Free Roxy's Baby by Cathy MacPhail

with the candles already lit.
    Roxy stayed back, watching all their faces. Sula immediately began to cry, covering her face with her hands. Anne Marie reached out and pulled her into a hug, then she began to cry too. Even Babs managed a tear, wiping it away dramatically. ‘This is ruining my make-up,’ she was saying.
    Agnes was trying desperately to squeeze one out. Crocodile tears, Roxy’s mother would call them. Phoney as a three-pound note. Roxy couldn’t cry. It just wouldn’t come. She looked around the other girls and her eyes finally fell on Mrs Dyce, and there she was, watching Roxy closely. She wasn’t crying either. She wasn’t smiling. It was as if she knew what Roxy was thinking, and didn’t like it. Then her gaze moved back to the girls and it seemed to Roxy that her eyes were as cold as ice.
    It was a great party. They ate the cake and drank Babs’s punch and they all got so giggly that Roxy began to wonder if Babs had indeed found some alcohol to put in it. She said so to Anne Marie.
    â€˜It’s our mood. A good mood, a good laugh, it’s better than alcohol any day. And a happy ending, Roxy.’ Her eyes went back to Sula, sitting on the carpet, her face glowing as Babs tried to explain in sign language that she must write to them.
    â€˜Sula’s got her happy ending.’ Anne Marie said it wistfully, wishing for her own. ‘Don’t you just love happy endings, Roxy?’
    Loved them, Roxy thought. She just didn’t believe in them.
    Mrs Dyce stayed for most of the party and only stood up to go when they began to clear the plates and glasses away.
    Roxy found that annoying. ‘Why does she stay? Can’t she see we’re just young girls and we want to be alone, to party on down? We can’t even talk with her here.’
    Anne Marie, as always, stuck up for her. ‘If it wasn’t for her, none of us would be here. Where would you be, Roxy? She’s like a mother to us.’ To make her point she crossed the room and linked her arm in Mrs Dyce’s.
    Mrs Dyce patted her hand and smiled. ‘I’m trusting you, Anne Marie, to get this lot to bed. Sula has an early start in the morning.’
    With that she crossed to Sula and kissed her brow. ‘Tomorrow, Sula.’
    Sula beamed up at her. ‘Tomorrow.’
    They crowded into Sula’s bedroom before she went to bed. They all had gifts for her. Anne Marie had given her a holy medal, Babs a little bundle of pot pourri, Agnes had made her a special card. The only one who didn’t have a present for her was Roxy.
    â€˜You’ve only been here a week, Roxy. No one expected you to get a gift,’ Anne Marie told her.
    Sula looked around them all. Her eyes were filled with tears. She muttered something in her own language, over and over again. And though they understood nothing, it was clear what she was saying. They were her friends, and she would never forget them.

Chapter Twelve
    They never saw Sula again. By the time Roxy was up next morning, Sula had gone, her bed lay stripped and bare. Her pathetic knick-knacks had disappeared from her bedside table.
    â€˜It’s as if she’s never been here at all,’ Roxy said to Anne Marie. The thought bothered her more than she could explain. They were eating breakfast outside in the sun, sitting on a rustic wooden seat that had seen better days. It was a late May morning, already bursting with heat and sunshine.
    â€˜Her memory lingers on,’ Anne Marie said, laughing as she stuffed an orange segment into her mouth. ‘It’s the best anyone can hope for, don’t you think? To be remembered. Will you remember me, Roxy?’
    â€˜You’re not going anywhere?’ Roxy was alarmed at the prospect. Already this older girl was her friend. Someone she could truly rely on in a strange new world.
    Anne Marie patted her beloved bump. ‘Not yet.’ She counted her fingers. ‘June,