25
Grace
I got home just in the nick of time. The snow was coming down and the roads were slippery—not a good day to be driving. As I pulled up, the radio announced there had been an accident on the Beavertail Road and it was closed in both directions. I’d have worried that a client would go into labor tonight, but as I was no longer taking clients in secret, I had no other clients.
I’d never seen Robert quite so upset. The way he’d looked at me—it was a hundred times worse than when I’d told him about the investigation. He’d used all the worst words—betrayal, dishonesty, disappointment. Initially I’d stayed quiet. After all, I’d earned it. But when he kept it up, banging on about how selfish I was, I got my back up.
“Hang on a second!” I yelled. “I may have done the wrong thing, but what about you? You’ve been moping around here for weeks. Poor me, I might lose my job. Poor me, people got fired today. How about: Lucky me, I still have my job. Lucky me, I didn’t get fired today! And did it ever occur to you that I was doing this so I could support my family? I have an envelope full of cash in the study—”
“Wonderful, so now we are tax evaders too? Fantastic, Grace. You’re right. I should be thrilled.”
Eventually we’d reached a stalemate and gone to bed in separate rooms. We’d hardly spoken since, and I was still pissed off. Now, warm air hit my cheeks as I opened the front door to the house. A good, warm mug of soup was what I needed. Peeling off my scarf, hat, and gloves I hurried toward the kitchen. I was about to pass the sitting room when I heard Neva’s voice. I held back, out of sight. I hadn’t noticed her car. She sounded like she was crying.
“Are you sure it’s over?” Robert asked.
Neva must have nodded.
“Then he’s an idiot. An idiot and certainly not a gentleman. Abandoning you when you’re about to have a baby. What have you done to deserve that?”
I crept a few steps forward and pressed my ear to the wall.
“I slept with a married man, Dad. A man who was going through something awful with his wife.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. But Robert, in usual Robert fashion, didn’t react.
“She’s made a full recovery—his wife—and she knows nothing about me. The whole thing was a horrible mistake.”
I wanted to run in there, to wrap my arms around her, but something stopped me. Robert was with her.
“Well … you know what, sweetie? If there’s something I’ve learned from being married to your mother, it’s that mistakes, misjudgments, failures—sometimes they’re the best part of life. In fact, as far as mistakes go, I’d say this one is the best you’ve ever made. Creating a life. Giving me a grandchild.”
Neva laughed and sniffed. “You sound like Mom.”
“She’s rubbed off on me after all these years. As for Patrick … well, I’m guessing he’ll need some time. He might come back. You never know.”
“I doubt it. Why would he?”
“You can flagellate yourself if you want, justify all the reasons he won’t come back to you, the reasons he shouldn’t. But you know what? It won’t affect the outcome. You’re better to focus on what you do have, which is a baby, due very soon. A baby who, even without a father, has been blessed in the parent department.”
I peered around the corner. Robert had his arm around Neva, and her head rested on his shoulder. I took a step back, then another, retracing my steps out the front door and onto the street.
I powered along the unplowed roads for what felt like hours. The ground was carpeted white, apart from patches where reeds peeked through, too frozen even to sway in the wind. Suddenly it was all so clear. Why Neva didn’t come to me. Why she was so much more open with her father. I’d come into our relationship with so many strings attached. Love me. Share with me. Validate me. And when she didn’t, I pushed her even harder. Even further away. The truth was, she could never have filled me. She wasn’t the one who’d left the hole. It was my father.
As I walked, I watched two cars skid in the snow, and passed a third lodged in a fence. I kept walking. I didn’t know where I was headed, but after an hour or so, I found myself outside Mom’s house. It was where I usually ended up when things got tough.
I let myself in and strode toward the sitting room, then skidded to a stop. Neva sat by Mom’s side, cradling a mug of coffee. Tearstains swam on her creamy skin. “Neva!”
I don’t know why I was surprised. I’d been walking for a long time—there had been plenty of time for her to leave her father and come to see her Gran. A part of me was hurt that she hadn’t factored me into the visiting schedule, but I immediately took that thought back. This wasn’t about me; it was about Neva. And there would be no strings attached. Not anymore.
“Grace!” she said. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
“You were?” My cheeks heated. Although I knew it shouldn’t matter, I warmed through at this fact.
“I’ll make more coffee,” Mom said, rising slowly from the armchair. I moved to Neva’s side, and she fell into my arms.
“Shhhh,” I said. “It’s okay, darling. It’s okay.”
She cried until my chest was wet. It was strange, rocking my twenty-nine-year-old daughter in my arms. Strange and sort of beautiful. She told me it was over between her and Patrick. She told me it was all her fault. She told me about the ob-gyn and his wife with cancer. Unlike Robert, I didn’t have any words of wisdom, only sympathy. Sympathy and sadness that, unlike when she was a little girl, I couldn’t magic her pain away with a kiss and an ice cream.
Mom arrived back with coffee a short time later.
“Okay,” Neva said. “I’m going to the bathroom and then I’m going to come back and get myself together. Okay?”
I nodded, pressing confidence into my face. “Okay.”
Neva heaved herself to standing. She moved slowly, carefully, her knees buckling under the weight of her belly. It had grown since the last time I saw it, and now it was hard to believe she had a month to go. As she lumbered toward the door, a shudder skittered through her.
“You okay, darling?”