Not Her Daughter

by Rea Frey

  She just gave her daughter to a stranger.

  Guilt trickles through her veins, then vanishes as quickly as it came. This is the right thing to do. She feels it in her marrow. She sucks the last bit of chocolate, wipes her mouth with her sleeve, pockets her phone, and moves on.

  emma

  epilogue

  One year later …

  Emma kicks the soccer ball, and it soars into the air. She hears cheering behind her—parents, friends, her coach, and the coach’s little dog, Burlap, who is yapping while the kids play.

  She runs as fast as she can when it lands, hoping to make it into the goal. She kicks again and brushes shoulders with Angela, another girl on her team. She lines it up but misses and feels the swell of disappointment like a punch. She keeps running, because that’s what she’s learned to do, and finishes the game. Her team wins. They win!

  She jogs over to where the parents stand in a loose circle, congratulating their children. Emma searches for her face in the crowd. “We did it! We won! Did you see it? Did you?”

  “Of course I saw it! You did such a good job!” She hugs Emma and says after lunch she’s going to take her for ice cream. Emma waves goodbye to her friends—Jamie, Frannie, Claire, Alice—and wipes the sweat from her eyes.

  She links hands and walks to the car, talking the whole way. Did you see how fast I ran? Did you see how I got so close to the goal? Did you hear Burlap and how loud he was? Look at my legs! They’re getting so strong! This muscle here is called a quadracept. A quadriceps! No, that’s what I said.

  She bounces all the way to the car, replaying every second of the game. She loves soccer. She loves the feeling of running after a ball, of trapping it between her feet and dancing with it until it whizzes past someone’s ankles, legs, or head.

  They get in, and she buckles into her booster seat. “What are we doing after ice cream?”

  “I thought we could maybe go to a movie if you were up for it? How does that sound?”

  Emma nods and squeezes her stuffed animal to her chest. She will never get too old for stuffed animals, she has decided. She will always carry one with her. She kicks her feet into the back of the front seat, an annoying habit she can’t seem to break. The car starts, and they pull onto the open road, passing all the familiar houses and shops. She waves at a woman walking her dog, at another man who is watering his front yard. The radio flips on, stations scanned, until Emma yells stop.

  This is their game, and today, Emma wants something upbeat. She mouths the lyrics, because she is good at memorizing songs after she first hears them. The volume cranks louder as the windows lower, her hair a tangled whip across her face. They are laughing and singing, and everything is just as it should be. There’s no more yelling, saying mean things, being afraid, or getting so mad, she feels she could just hold her breath until she disappears.

  Home is not far, and it is so hot today, she hopes she can go to the neighborhood pool and work on cannonballs. Her friend Amos taught her how to do a cannonball, and now she is obsessed, because making water explode out of a pool is a powerful thing. She learned about powerful things—how her body is powerful, how her voice is powerful, how she can do anything.

  Lately, she has been spending more time in the backyard, because it is so warm out and she doesn’t want to miss anything. After a day spent in the dirt, the grass, or up in the trees, she will come inside and sneakily iron her shorts, even though she’s not supposed to use the iron. But she loves to listen to the dirt-smeared fabric hiss under the plumes of scalding water, the way they make steamy clouds in front of her face. Sometimes, there’s a casualty if she doesn’t shake out her shorts first, like the sizzle of the stray ladybug she forgot to brush away.

  Just last week, she caught four butterflies in a jar and covered the top with a cloth and then poked holes in it so they could breathe. She watched them fly around for an entire hour before she started to feel bad and let them go. But she has decided she wants to know how to fly. She told Amos, and he suggested she climb up to the roof and jump off with an open umbrella. Emma told him she could break a leg doing something like that and then wouldn’t be able to play soccer, so instead, she caught two flies and forced them inside her mouth and then puffed her cheeks out wide, just so she could feel them flying around, tickling her gums and teeth.

  Amos said that every time a fly lands, it pukes, but they never really landed in her mouth, so she thinks she’s fine. She swished mouthwash anyway for a full two minutes after, and it burned, made her eyes water, and her mouth sting.

  At home, she jumps out of the car before it even makes a complete stop and heads to the tree house. The tree house was here when they moved in, and it is Emma’s absolute favorite place in the whole wide world. She knows they might not stay here long, that they sometimes have to pick up and move without explanation. They have a code word when that happens—fairy—which means she has to pack her tiny suitcase, grab her favorite toys, and not ask questions. They have a story that they tell strangers, a script they stick to. This time though, she is hopeful they can stay. She has friends. And soccer. And the tree house.

