1. Chapter 1

Chapter one

Juliette

If a voice could tremble, mine was absolutely quaking.

Damn it, Erin.

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. I cursed her with every menacing dial tone. Never had I wished someone wouldn't pick up more in my life, while simultaneously knowing that if they didn't, I'd be screwed seventeen different ways.

"Hello?" I heard the clatter of pans behind the deep cadence of those two syllables.

My mouth was bone dry, heart racing as I composed myself. "Is this Caleb Ramirez?"

"Yeah, who's this?" The clanging stopped. I could hear the smile in his voice. It filled me with a sense of cold dread. The kind that started deep inside my chest and skittered to the surface, stealing the warmth from my skin.

My tongue felt swollen as I swallowed and choked on a reality I hadn't yet fully grasped. "My name is Juliette. Did you know Erin Delgato?"

"Erin? Oh my God. Yes. Is she okay? I haven't seen her in years. Why are you calling me ?"

"I think you should sit down," I said.

I wasn't sitting.

I was pacing the long hallway that stretched down the entire dance studio. The rhythm of my steps in tandem with my racing heart. The sunset stained the path from the lobby window to my shadowed office at the end of the hall.

I dreaded this phone call all afternoon. I had taught all my classes on autopilot. If anyone asked me right then what I had taught all day, I couldn't answer them because my mind had been here, envisioning this moment.

Caleb's demeanor changed, his voice flipping from affable aloofness to dark concern. "Why? What's going on?" I heard him hush a woman's voice in the background.

"Erin has a daughter, fifteen. Her name is Kelsey. According to Erin, and Kelsey's birth certificate, she's yours."

Silence. Dreadful, empty silence.

I had no choice but to continue. "Erin disappeared with her boyfriend to Brazil several weeks ago. She's abandoned Kelsey and left Kelsey's birth certificate and your phone number along with a note in which she signed over parental rights to you. It says the documents are all signed and at her lawyers—um—office. Prior to this, Kelsey was using a falsified birth certificate, meaning she didn't know about you. I assume you know about her." I was reading from a script I had written down, scribbled on, erased, crumpled, and stared at for two hours. The more I spoke the more my voice sounded like it had come from someone else. As if I were floating somewhere on the ceiling, watching myself act out the scene of this play.

"Is this a scam? I'm sorry, who are you again?" Caleb replied, clearly trying to piece together what I had said.

"I'm Juliette, Kelsey's ballet teacher. She came to me early this morning and…"

My voice trailed off.

And what? And she told me her mom never came back and that she went snooping in her drawers and found everything.

Should I say, "I can't lose Kelsey because she's my favorite student? And I need you to come and sign some papers giving me custody because CPS will just suck her into the system." That they wouldn't just leave her with me, not without a long legal battle first… and that I didn't even know how it worked, but I couldn't take the chance?

What? Please, I begged the universe, somebody tell me what to say !

I steeled my tone, calling upon my years as a business owner for composure, "She's staying with me. We need you to come and meet with the lawyer in order to sort this out."

"It's impossible. Erin left me in college. She wasn't—she would have told me. This is a mistake." His voice teetered on the edge between shock and disbelief. "She was on birth control."

I paced back to my office, finding comfort in the darkness. I pressed my back to the cool sturdy wall. "I'm just going by the note she left Kelsey. We're trying not to get CPS involved."

"Erin abandoned her fifteen-year-old daughter? Are you sure?" The smooth voice that had answered before had gone up an octave and was punctuated by shallow breaths.

I wished I wasn't sure. I wished Kelsey hadn't looked so indifferent when she came to me earlier and mentioned the abandonment as if she'd been telling me about her math homework.

There was so much despair etched in the futility of wishing.

I swallowed and cleared my throat. I had to be Kelsey's advocate. She deserved someone that would fight for her. "Erin hasn't come home from her vacation. She's disconnected her cell. Erin left a lawyer's number and says there are legal documents relinquishing custody to you. She's gone. For good."

"How do you know she's not missing? Was forced to write the note?"

"This stays between us. I did some digging after work and found Erin's new social media accounts. She used an email address she didn't remember I had. She's somewhere tropical from the looks of it. "

After a minute, the man scoffed, "She was always a sociopath. Did you call the police?"

