I decided to call Olivia before I went fully downstairs. Since I was grounded, I wasn't technically allowed to use the phone unless it was an emergency or something, but Adam and Brian were out and Crane was busy with making supper and looking after Starr downstairs, so I thought I could get away with it. I took the upstairs phone from its stand in the hall and pulled the cord into Hannah and Adam's bedroom, shutting the door as best I could with the cord in the way. I quickly dialled the number for Olivia's house, which I knew by memory. It rang a few times before someone- Violet, Olivia's mother, picked up the phone. When I asked to speak to Olivia, she told me she was sick, in bed.

"She's hasn't left her room since Sunday, the day after the party and she's running a fever," Violet told me.

"Oh… that's too bad," I said, thinking quickly. Of course, I wasn't about to tell Violet the real reason I was calling. "Please could you tell her I called and ask her to call me back, when she's feeling up to it, of course."

Violet said she would, and we hung up. I left the call feeling dissatisfied and deeply anxious. Was Olivia really sick? Or had she heard the rumours about her and retreated to her room? I couldn't even imagine how I'd feel if these things were being said about me but hiding in my bedroom seemed like a plausible option. Violet said that she hadn't left her room since Sunday though, and the rumours only started today, at school, so maybe she really was sick. I wished Hannah was home; she'd understand and I'd be able to talk to if her I wanted.

I put the phone back in its regular place in the hall and went downstairs to help Crane prepare supper.

/

Starr woke up just as Adam, Guthrie and Evan arrived home for supper. She started screaming her lungs out. Since she'd arrived, her crying hadn't phased me, but for the first time, her screams seemed to pierce through my skull. I sat down on the coffee table and massaged my temples, watching as Crane picked her up out her crib and held her against his chest, patting her back and bouncing with her a little. Adam said he would make her a bottle and headed to the kitchen.

"That kid has a mighty set of lungs," Evan said.

"How were try-outs?" Crane asked Guthrie, over the din of Starr's yells. Her face was all scrunched up and red. She was wailing so loudly I could see the back of her throat.

"I think they went well, coach is going to post the team tomorrow, so I'll see then."

Crane nodded.

"Where's Hannah? Is she upstairs? I need to ask her something," Guthrie said. He had been sitting on the one of the couches, but now he got up, as if he were going to look for her.

"She's out," I said, not offering any more information. Guthrie flopped back down.

"Where?"

I met Crane's eye briefly, but he looked away as he manoeuvred Starr so that she was resting on his other shoulder. He put a hand gently on the back of her head and murmured shushing sounds into her ear.

"What did Charlie want earlier?" Evan asked Crane.

Guthrie looked at Crane in interest.

"Charlie was here? Was it about Destiny?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat, feeling like I was going to cry again. I didn't want to hear Crane talk about a body all over again, and I know it might seem silly, but I didn't think Starr should hear her mother being spoken about like that, even though she wouldn't understand. It was bad energy or something.

I stood up and walked over to Crane, holding my arms out for Starr.

"Here, I'll take Starr to the kitchen with Adam for her bottle while you talk to the others."

"Talk to us about what?" Guthrie said.

I ignored him and Crane smiled at me gratefully, transferring Starr into my arms. I held her like he'd done, up against my chest, cradling her head on my shoulder. Her little body was warm and compact, but holding her up close intensified the sounds of the screams.

"Shhhhh, it's going to be okay," I said to her softly in her ear.

I walked into the kitchen just as Adam was testing the temperature of the bottle on his arm.

"I've brought Starr in here so that Crane can tell Ev and Guthrie about Destiny. I didn't think she should hear that about her mom."

Rather than Adam tell me not to be silly, he just nodded and said okay. He put the bottle down on the kitchen counter and then took Starr from me, holding her in his arms so she was looking up at him. Or screaming up at him. He sat down in his usual chair at the table.

"Pass me her bottle, will ya?" he said to me.

