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
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