Suddenly by Barbara Delinsky Read Free Book Online

come.
    She sank down on the wide arm of a chair.
    “What have you got?” one of the girls asked.
    “Duhhh,” another mocked.
    “It’s a baby,” someone said.
    “Whose is it?”
    Paige wasn’t sure how to answer. “Uh, mine for now.”
    “Where did it come from?”
    “How did you get it?”
    “Is it a boy or a girl?”
    “How old is it?”
    Several of the girls had come to take a closer look at Sami. Paige eased aside the headrest so they could see.
    “Her name is Sameera, Sami for short. She was born in a tiny town on the east coast of India, about a day’s ride from Calcutta.” Mara’s excited words came back clear as a bell. “She was abandoned soon after birth—girls are considered the kiss of death to many in her homeland. She’s fourteen months old, but small for her age and physically delayed. That’s because she’s spent her life being shifted from one orphanage to another. She hasn’t had the encouragement to do much more than lie on a cot waiting for someone to feed her.”
    “She doesn’t walk?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Does she sit?”
    “Only with support.” Mara had told her this, too. Paige had seen it herself while she’d been bathing the child, when she’d done a cursory physical exam. She hadn’t seen any sign of illness or physical deformity. “Given proper nourishment and attention, she’ll catch right up. By the time she’s ready for school, she’ll be doing everything she should.”
    “So whose is she?”
    There it was again, that loaded question. “I’m taking care of her for now.”
    “Are you adopting her?”
    “No, no. She’ll be with me until the agency finds her a proper home.”
    “Then you’re her foster mother. She’s lucky. I was sent to live with an aunt when I was eight. She wasn’t anything like you.” This, from Alicia Donnelly. She had started Mount Court in the seventh grade and was now miraculously a senior. Along the way, she had had every sort of illness imaginable, from bronchitis to strep throat to mononucleosis. Peter, as the doctor of record for Mount Court, had treated her for those. When she developed a yeast infection in her junior year, Mara had taken over her case.
    Alicia had been a behavior problem as a child, so difficult for her socially prominent parents to handle at one point that removal from her immediate family had been the only alternative to hospitalization. Years of therapy had set her on her feet, and although she was far from a model student, she was extremely bright. Mount Court was more of a home to her than her own.
    “You’ll be a good foster mother,” she was telling Paige. “You know everything there is to know about kids. You’re patient. You have a sense of humor. That’s important, a sense of humor.” Her voice caught. “Dr. O’Neill had one, too.”
    Yes, Paige thought. A subtle one that could be dry or gentle but was always a delightful counter-point to her intensity. Paige would miss both the intensity and the wit.
    Sobered, the girls retreated to their places, some on chairs, others on the floor, and were still.
    “Dr. O’Neill was a good person,” Paige said quietly. “She was a dedicated doctor and a crusader. We should all take a lesson from her life. She gave of herself in ways that not many people do.”
    “She also took of herself,” Julie Engel said in a high-pitched voice.
    “You don’t know it was suicide,” Deirdre argued.
    Julie turned to Paige. “I heard that she was found in her garage. Is it true?”
    Paige nodded.
    “And that she died of carbon monoxide poisoning?”
    She nodded again.
    “Then it was suicide,” Julie told Deirdre. “What else would it be?”
    “It could have been an accident,” Paige answered gently. “She was very tired. She was taking medication. She could have passed out at the wheel.”
    “Not Dr. O’Neill,” another of the girls, Tia Faraday, insisted. “She was careful about things. When I was sick last year, she wrote out every last