chapter Seventeen
Her words tumbled around inside his head like Scrabble tiles.
"Say that again." Maybe if he heard the words a second time, he'd be able to make sense out of them.
She was crying. He saw that. He understood that. She knelt in front of him, knees sinking into the mattress, her slender body illuminated by a thin ribbon of moonlight spilling through the window.
Then she said it again. "Simon Chase was my father, too."
His father. Her mother. Years of secrets and lies and plans that ended on a sunny afternoon in May when Mona Taylor died.
"It doesn't make sense," he said, struggling to find one shred of sanity in the sordid mess. "If you were his child, why did he hate you so much?" He remembered his father's withering sarcasm whenever Gracie's name was mentioned. His seething resentment of his cook's grandchild had always seemed out of whack to Noah. "You were all he had left of the woman he loved. You should have been—"
"He blamed me. I was the reason she stayed in her marriage. My birth brought her and Ben back together. Don't you see? In Simon's eyes, it was my fault and he hated me for it."
"Why didn't you come and tell me?"
"Your father was a very powerful man, Noah. He told me he would ruin what was left of Ben's life, break your mother's heart, and—" she hesitated a moment "—he said he would cut you off without a penny."
"Do you really think I gave a damn about his money?"
"No, but we were so young, Noah! He was going to take school away from you, everything that was part of your life. I knew what it was like to be poor but you hadn't a clue. How could I do that to you?"
"Are you sure you weren't looking out for yourself?"
His words stung like a slap. "I think you know the answer to that."
"There was money involved. I heard the stories."
"Ten thousand dollars cash," she said without hesitation. "He left it in an envelope on the kitchen table. I found it when I was leaving the notes for you and for Ben." She told him about Old Eb and his surprise. "I like to think he had himself a good time on it."
In a twisted way, everything she had said made sense. Each piece fit perfectly with the piece next to it and the pieces above and below.
He swung his legs from the bed. "Get dressed."
She stared up at him as if she'd never seen him before. "What did you say?"
"Get dressed. We're going to talk to my mother about this."
"No!" She leaped from the bed and faced him. "Leave Ruth out of it. I don't want her to be hurt by this."
"I need some answers and she's the only one who might be able to give them."
"You can't do this, Noah. She's old. She hasn't been well. You can't throw the past at her this way. What if she doesn't know?"
He pulled on his pants and sweater, jammed his feet into his shoes. "Then I'm afraid she's about to find out. This is the rest of our life we're talking about, Gracie. Don't you need to finally hear the whole story?"
The last thing Gracie wanted was to hear the whole story in all of its sordid detail but Noah was out of his mind with anger and pain. She'd never seen him this way before. This Noah hadn't existed when they were young and their future stretched out before them, bathed in the golden light of innocence. She quickly slipped back into her clothes and ran down the hall after him.
#
The loud voices were what woke Sophie up. She tried to cover her ears with the pillow to keep them out but it didn't work. Papa's angry voice found her anyway. She thought she heard Gracie too but Gracie didn't sound angry. She sounded scared and very sad, like she was about to cry.
Sophie hated loud voices unless they were hers. She didn't like the way grownups shouted at each other and then made the children pay the price. She lay there for an awfully long time, listening to the sounds. Her mind danced all over the place. She thought about all the people she had met today. She thought about how much fun she had playing outside with Sage's and Morocco's children. She thought about the food and the music and Gracie and the poor bird she had found on the beach. She didn't want to think about the bird but every time she closed her eyes she saw him lying there, scared and cold and alone on the rocky beach.
What if there were other birds on the beach who needed help too? There could be lots of them all tangled up in fishing line, hoping somebody would come along and save them. The more she thought about the birds, the sadder she felt, until there was nothing left to do but go down to the beach and see for herself.
At least at the beach she wouldn't be able to hear Papa and Gracie fighting.
#
Ruth had been about to retire for the night when Noah and Gracie burst into the room. Their clothes were wrinkled. Gracie's hair was decidedly untidy. She would have thought they were fresh from a romantic encounter if the air between them hadn't sizzled with anger.
"What is it?" she asked, trying to seem her usual calm and placid self. "Is something wrong?"
"We need to talk," Noah said. He didn't sound like her son. The fierceness of his tone made her uneasy.