  She hears the back door open and close, and she climbs into the tree and looks out on the yard, most of the street, and then to the slivers of the neighborhood among the trees. She has decorated the tree house with a few special objects: her favorite books and trinkets, three red hair bows, pebbles, four stuffed animals in order of shortest to tallest. She rearranges them now—widest to smallest—and then rearranges them again. Dumbo is missing an ear and Fred’s belly is covered in duct tape. Once, when she got really angry trying to tie her shoes, she pulled out his stuffing, but then felt bad and patched it.

  A few minutes later, she hears, “Lunch!” but she’s not ready to climb down yet. She does it anyway, because she’s learned that listening gets her more things and is also the polite thing to do. After exactly two minutes—she knows, because she counts—she bounds from the bottom rung of the tree ladder and explodes through the back door.

  “Go wash your hands, please.”

  “Okay!” She soaps her hands, changes clothes, and finally comes to the dining room.

  “Hungry?”

  “Starved,” Emma moans as she tucks into her sandwich and fills her mouth with peanut butter, jelly, and a drizzle of honey that sticks to her fingernails. She is starting a new school next week, and she can hardly wait. She has already picked her first five outfits. She has all of her schoolbooks, arranged in a colorful stack, and Sarah bought her a whole set of colored pencils, notebooks, and a beautiful butterfly backpack.

  “I wish school started tomorrow,” she says through mouthfuls of bread.

  “Yeah? Are you so excited?” Sarah asks.

  “So excited.” And she is. She can’t wait for tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

  She can’t wait to see what happens next.

  Discussion Questions

    1.  How does Sarah’s relationship with her own mother affect the relationship she forms with Emma?

    2.  Put yourself in Sarah’s shoes. What would you have done after seeing Amy’s treatment of Emma at the airport? In Emma’s backyard?

    3.  Why does Sarah risk so much to save a child she doesn’t know? Did she save Emma? Or did she carry out her own brand of vigilante justice?

    4.  Does Amy deserve to have her daughter taken from her?

    5.  Is it fair to label Sarah a kidnapper, or is there such a thing as a positive kidnapping?

    6.  What do you think is the main or central source of conflict between Amy and Emma? Does there have to be one to trigger Amy’s reactions or to justify Sarah’s actions?

    7.  Compare the relationships of Sarah and Ethan, and Amy and Richard. How do the relationships differ based on romantic partnerships versus parental obligations? Would Amy and Richard be happy without children? Would Sarah and Ethan have been committed if Sarah had gotten pregnant bef
ore they broke up?

    8.  Because Emma brings out the worst in Amy, do you think she will eventually bring out the worst in Sarah, or are children different with different caretakers?

    9.  Do you think Emma will have a better life with Sarah, even though she’s not her biological mother?

  10.  How does Sarah change fundamentally as a character from a career-focused woman to someone who’s willing to risk everything for a child? How does Amy change through the absence of her daughter?

  11.  Do you empathize with Amy?

  12.  What bearing does Amy’s supposed past lives have on her current one? What makes her obsessed with her past, as opposed to her present and future?

  13.  So much of Not Her Daughter is centered around mothers, but what role do the fathers—Sarah’s father, Richard, Ethan’s grandfather, and Amy’s nonexistent one—play in shaping those they parent/ed? What does having one predominant parent in each character’s life say about the influence and effect in raising a child?

  14.  Did Ethan make the right judgment call in turning in Sarah? If not, in what way do you think he should have handled it?

  15.  In this technologically advanced age, are you surprised Sarah doesn’t get caught?

  16.  Where will all the characters be in ten years? What do Sarah’s, Amy’s, and Emma’s lives look like?

  17.  Do you think Emma will grow up knowing Sarah kidnapped her, or will she see it differently? Will Sarah ever tell her what really happened, from an adult’s point of view? Should she?

  18.  Does Sarah deserve to get away with what she’s done?

  19.  Do you think Sarah kidnapped Emma as a means to save herself as an abandoned child?

  20.  What do you think of Amy’s decision to let Sarah keep Emma? Is this the right decision for her life, or the ultimate selfish (or selfless) act? Does Amy’s permission erase Sarah’s “act” of kidnapping?

  21.  What does it really mean to be a mother?

  22.  Who is Emma’s real mother and why?

   St. Martin’s Griffin

  Read on for an excerpt from the next gripping novel by Rea Frey!

  She shouldn’t have come out here in the middle of the night.