I gave him the bottle and he put it to Starr's mouth. She latched on immediately giving us a merciful respite to the screaming. I felt like I had never appreciated the quiet so much in my life and let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Intense, isn't it?" Adam said to me.

"I felt like my head was going to explode."

Adam smiled. "You get used to it."

I flopped down in the chair next to him on his left side and lightly grazed the sole of Starr's sockless left foot with my finger. She kicked it toward me as though I were an annoyance.

"You okay?" Adam said.

"Yea…she's a baby, it's not like it hurt or anything."

Adam smiled. "I know. I'm talkin' about in general. It's been kind of a heavy day for you; first day back at school and now this."

He didn't have to refer to what 'this' was.

"Yea," I said.

Raised voices came from the living room- sounds of disbelief and concern. I knew Crane had told them.

I looked down at the table and traced a well-worn groove in the wood with my finger.

"I don't want the body to be Destiny's," I said quietly.

"I know, honey. None of us want that."

I looked up at Adam then.

"You think it is, though, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have told me. Or the others."

Adam seemed to hesitate as though contemplating something but then he said, "Yes, I think it is, but we'll have to wait and see for sure."

I looked at Starr, sucking the milk from her bottle voraciously, completely oblivious to the life changing events unfolding, and felt an incredible wave of sadness wash over me. And a cold sense of fear.

"But if it is her, what are we going to do?"

When Adam answered, his voice was quiet, but firm.

"Get through it together, like we always do. As a family."

/

We waited until much later than usual to have supper for Hannah and Brian to come back, but when there was no sign of them, we ate without them. It was a quiet and tense affair. Now that Evan and Guthrie had been caught up to speed, they were both pale and worried. It brought to mind the time in Hannah and Adam's first year of marriage that Hannah had been missing in a suspected plane crash in the dead of winter. We were scared, deadly scared, but we wanted to be strong for Adam. Now, we ploughed through supper- pasta bake and salad- in relative silence apart from Starr's baby noises in Crane's arms, and Adam's attempts at trying to draw out from me and Guthrie how the first day of school had been.

We were nearly done when the phone rang, its shrill tones piercing the tension in the air. I thought it might be Olivia calling me back, so before anyone else could react, I jumped up and went to answer it in the living room. I answered breathlessly and then I heard Hannah's voice saying, "Hi sweetie."

"Hannah? Hi! Where are you? Is everything okay?"

"Heidi, honey, get Adam for me, will you please?"

I wanted to quiz Hannah, to insist that she spoke to me, but she sounded tired and I was worried about her, being pregnant and all, though Hannah is always lecturing all of us that being pregnant is not a disability. I stayed where I was in the living room and called for Adam. He came through, still holding Starr.

"It's Hannah," I said, "She wants to speak to you."

He nodded and came to take the phone from me. I didn't go back to the kitchen though; I just sat on one the couches, with my arms straddling the back of it, watching Adam on the phone. I couldn't hear what Hannah was saying, just the sound of her voice. Adam didn't say much, and his face gave nothing away.

"How are you doing, honey?" he asked at one point and then after Hannah answered, he asked after Brian. He ended the conversation by telling Hannah to tell Brian to drive carefully and that he loved her. When he put the phone down, he paused for a moment, his hand resting atop the receiver. He turned around and faced me. His face was impassive, but I knew.

He came and ran his hand over my hair and said, "Let's go back to the kitchen with the others."

I looked up at him. My heart hammered in my chest and suddenly, my stomach felt unsteady.

"It's her, isn't it?"

His eyes met mine. "Yes, baby. It's her."

I allowed Adam to lead me to the kitchen, where everyone else was still seated, his hand in the middle of my back.

In the past year, I've become good at hiding my emotions when I don't want others to know how I'm feeling, but now, my face must have betrayed me, probably because I was one step away from breaking down into tears, because as I sat down in my seat, Guthrie said, "What's the matter? Who was on the phone? Was it Brian?"

Adam sat down in his place again. He pushed his plate away a bit and put his hands on the table and cleared his throat.