"Noah has some questions," Gracie began and Ruth could see the fear in her eyes. "If this isn't a good time..."
"It's about my father and Mona Taylor," Noah interrupted.
Ruth's eyes closed for a moment. Just hearing Mona's name brought back so many memories, both painful and sweet, that she felt overcome with emotion. She drew in a deep breath then looked at her son. "They dated in high school," she said, "but you probably already knew that."
"I don't give a damn about high school," he said. "I want to know about after."
"There is no 'after'," she said quietly. "Mona married Ben the year after graduation. I married your father three months later. There isn't much to tell."
You're a coward, Ruth. He deserves better than this... they both do.
"Is that what you wanted to know?" she asked.
Gracie pulled at his sleeve. "This isn't a good time," she said. "Your mother's tired."
"Not at all," Ruth lied. "It's just a very old story. I'm surprised you're interested."
"He loved Mona, didn't' t he?" Noah persisted. "He loved her enough to leave you for her."
Ruth laughed nervously. "Where on earth did you hear such a thing?"
"That's how Gracie's mother died. She was on her way to meet my father... they were running off together—"
"No!" Gracie broke in. "That's not true. Simon was lying. My mother was on her way back home from taking me to the pediatrician for a checkup. She had a quart of milk in the car, Noah, and donuts for Ben. She wasn't running off with Simon. She was going home."
"Gracie's right," Ruth said, taking another step toward releasing her burden. "I saw Mona at the convenience store just before the accident and she had laughed about those donuts with Willie Sloane who was at the register that day. She said Ben's belly was bigger than hers had been at nine months along. She saw me standing near the newspapers and we just looked at each other across the store for what seemed like the longest time, then she gathered up her change, grabbed her groceries, then left." It was the last time Ruth saw Mona alive. "I always wondered if I could have stopped it somehow... if I had said something to her... delayed her for five or ten seconds... maybe—" What was the point? Mona was gone and Ruth was here and there were days when Ruth wasn't sure which woman was the luckier.
Gracie cried softly. Ruth's words had found their mark deep inside the young woman's heart. It was her mother, after all, who had been at the center of the drama. It was her mother who had died. Noah, however, hurt too much to hear what she was saying. Ruth had lived with the truth for so long now that she had almost forgotten the way unbearable pain obscured everything but the source. It was a lesson she had prayed her son would never have occasion to learn.
See what you've done, Ruth? It's all catching up with you...
Noah grabbed Gracie by the shoulders and spun her around to face Ruth.
"Look at her!" he demanded. "Take a good look and tell me she's not Simon's daughter."
Gracie was a grown woman now but Ruth could still see the child she had been, that needy little girl who had reached up to hold her hand as if Ruth could somehow make it all better. She looked at the child and saw the mother, gone now almost thirty years, and it almost broke her heart in two.
#
Hope was a painful emotion. For the space of three or four seconds Gracie believed they might have a happy ending, but then Ruth's eyes filled with tears and she said, "I'm so sorry, Gracie, I wish I could—" and the ocean roared in Gracie's ears and she ran blindly from the library.
She'd been a fool to believe they had a chance to be together. Tonight had been a terrible mistake, one she would pay for, for the rest of her life. It was easier to live with the absence of happiness than it was to lose it again. They had come so close, so painfully close, to making their dreams come true at last. If only she hadn't let herself believe they could bend reality to fit their needs, then maybe this wouldn't hurt the way it did.
She was halfway to the door when she realized her coat and the car keys were upstairs in Noah's room. She didn't want to see him again or his mother. She wanted to run out the back door and disappear. I understand why you do it, Sophie. Sometimes there's just no other way.
Noah was in so much pain. She remembered how it had felt when she first discovered that there could be no future for them. The enormity of it, the finality, had been devastating. How do you come to terms with the fact that nothing you could do, nothing you could say, could ever make things right again. Not even love was powerful enough to change this central fact of their lives.
"Oh, it's you, Gracie." Darnell poked his head into the hallway. "I heard the back door slam and I was wondering."
She struggled to regain a degree of composure. "I wasn't anywhere near the back door, Darnell."
He frowned. "That's strange. I could've sworn I caught sight of someone running by, then heard the door slam shut. Must've had too much white zin with dinner."