  She should be asleep. She should have never had so much wine. But the girls gave her such a hard time about not making the hike this morning. Though they insist they know her, they don’t. Not really.

  She wants to prove them wrong tonight.

  A branch pops under her boot. Pine and dirt are her sensory cocktail. The mountain air bites her lungs. The moon is a guiding half-bulb and cranks her skin to the lightness of milk. She struggles to find her footing on the path that weaves in a zigzag. She checks her reception: two bars. She swipes for the phone’s flashlight, then thinks better of it and switches it off. She’ll need the battery.

  Her breath severs into short inhales and sharp exhales as she starts to climb. She is not a strong hiker, has never been, and if she is being honest, it had been years since she’d moved her body on purpose.

  All the girls came off the trail this morning, sweat-stained and endorphin-soaked, ready for coffee, green juices, and egg whites. She slept in because she is childfree, which means she can finally take time for herself. She can relax. She can be lazy. She can do whatever she wants, which is the entire point of this weekend.

  Sometimes, she feels her friends are part bullies, part family. It’s hard enough being a mother and friend, and now she had to be a good sport too? What does it matter if she hikes the damn two miles? What does she have to prove?

  She trips over a tree root and steadies her footing. “Careful,” she warns. It will be a miracle if she doesn’t sprain an ankle or get mauled by a bear. She’d seen Back Country; because of that gruesome movie, she became a vegetarian for six months and hadn’t set foot anywhere near the woods.

  She’s run away from so much in her life—relationships, jobs, men, friends, family, travel, risks, the truth—that she wants to do this at least. She realizes, as the climb takes a sharp incline, that the person she needs to prove it to is herself. Not her friends. Not anyone else.

  Her, here, tonight.

  She checks the app on her phone that shows how far she’s climbed. She has half a mile to go, the spike of the mountain a phantom through the trees. She knows it’s ahead because the girls went on and on about the magnificent view.

  Her body aches the higher she climbs, her lungs flaming with every breath. The wine coats her tongue in a sweet, black film as the alcohol’s effects crush her senses. She decides, as she surrenders to the discomfort of her limbs, that she can do this. She’ll get to the serrated peak, swallow the virgin air, and memorize the sizable stars. She’ll even take a godforsaken selfie at the top, giving all the girls the middle finger. They will have a laugh and be so proud of—

  Her right foot swipes altitude, and she floats off the trail as if the free fall is deliberate, her arms thwacking the tops of trees on the way down. Gravity scrapes her body toward the earth in a relentless wrench. She expects to scream, to land on a hard edge, to feel her bones explode in a spritz of matter, clammy organs, and liquid—snot, tears, urine, blood—but she just keeps falling.

  She anticipates the pain, the silent reel of her life making its final playback in the few seconds she had left. But all she can register is that she had made a single error in judgment. She stepped right instead of left. But there is also the wine. The reckless, ill-timed decision to take a midnight hike. All the secrets. Him.

  She battles for breath as she falls farther, faster, and harder. Her child’s beautiful face blasts into her mind—motherless—as the ground hurtles into view. She can see it swimming toward her in a swath of green, jagged black rocks, and skinny trees. She keeps her eyes open.

  Here, in death, is where she will finally be brave. She stops the questions, the panic, the wonder, the lies, and feels a small punch of relief. It’s all going to be over. Her life, her past, her history, being a mother, her betrayals, everything.

  Gone in an instant.

  About the Author

  REA FREY is an award-winning author of several nonfiction books. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and daughter. Learn more at www.reafrey.com, or sign up for email updates here.

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  contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Sarah

  During

  Before

  During

  Before

  During

  Before

  During

  Before

  During

  Amy

  During

  Before

  After

  Before

  After

  Sarah

  After

  Amy

  During

  After

  Sarah

  After

  Before

  After

  After

  After

  Before

  After

  After

  After

  Amy

  After

  Before

  Sarah

  After

  Amy

  After

  Before

  After

  Sarah

  After

  Now

  Now

  Amy

  Now

  Sarah

  Now

  Amy

  Now

  Emma

/>   Epilogue

  Discussion Questions

  Teaser

  About the Author

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  NOT HER DAUGHTER. Copyright © 2018 by Rea Frey. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell

  Cover photographs: shoes © Mark Owen / Trevillion Images; mother and daughter © Westend61 / Getty Images

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-16642-5 (trade paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-250-16643-2 (ebook)

  e-ISBN 9781250166432

  Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.

  First Edition: August 2018