"We can't do that to Kelsey. They'll take her away." I took a shaky breath and could hear the man on the other line do the same. "I'm all she has now," I finished, quietly, staving off the fear for what he would say to all this. "I know this is sudden, but I need you to come and sign over parental rights to me. I'll adopt her, no questions asked. She's packing a bag right now to come stay with me. "

"Wait—no. Give me a second to think," he said. I heard the woman's voice again, muffled by his hand over the mic. Her words, though imperceptible, were rushed and I heard him clearly dismiss her to check on their food. He could smell it burning, he said.

I envied that he could worry about burning food. All I could process was how small the world felt. As though only Kelsey, the four-foot radius around me, and this invisible line that connected my voice to his existed. Mattered. The frigid tile siphoned what little warmth was left in my feet through my battered ballet shoes. I found a new tear in my tights.

"Sorry, I'm in shock. I have a daughter." Caleb's voice dropped to a whisper as he spoke. "How—how can—it's—I had no idea," he stuttered.

"You didn't know?"

"No." The word came out on a whispered exhale.

I didn't know if I should believe him. I'd done as much internet sleuthing as I could, but with all private social media accounts, I only knew what his face looked like. There were no breadcrumbs on social media to help me piece together his character, or whether he even had a new family with the woman he shooed into the kitchen.

Silence stretched on between us. Before Caleb spoke again, he cleared his throat. "Where are you?"

"Just outside of the City."

"San Diego?"

"New York."

Kelsey was sitting on her front steps with a backpack and her dance bag by the time I pulled up to her house. She dropped into the passenger's seat and looked straight ahead the whole drive home.

"I called Caleb Ramirez."

"What did he say?"

"He said he was booking a flight for tomorrow." I drummed my thumbs on the steering wheel nervously at a stop sign. It seemed ridiculous to smile and wave at the neighbor as she signaled for me to take the right of way. "He said he didn't know that you existed."

Kelsey scoffed, "Yeah, sure. That's why his signature is on my birth certificate."

"I don't know how he's going to deny that."

"Did he say he would let you adopt me?"

"No, he didn't. Not explicitly. He told me to call the lawyer and make an appointment."

"Well, he obviously doesn't want me because he would have stuck around, don't you think?" Kelsey mumbled.

I shifted to park and reached for Kelsey's hand. I want you.

When she made eye contact it was hard not to see the child in adult clothing. To see eyes brimming with emotion and pleading for help. They stood in such contrast to the steely, thin line of her lips, which betrayed a maturity brought on by a lifetime robbed of childhood. It was like looking at an impressionist painting, a blurry portrait with blues standing in for white, and pink taking the place of her melancholy. A surge of empathy had me wishing I could shield her from this.

But I couldn't. This was her life. This was her reality.

And time was a God of chaos, mocking us with the sensation that life was standing still but also being ripped out from under us.

Kelsey pulled her hand away and exited the car, leaving me with the regret of words unsaid. That trickster God grinning at my ear and whispering that I took too long to speak.

I led Kelsey into my home, a modest split-level with three bedrooms and an open concept first floor. I lived alone, and my coffee cup from this morning was still at the kitchen island with the half-eaten bagel at its side. My home was a feminine paradise, with a floral color scheme and plants clinging to every surface and climbing up the walls. Kelsey smiled and crossed to my bookcase, where I had several of my most precious pairs of pointe shoes on display as bookends.

"Are these all yours?"

"From some of my performances. I couldn't find it in me to throw them away, so I nailed them to some bookends to relive my glory days." She touched the pink satin. "That one was Swan Lake. The principle was sick, so I took her place as Odette and Odile. It was the only time I ever performed that role."

"It must have felt amazing."

"Like I was invincible," I admitted. "I was terrified I'd mess it all up. You know how it is, though, the music starts, and your muscle memory takes over."

Kelsey nodded and ran her fingertips down my collection of oversized ballet books. "I wish I could have seen you dance back then," she said.

"If you could play one role, professionally, what would it be?" I asked.

Kelsey's face lit up and for a brief moment reality faded away. "That's easy, Kitri from Don Quixote."

"You always were good with the feisty roles."

"Her variation is everything."

"Agreed. Let me show you your room." Kelsey followed me up the small flight of stairs and into a guest room that had never been used. I could feel her trepidation in the way she matched the timing of her footfalls with mine, like she was trying to become invisible.

