nna

y l

ping from

de me was em

yes open. Through my lashes, I saw the do

arm. The marks are gone. They're completel

pa

zed. Deep. Cold now. Nothing like the m

dle

s,

he bed. I was sure of it.

my jaw and pried my mouth open. Some

boss can't have any complications. Make sure the family keeps the

hed. "Of course, thank

faded down t

was ju

ot dug into my r

ed. "She's not moving. I thi

g sil

boys," Mo

t the back door, past the woodpile, to the edge of the ra

ould hear the river roa

me. She smelled like Ch

ftly. "You were always going to end up like thi

to grab

s didn't

od up.

ed me ove

s. Sky. Ground

r closed over my head, a

ed at the bottom

idn

nd broken in three places. He carried me to his cabin. He set my bones. He sat b

r's hands, and a cabinet full of silver needles, and eyes that l

hild?" he asked, the fi

mily,"

iet for a

we'll make you someo

eedling and the old acupuncture techniques he'd learned in a dozen c

st semester, I threw u

after pill h

d the appointment to end it. I had no money. No family. No idea who the

e screen toward me and said, "Oh.

ast and stubborn,

the tech had t

pt t

ng and residency. I studied with a baby on each hip. I graduated top of my

y's Sports Medicine Insti

days, after three surgeons said his season was over. They wanted me to run their n

Coast. Half the Boston Ironclads

st

Hoc

d, Monica, and

told myself I had built a new life, a

Boston in my lap w

it. And nobody could blame me for what came next. Every

contract th

hrew down that

, a list of names, and two four-year-olds wh