Say yes and we can be together again. Don’t you want to be with me?”
Bring back the baby. Then what? Would it be like nothing ever happened? Would it repair the damage? Would Derrick love her again?
Tiffany’s dark eyes gouged into Teresa’s soul. Teresa wanted to say yes. So often she said no. Back when she was naive and stupid and believed her life would be perfect if she just followed the rules. Graduate from high school, get married, buy a house, have a baby . . . No one ever told her the next step. Not even her mother, who ingrained the first four rules into her brain to such a degree she felt if she didn’t follow them she would be a failure. A complete failure.
The baby died. Doesn’t that make you a failure?
She looked at the girl standing before her. Seven-year-old Tiffany. Teresa cocked her head. “Why does your friend live in the abandoned funeral home?”
Tiffany stomped her foot. “Mommy, say yes.” She clenched her little fists.
Babies don’t come back from the dead as half grown children.
“No.” It burst from her lips. “No. This is some joke, isn’t it? Some sick . . . joke.” She went to the doorway. “I don’t know how you got in here, or who put you up to this, but this is . . . disgusting.” She pointed into the hall toward the front door. “Get out of my house.”
The girl shrugged. She stopped right next to Teresa, crowding her in the doorway with her chilly presence. Teresa pushed herself against the frame.
“You’ll change your mind. He always gets what he wants, and . . . So. Do. I.” She stepped into the hall, into a beam of sunlight coming in through the slender window by the door, and faded to nothing.
A trick of the light. That’s all.
But Teresa knew better. The door never opened.
And no one but she knew the truth behind the baby’s death.