"Didn't we all. That's part of the Thanksgiving—" She stopped. "Oh my God," she said. "Sophie!"
She tore back through the hallway, past Noah and Ruth, and ran upstairs to Sophie's room. The door was ajar. Her heart was racing with apprehension. "Sophie," she whispered, pushing the door open wider. "Sophie, are you asleep?"
The bed was empty.
She flew back downstairs to Noah and Ruth. "Sophie's gone. Her bed is empty. She's not in the bathroom." She told them about Darnell and the sound of the back door slamming.
"Call the cops," Noah told his mother, "then call Sage and Morocco and ask if they'll help."
"Get some flashlights," Gracie said. "I'll tell Darnell and Rachel and the others to start combing the house and the yard."
"She's a little girl," he said, aging before Gracie's eyes. "She couldn't get very far."
Gracie didn't have the heart to tell him how wrong he was.
#
Storm and two of her siblings began searching the house from basement to attic for Sophie. In a big house like that there were a thousand places where a little girl could hide. Ruth was in the kitchen talking to one of the local policemen while Rachel brewed pots of coffee. Darnell had gone out in his truck to search the local roads while his sons headed off into the woods. That left Noah and Gracie to check the yard, the garage, the tool shed, and the carriage house.
"She can't have gone very far," Gracie said. "We'll find her very soon."
"I should have seen this coming." Noah paced back and forth in front of Gracie. "You did."
"Where does she usually go when she runs?" Gracie asked.
"No place special. For the most part she just runs." He struggled to corral his thoughts into something useful. "Whatever caught her eye earlier: the bridal shop, Patsy's—"
They looked at each other.
"Jesus," he said. "The beach."
#
Sophie followed the path that twisted and curved behind the garage and led down the slope to the beach. The closer she got to the beach, the rockier the ground became until she found herself stopping from one slippery perch to another. She wished she had put on her shoes and socks and maybe even a heavy coat. There wasn't a single bird out tonight. In fact, the water seemed to be coming closer, lapping over her ankles and sliding up her legs.
She felt very small out there alone in the dark. The world was bigger here than it had been in England. Even the smells were different. During the day she didn't mind so much but now all of those things seemed to be lurking in the shadows, laughing at her.
She wished she had stayed in her nice warm bed in the pretty pink room with the Barbie Dream House. It was scary being out there all alone. Even the moon looked spooky as it slid behind some dark clouds. She didn't like the slithery feeling under her feet or the way something long and feathery kept brushing up against her legs. There were lots of strange things lurking about underwater, eels long and skinny as snakes, big ugly sharks with jagged teeth and dead eyes, even dead bodies like she had seen on the telly.
Maybe she should go home and come back tomorrow when the sun was shining and the seagulls were awake. That sounded like a good idea. She turned to retrace her steps when suddenly her right foot slipped a little and she tried to stop herself but it was too late. Her foot slid down and wedged itself between two rocks. She tried to wiggle her way out but each time she moved the jagged edge of the rock pressed deeper into her ankle.
She cried out for her father and then she called for Gracie too but there was no answer except for the shrieking sound the ocean made as it rose higher all around her.
#
You couldn't miss the fact that high tide was rolling in, but only Gracie realized they had no more than ten minutes to find Sophie before the thin strip of remaining rocks vanished altogether. She knew this stretch of beach well. In many ways, it mirrored the beach by the lighthouse where she and Noah had fallen in love. It was great for sunbathing at low tide when the receding water revealed hidden stretches of smooth sand, but once the water started rolling back in, you could get in trouble in the blink of an eye. If the rocks didn't get you, the currents would.
She didn't say any of that to Noah. He knew the realities of Maine beaches. She saw the way his eyes darkened when he realized the tide was rising.
"I don't see anything," he said into the wind. "The place is deserted."
She cupped her hands around her mouth and for the second time that day she screamed, "Soophiiiie!"
Noah did the same, louder still.
"Wait!" Gracie motioned for him to be quiet. "I hear something."
"I don't hear—"
"Papa!" The sound was soft, so soft it was almost lost in the rush of wind and sea. "Papa, help!"