"That was Hannah on the phone; she and Brian are headin' on home now. There's no easy way to say this, but the body is Destiny's."

There was a stricken silence. I stared at my plate, trying to blink away my tears, but they kept coming and I had to wipe them away with the pads of my fingers. I grabbed a paper napkin from the table to wipe my nose which had started running too.

"What the heck-" Evan said to nobody in particular.

"Do they know what happened to her?" Guthrie asked hoarsely.

"They'll be a murder investigation, but that's all I know for now," Adam said.

"How's Brian holding up?" Crane asked.

"Hannah says he's a wreck."

"What's going to happen now? With Starr, I mean?" Guthrie asked Adam.

"I don't know, Guth. We're gonna have to figure things out one thing at a time."

Evan blew out air noisily and pushed his plate in front of him away. I longed for Daniel and Ford to be there too- this seemed like something the whole family should be here for. I wondered what time Daniel would be home and if someone would call Ford at college and fill him in.

"Listen kids," Adam directed at Guthrie and me, "You've got school tomorrow and it's only the second day so go on upstairs and get ready for bed. Guthrie, it's best you stay again in Heidi's room tonight."

Guthrie looked at the clock in the kitchen.

"But it's still early, and I want to see Brian and Hannah when they come home," he said.

"Brian's goin' to be really tired, buddy and he's still got Starr to contend with tonight. You'll see him tomorrow."

"But it's not fair; we're not little kids anymore," Guthrie said. I knew from the mutinous tone in his voice of his voice that this could be something he really dug his heels in about.

"Come on, Guthrie," I said, softly, "Let's just go up."

Guthrie looked at me in surprise. Usually, I'd agree with him that it was vastly irritating how our older brothers still viewed us and treated us like little children, but for once, I understood why Adam wanted us out the way. Or maybe he wanted to spare us from what Brian would be like when he got home. I knew from experience that a hurting Brian was an angry Brian and while he never directed it at us, it was still very unpleasant to be around.

Guthrie sighed heavily to express his extreme displeasure, but he scraped back his chair. As the two of us left the kitchen, the others called goodnight to us. As I left, I couldn't even look at Starr nestled contentedly in Crane's arms, because if I did, I felt I would lose it completely and I didn't want to. Not downstairs, in front of everyone anyway. I didn't want the others to feel like they had to care for me when the real victims of this were Brian and Starr.

"I'll come up in a bit to say goodnight," Adam said.

Guthrie stomped heavily up the stairs behind me and when we got into our room, he flopped down on the spare bed, which had used to be his when we'd shared a room as kids and in which he had been sleeping since the arrival of Starr.

"I hate being sent up to bed like a damn kid," he grumbled. "When are they gonna start treatin' us like the others?"

I lay down on my bed too, face up and hugged one of my spare pillows to my chest.

"Probably never," I said.

Now that I was in the sanctity of my own bedroom, I let the tears that I'd been holding back out and they streamed down the side of my face, wetting my ears.

I felt Guthrie's eyes on me as he looked over from his bed.

"Why you so upset? You didn't even know her," he said, not nastily or anything, but more like he was puzzled.

I sat up, clutching my pillow to me and wiped my tears away with my hands.

"I'm sad for Starr, Guth. She's never going to know her mom or remember her. Like us."

"Yea… I guess I hadn't thought that far," Guthrie said, and now he looked sad too. "She'll have all of us though. The family I mean… if she turns out to Brian's."

"Yea, but it's not the same."

"No," Guthrie said.

I reached into the drawer on my bedside table to find the stash of Kleenex I knew I had there and took one out to blow my nose.

Guthrie got up and crossed to my bed and sat down next to me, stretching his legs out in front of him. It was tight, but I shoved over, more towards the wall so there was more room for us both. We didn't say anything else, but I lay my head on his shoulder and he just let me cry.

Merry Christmas one and all! I've got a few days off work now mercifully and I plan on eating, sleeping and writing. Wherever you are and whatever you're doing, I hope you're having a blessed time this holiday season.