Most Precious Blood by Susan Beth Pfeffer Read Free Book Online Page A

results were, I don’t really know. My heart was breaking from not having babies. I would see my sisters and my cousins always with babies and my arms were empty and I was filled with sadness .
    Your father knew how much I hurt, and he hurt too, since he dreamed of a son who would take over his business someday, the way his older brother had taken over their father’s. Sometimes I was afraid that Ricky would leave me for a new wife, one who could give him children, but he always swore he loved me and would never leave me. I said many prayers. Only my cousin Connie, who was not barren, but could not bring a child to full term, knew the pain I felt .
    Then one spring day your father placed a baby in my arms and said here is the daughter you’ve dreamed of for so long. I could not believe the gift. You were the most perfect baby I’d ever seen. Your father said that you were six weeks old and that I could name you whatever I wanted, since you were too young to know what your name was. Six weeks earlier had been Valentine’s Day, so I named you Valentina. My family teased me because it was such an old-fashioned name, so we called you Val. I loved you from the moment I first held you in my arms. It never mattered to me that you were not from my womb. You were my daughter, my precious Valentina .
    At first your father didn’t seem to care much about you. I knew he was still sad that he could never have a son. But one day you crawled to him and lifted your arms up for a hug, and he picked you up and embraced you and from that day on, I know that he too loved you as much as if you’d been his own .
    I never wanted you to know you were adopted, but now I am so sick and I worry that you will worry you’ll inherit cancer from me. They say it runs in families. Perhaps you wish to marry, but you are afraid to, because you know how much your father has suffered from my illness. And that is why I’m telling you this. Of course I do not know what your real family was like , but mine has always been sickly and two of my sisters died before they were sixteen. You have always had excellent health, and the doctors have told me there is nothing to worry about for you. They say you should live to be an old woman surrounded by your grandchildren, and they told me this even before I became sick, so it wasn’t just words to cheer a dying woman .
    I wish I could be there on your wedding day. I wish I could see your children and grandchildren, hold them in my arms as I once held you. I know that you and your children will bring much joy to Ricky and that makes me glad when my heart is filled with such sorrow .
    My darling Valentina, you have always been my daughter, and I will watch over you from heaven and protect you with my love .
    With love and kisses ,
    Your mother
    Val folded the letter and put it back in its envelope. She returned the envelope to the shoe-box, and the shoe-box to its rightful place in the closet. She closed the closet door, turned off the light in what had been her parents’ bedroom, and walked back to her own room. She crossed over to her bed, sat down on it, and before she began crying, she pictured plunging a knife into her mattress and ripping it and everything else she had once thought of as hers into shreds.

Chapter 4
    It was hard eating breakfast the next morning under Connie’s watchful eye. It was hard reassuring her father over the telephone that the headache was gone. It was hard following the regular pattern of getting into the car with Bruno. But Val did all that, and everything else that was required of her, to escape the house on Tuesday.
    She knew one slip and everyone would know something was wrong. She hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, so breakfast was a necessity. Otherwise Connie would call her father, and he’d come home early. She knew if she revealed anything through her voice or her manner on the phone, her father would know something was wrong,