Page 31 of Songs of Summer

“That’s so sad.”

“Yes, it was brutal, but that’s not the point. There’s a chapter in here about you, when you were born, the circumstances, and how your mother feels about it.”

“My birth mother,” she corrected.

“Your birth mother,” Matt repeated respectfully.

“This is insane. Why did the author do that?” she asked.

“Well, it’s a good story, and I think your mo—your birth mother thought publishing it for the world to see might lead to you finding her. Which I guess it did, ’cause you were about to jump ship, but here you are.”

He flipped through the book, found what he was looking for, and held it out for Maggie to take.

“Here, it’s not going to be easy to read, but if I were you, I’d want to know—chapter thirty-seven, ‘Bea’s Secret.’ ”

She took it in silence.

Matt watched her intently; it was too interesting not to. At first, a joyful expression sat on her lips as she read about her mother.

“She sounds less crazy here,” she commented. “Is that why you wanted me to read this?”

“Just read,” he said with a gentle smile.

“Ohhhh”—she looked up at Matt—“Veronica stole her boyfriend.”

“I know.” He couldn’t help but chuckle at her repeating the contents back to him, as if he, and everyone he knew, didn’t know the story.

“He was the hottest guy on the beach—a lifeguard.”

“Yes.”

Matt worried that she would figure out that the bartender from tonight was the lifeguard and have another legitimate reason to run. Had she caught his name at the bar? If so, shemay have put two and two together. He knew he would have to tell her eventually, but she’d come here to find her mother, whom Matt was certain she would be proud of. The two-timing lifeguard who had impregnated her, not so much. He loved his mother’s friend Bea and adored Bea’s father, Shep, and this girl seemed like a dream. He really wanted this to work out for them all.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

She got off the chair and sat on the floor next to Matt so that he could see over her shoulder what part she was reading.

“She didn’t know she was pregnant with me till the fifth month.”

“I know,” he said again.

She began reading the conversation between her mother and their neighbor aloud, straight from the book. It was surreal.

“The baby was born about two weeks before graduation. My mom flew down in advance. ‘Bea is depressed,’ she told my dad. She gave birth at a birthing center in Mt. Vernon to a beautiful baby girl. Six pounds, three ounces, with olive skin and a thick patch of black hair like mine.”

Maggie started to cry and handed the book to Matt.

“I can’t.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Please.”

Matt took over reading the book aloud to Maggie.

“I know that I made all those choices myself, but I still daydream about what would have happened if Veronica hadn’t slept with him. I swear I would have kept that baby and married the lifeguard. I’m not saying we would have lived happily ever after, like I had pictured us doing at the time, but I would have my daughter.”

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