“That’s enough of this,” my dad growled. “That’s enough. We’ve let these people talk about you right in front of our faces for too damn long, and I’ve had enough of it.”

“Tana Fritz?” I asked, shocked by the utter randomness of it. Kyle—yes, no bombshell there. But Tana? “Why does she get to have a say about me? Why should anyone listen to her opinions?”

I knew of Tana, but had never once spoken to her personally. She was the mother of Sara Fritz, the odd, loner type who’d bumped into me in the hallway after Jesse and Nate’s fight. But unlike her timid, reclusive daughter, Tana had a reputation for throwing herself into the limelight—she was the type of parent who volunteered for every school event or activity across the board, and her name was a regular on the list of editorial letters printed in the local paper. She had an opinion about everyone and everything, so I guess I shouldn’t have been entirely surprised that she’d have a hand in this.

Was that why Sara had looked at me that way? She’d felt guilty, of course, guilty that her own mother had tried to sabotage me with a stupid petition. She’d already known the plan. Did our class rank have anything to do with this? Knocking out the competition? Or maybe that was just a side bonus for a much larger religious grievance.

“They called today,” my mom said, her voice so low that we all leaned in to hear better. “KBC left a message today asking to talk to Mina, to us, but I didn’t call back and I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to ruin your birthday. I had no idea it would be happening this fast, especially without them getting through to you first, Mina. I’m so sorry I didn’t warn you earlier.”

I was silent for a few seconds, my thoughts too mixed and messy to pin down. “It’s okay, Mom. I don’t know what I would have done differently if you had told me earlier. I couldn’t have just jumped in front of the camera today. I’m not ready for that. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready for that. What would I say?”

“Well, you need to say something, Mina, because they’re sure as hell not going anywhere until you do,” my dad said, pacing behind the sofa in small, anxious circles.

I stood up, too angry and jittery to sit. “I can’t lie and make up a daddy just to make them go away, Dad. I can’t do it. I’ve gone this long, and I’m not changing my story now. That’s not an option.”

“I think it’s a little late for that anyway, Mina,” my dad responded, pausing to look me straight on. There was a rage in his eyes, an anger that didn’t sit right on his usually soft and open face. “I say we wait to see what other requests come in from KBC or from other news outlets, because there will be other requests—that’s one thing we can be sure about. And then you go on, you put yourself out there, and be the confused, honest girl who can’t exactly explain what’s happening.”

“But you’re my father and you don’t believe my story, so what chance do I have of convincing strangers who know nothing about me that I’m sincere? That I’m not just some stupid, scared little girl who made a mistake and lied and now doesn’t know how to backtrack? Doesn’t know how to undo all of the damage she’s created? And why do you even want me on TV spreading a story that you still think is a lie? Not just a lie, but a sacrilegious claim that will have me burning in Hell.”

“I don’t know, Mina.” He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his palms. “I don’t know. You’re my daughter, and I can’t watch strangers tear you apart like this. I don’t think we can sit back and do nothing, I really don’t, and this is the best that I have right now.”

“I think it’s worth a try, Mina,” Jesse said. “I think you’re going to have to put yourself out there and say something at some point if this keeps up, or your silence is going to raise even more questions and suspicions. You’ll have to issue some sort of statement at the very least. But maybe you should talk to a lawyer first. This feels way out of our depth.”

I looked to my mom, waiting for her to weigh in with some of her softer, more cautious maternal insights, but she looked too exhausted to disagree.

“Hannah? What do you think?”

Hannah hesitated for a moment, a lock of hair wound tightly around her fingers. “Your dad and Jesse make sense. But I don’t want to interfere with the family decision-making.”

“You are family, Han.” I almost said, And so is Izzy, because that was how I’d always thought of it—Hannah and Izzy were family, a pair, a full set—but I stopped myself just in time.

“Whatever you do,” Jesse cut in, “however you handle it, you all need to be behind it, a unified front.”

“Exactly,” my dad said, nodding in approval.

The room was silent then, all of us lost in our own murky thoughts. Jesse and Hannah got up to say their good-byes soon after, and I walked them both out to the porch. I blew a few misty white Os with my breath, the frosty night air feeling amazingly clean and refreshing in my lungs. Hannah gave me a last birthday hug—her eighteenth hug that day, she’d been counting—and looked toward Jesse to start off together for their cars.

Jesse shrugged and shook his head, shoving his hands farther into the wooly pockets of his brown leather jacket. “I’ll leave in a few minutes, but you don’t have to wait. I wanted to just talk to Mina about something first.”

Hannah’s shivering lips turned up in a tiny, fleeting smirk. She blew me a kiss as she turned away, leaving Jesse and me alone in the darkness.

Jesse was standing just a few feet away, but I’d left the porch lights off and it was too shadowy to make out his expression. There was only a soft, muted glow from the front windows, the light from the kitchen filtering out through lacy curtains.

“The present giving got a little disrupted earlier. And I wanted to wait, anyway, to give you my gift when we were alone.”

My breath caught. “You didn’t have to give me anything.”

He didn’t respond, just reached into his frayed canvas camera bag and pulled out a flat, rectangular package wrapped in old newspaper comics.

“It’s nothing much,” he said, clearing his throat as he handed it to me. “But I hope you like it.”

I peeled the paper back carefully, not wanting to tear through any of the cartoon faces or word bubbles because I already knew that I would fold this up and keep it tucked away somewhere safe in my room. When the paper fell away, I could see that it was a canvas underneath, a painting of some sort, but I had to walk over to the window to make out the details. It was a young woman—no, it was me, it was definitely me, I was the young woman—and I was standing by the window in my room, gazing out over the fields, a peaceful, satisfied little smile playing on my lips. My hands were wrapped around my stomach, cradling my precious bump, and in this portrait it looked like everything made sense. I was a glowing, confident pregnant woman who was looking out over the life and the future that she wanted for herself.

“This is incredible, Jesse,” I whispered. “I knew you were a film guru and everything, but you never told me that you were a painter, too. This looks exactly like me. Or exactly like I wish I could be.”

“You’re becoming her, Mina,” he said, the words sounding so simple on his lips. “And I wouldn’t call myself a painter. I’m in a painting class right now at school and, I don’t know . . . I guess you just inspired me.”

I looked back down at the painting, too lightheaded and giddy to string any adequate words together. As my eyes pored over the finer points, I realized that there was a phrase written in delicate cursive letters along the bottom of the canvas.

“Dum spiro spero?” I asked, squinting in the faint light. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, that . . . It’s a little corny, I guess,” he said, pausing as he fiddled with a zipper on his bag. “Kind of a Spero family saying. Spero means ‘I hope’ in Italian and Latin, and it’s a Latin proverb: ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ I thought it fit with the painting’s theme. It fits with you.”