"The truth?" DiDi was shaking her head, her face twisted. "The truth? She was-she was a drunk-"

"Yeah, Dead Drunk Dawna."

DiDi shrank back at the name.

"Did you ever think of telling me that all those stories were about our mama?"

"Our-I-I was trying to protect you! She would've hurt you-"

"She needed me and you took me away from her. I could've taken care of her! Remember all those times I took care of Lori? She needed us and you ruined everything. She said you stole her money and car-and me-you stole me-"

"You-no! It wasn't like that, GiGi-listen. Please. After you were born, she changed. She wasn't the same Mama-not anymore. She started drinking all the time. She'd shake you whenever you cried. She couldn't deal. I knew I had to get you out of there-and then one day-one day, you were crying and crying and-just like that-she said it was too much and she... she pushed you."

DiDi reached out toward the star on my forehead.

My star.

The star that Trip said didn't look like any birthmark he'd ever seen before.

Birthmarks were brown blotches.

... But scars were white.

Jagged white.

Like lightning across a knee.

No. I shook my head.

It couldn't be true.

Just like that, it was too much. And she pushed me.

Then I remembered the dog. That poor little dog she'd shoved away without a glance.

"We had to leave," DiDi whispered. "I had to keep you safe."

I couldn't hear any more. I turned away.

"Baby-" DiDi began, but I held up my hand.

"My whole life... I wanted Mama," I said without turning around.

"I tried to give you what you needed."

I went into my room and locked the door. Then, for the second time in two days, I climbed into bed and fell asleep holding on to a worn, still-folded KOB.

forty-four.

I woke up thirsty and hungry and not knowing what time it was.

Why I was still in my jacket.

And wearing sneakers in bed.

I looked out the window. It was quiet, with none of the usual traffic along Main Street. No sound. No moon. Not even a single star in the sky. I didn't know how many hours it was before morning. If the sun ever came up again. I opened my door and tiptoed into the kitchen. I filled a gla.s.s with water and drank it down. And another. When I was done, I let myself remember I had found Mama.

DiDi was on the sofa bed, her eyebrows all wrinkled up and worried, even in sleep. Blankets tumbled and twisted around her. I reached up and touched the white star on my head. Had there ever been even the littlest piece of time when Mama loved me? Just a bit?

Suddenly, I was desperate. I needed something. Some piece of proof. I needed to know that at some point, at some time in my life, Mama had loved me. DiDi had hidden the truth from me all these years. What else had she hidden? Maybe somewhere there was a photo or a letter or a diary or something. Something from when Mama first had me, before she started drinking too much. Before she got so sad and mean.

I went over to the double closet that DiDi and I shared and pulled it open. There were boxes of old things on the top shelf that DiDi never let me go through. She handled all the house stuff and organizing. She said she had a system and I should spend my time on the stuff that I was good at and she'd do hers. Boxes and boxes of papers and photos and such.

They were stacked in piles four and five high. I grabbed the chair from my desk and pulled it over. Half of the boxes held old school papers. I looked through them, amazed. DiDi had saved every piece of work I'd ever done in school. Every report card. Every spelling quiz. Every 100%. Every A+. Stacks and stacks filed neatly away like recipes she might need in case she ever had to cook up a feast to show the world I was going to be something.

Preschool. Kindergarten. First grade. Second. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. Cla.s.s photos. Notes from teachers, all glowing and bragging about me and my potential.

And then, way in the back, an old plastic bag, folded over and taped up.

I grabbed it.

There was something inside. I ripped it open. A pocketbook made of some kind of cheap purple leather.

The pocketbook DiDi had stolen from Mama.

Recipe to Lose 10 Pounds

Just don't open that fridge.

forty-five.

Mama's pocketbook.

My mama's pocketbook.

I opened it carefully, like maybe the air trapped inside was still breathing with a whisper of her love for me. But it smelled stale. Inside was a wallet. Gas credit card. A couple of receipts. And an old driver's license. I looked at the picture of Mama on that license, which gave me more information about her than I'd ever had in my whole life.

She smiled too big in photos.

Her hair had once been dyed red.

Her birthday was April 25.

Such a pretty date. Nothing like the cold, wintry November dates of DiDi's and my birthdays. I liked the sound of it. April 25. I wondered if she had birthday parties in the spring when she was little. Something else was rolling and rattling around the bottom of the pocketbook. I reached in and pulled out an old envelope. Underneath it was a faded gold tube. As I slowly twisted it open, a whole dried-out pinky-red lipstick rose up.

Now the tears came. A lifetime of wishing for Cherries in the Snow, and here DiDi had a tube all along. And was probably trying to forget about it.

I pulled a piece of paper from the envelope. DiDi's birth certificate.

And that was it.

All that she took to start our new lives together. Stolen money, now long gone, an old lipstick, and proof from the Verity Hospital of the day she was born.

The top of the closet was empty. There was nothing left of Mama for me to find.

I sat there, exhausted and numb.

I touched the star on my forehead.

But it wasn't a star anymore. It was just a scar.

I put the lipstick back and picked up DiDi's birth certificate.

Delta Dawn.

I tried to imagine DiDi as a baby. Had Mama ever loved her, either? Or had we both been born into a sad, sad life? Not wanted by anyone?

Delta Dawn.

Typed on the form, all crooked and careless. Names and dates not even lined up in their proper places. I pictured a pretty nurse on some old-fashioned typewriter, rolling her eyes and just trying to get the job done as quickly as possible. I touched each crooked word with the tip of my finger.

Father's name: [Unknown]

I made a face.

Mother's name: Delta Dawn Barnes Child's name: Delta Dawn Barnes I leaned in closer. The ink was all smudgy and under MOTHER'S NAME, it kind of looked like it said Delta Dawn Barnes II. And under CHILD'S NAME, it looked like Delta Dawn Barnes III.

Which didn't make any sense, because Mama was the first Delta Dawn.

And DiDi was the second.

I shook my head. That snotty nurse in her fancy white uniform-being all careless and not giving a darn about other people's important life doc.u.ments. Why, she had even typed the wrong day for baby DiDi's birthday. She had typed... mine.

I blinked and looked again.

Some kind of voice in my head was warning me to stop.

But I didn't listen.

I looked at that birth certificate and I read it.

Again.

And again.

But no matter how many times I read, it didn't change the fact that the baby named Delta Dawn III was born on my birthday, in my birth year.

And the mother named Delta Dawn II was born on DiDi's birthday-but with a year that was not nine years away from mine. It was a good six years older than DiDi was supposed to be.

And then I couldn't think and I couldn't breathe, and the pressure in my ears began building and building till my head filled with the roar of a train heading into a tunnel where there was no coming back-a tunnel of screaming voices going faster and faster-until I realized the screaming was not in my head anymore. It was filling the room and it was coming from me. But I couldn't stop.

Not when DiDi came crashing in, tousled and wild-eyed.

Not when I pushed her away, kicking and hitting.

And not when I threw that crumpled piece of paper from the Verity Hospital at her, knowing that what I was really throwing at her was the truth.

It was not DiDi's birth certificate.

It was mine.

forty-six.

What is this? Who is Delta Dawn the Third? Why does she have my birthday? Why does her mother have yours? What is happening? Say It Like It Is, DiDi! Tell me the truth!"

DiDi was sobbing and gasping and trying to hold on to me. "There was a boy-I got pregnant-he disappeared-I never saw him again. Mama went crazy. When you were born, she forced me to name you after her and me-and she was drinking so much and I was afraid you would get hurt-I ran away with you. I had to-"