Kelsey watched me nervously as I drew the curtains and apologized for the thin layer of dust on the dresser. "Miss Juliette," her voice shook, "I'm sorry about everything. Thank you for helping me. I won't be a bother. I'm very neat and clean. You won't even notice that I'm here. I had no one else to turn to. I can—"

"Stop that." I crushed her in my arms. "Stop."

"I can cook for myself," she added quietly, not returning my embrace.

"Stop that, Kelsey. You're not a burden to me." I squeezed her a little tighter until the tension in her shoulders relaxed an inch.

"Yet," she whispered. Something within me fractured.

It had been a long time since Kelsey had come to me for support. When she was little, Kelsey was one of the most affectionate students, always hugging me and sitting on my lap. Never very talkative, but always seeking affection from me, which I gave all my students freely. In middle school she came to me for advice and comfort when her friend group split in half, and she had been caught in the crossfire of the opposing sides. As she got older, that naturally changed and we only embraced after a performance, or in celebration. It was normal for the girls to retreat into themselves in high school, to seek comfort from their peers and not me. They still came to me for advice, but only on the largest of dilemmas, or the juiciest of gossip.

Maybe I should have pressed with this one. Maybe I should have taken her aside to talk. Asked more direct questions when I sensed something was off.

The longer I held her, the tighter she hugged me.

Kelsey was an exceptional actress, I thought, as I searched my memory of any hints over the past few weeks that she had been living alone. She'd been a bit more intense in class, more focused and serious. That could have been for any number of reasons—wanting a solo in the performance, out-performing her role from last year, the stress of mid-term exams at school… Never, in a million years would I have guessed this was what was happening behind the curtain. The natural reaction to abandonment, I imagined, was not indifference. She seemed so indifferent.

No, Kelsey hadn't shown any red flags.

Yet, I couldn't shake the insecurity that I should have known. My students spent an average of fifteen hours a week training with me. I should have known. That guilt would gnaw at my insides for the rest of eternity.

I waited until Kelsey let me go. Putting a hand on her shoulder, I masked my thoughts with a smile. "I'm happy to have you and I'm glad you came to me instead of the school. Or even your friend's parents. You did the right thing."

"Thanks, Miss Juliette."

"Caleb will be here for the meeting on Monday, and we will sort it all out."

"What if he doesn't sign me over to you?"

That was the billion-dollar question.

"We have to see what the lawyer's documents say," I replied .

The documents cryptically left with Erin's lawyer that laid out all of her "plans" for Kelsey. I would have questioned the legality of all of this, but it served us better to trust that Erin's connections were discreet and powerful enough to bend the law to their liking.

"I'll let you settle in."

"Thanks. I have a lot of homework."

"I have an office you can use. Or the dining room table. Kitchen island. Wherever you feel most comfortable."

Kelsey pulled out her laptop. "I'll stay in here."

"If you need anything, I'll be cooking dinner."

She nodded and sat cross-legged on the bed. I lingered in the doorway for a moment, unsure of what to say. How to say it.

Kelsey didn't join me for dinner. Instead, somewhere around eleven the kitchen light flicked on. In her effort to be as small and invisible as possible, she left no trace of herself. Everything was exactly as I had left it except for a dirty napkin in the trash. The following day Kelsey went to a friend's house and swore she'd eaten dinner when she returned. I left dinner out for her, anyway, and waited to see if she would eat in secrecy again.

She did.

Caleb texted me around midnight. Hi . I just landed. Can you send me the address for the lawyer?

I thought I might toss up my own dinner as I replied.

Thank you. Sorry for texting so late, it was the only flight.

Several moments later he texted again. I'm staying at the Inn on Sycamore, if you need me.

I tossed my phone across the bed and grimaced.

I didn't need him for anything except to sign custody over to me and disappear forever. I needed him to enter stage left and exit stage right without taking any detours.

The sound of Kelsey's muffled sobs slipped under her door to haunt me as I lay awake. Uncertainty carved a hole in my stomach and settled there—a shadow of something I faintly recognized .

With a hand to my lower abdomen, I remembered how desperately I had once wanted to be a mother. How I had laid up at night, exactly like this, with nothing but the hope of creating life hanging from my heartstrings.

I can be a good mother to Kelsey.

I vowed over and over in the dark quiet to love her unconditionally. I made promises to the universe that if it could just, please, make Caleb sign her over tomorrow, I would be the best mother.

I would never ask for anything else.

Please , I begged, Let me fix this.