"I see her!" Gracie pointed farther down the beach. "She's lying across the rocks. Stand up, Sophie! The tide's coming in."
Sophie tried but failed and a chill ran up Gracie's spine.
"Stay here," Gracie said to Noah. "I'll get her. I'm better than you are at walking on these rocks."
"The hell I'll stay here. I'm going with you."
She would have been disappointed if he'd said anything else.
They struck out over the rocks, scrambling, slipping, swearing under their breaths. Even Gracie found it tough going. The sky melted into the sea; the rising tide obscured the rocks and made each step a leap of faith.
Gracie cried out suddenly as the bottom dropped out beneath her and she found herself in at least ten feet of murky, icy water. "Stay there," she warned Noah as she dogpaddled fiercely to stay afloat. "One of us has to be able to go back for help if something goes wrong."
She did a quick crawl toward Sophie, who was shivering uncontrollably. The child looked in Gracie's direction, but there was no recognition. Hypothermia, Gracie realized. She was well on her way to unconsciousness.
"C'mon, Sophie!" Gracie cried out. "Stay awake! Don't give up on me!" Her arms were lead weights slicing through the water. Her mind was oatmeal. She peered into the darkness but Sophie's tiny form blended in with the rocks and the water, appearing and disappearing at will. "Wave to me, Soph!" Move, scream, anything to give her something to aim for, a focal point in all of the sameness..
Thank God, Sophie somehow registered her words and lifted her hand. Gracie fixed her sights on that slight movement, narrowing her concentration until there was nothing left in the universe but that faint back-and-forth movement.
A little more... just a little more... don't be distracted... don't look toward the horizon or you'll never get back on track... you're almost there... almost...
Moments later Sophie threw her arms around Gracie's neck and clung to her as if she'd never let her go.
"Don't leave me here," Sophie cried. "Don't let go!"
"Don't worry," Gracie promised as the current swirled around them. "You're safe with me now, Sophie. Everything's going to be alright."
Gracie tried to strike out toward shore but the second she moved Sophie let out a cry and Gracie realized with horror that the child's foot was stuck between the two rapidly disappearing rocks.
#
Ruth paced the driveway, calling Sophie's name, praying, trying not to cry. Her granddaughter. Her one chance for redemption. They had had so little time together, a handful of weeks to make up for the five years she had missed. God wouldn't be so cruel as to take Sophie now when she was so tiny, so vulnerable. Sophie had been through so much in her short life. Was it asking too much that she be allowed to have a home and family to call her own?
The thought that she might lose all three of them—Sophie, Noah, and Gracie—hit Ruth like a blow. She sagged against the side of Laquita's car and choked back a sob. She felt old and useless, trapped by time and infirmity, unable to get out there and join in the search.
She had made up her mind to tell Noah and Gracie everything but Gracie had jumped the gun and leaped to the wrong conclusion and see where it had led them. Sophie had run off, Noah and Gracie were at odds, and Ruth was more alone than ever before.
Simon and Mona were long gone. Ben had finally found happiness. And there was Ruth, keeper of secrets, with the chance to set things right if she only could. Just give me one more chance to do this, she pleaded with God, not for my sake, but for theirs.
Her time was over but theirs had yet to begin.
#
Noah dived deep, trying to leverage his body weight and use it to pry the rock off Sophie's foot but the natural buoyancy of the salt water worked against him. Three times he dived and three times he returned to the surface, gasping for air and cursing his failure to free his daughter. Gracie, kicking furiously to stay afloat, used her body as a prop for Sophie to lean against. Their margin for error was quickly disappearing. Even with Gracie helping to keep Sophie's nose and mouth above the water line, it wouldn't be long before the water enveloped the child and they would lose her.
Everything else dropped away from him. Anger. Pain. Sorrow. All that mattered was Sophie. He filled his lungs with air then went down again. He used his legs this time, summoning up every ounce of strength and ingenuity at his command, then kicked hard. The rock slid away, freeing Sophie's foot at last.
"You did it!" Gracie cheered when he rose, sputtering, to the surface. "Noah, you did it!"
Sophie clung to Gracie and refused to let go.
"Can you make it back with her?" he asked and Gracie nodded.
"Try and stop me," she said.
He had never loved her more than he did at that moment. She was brave and strong and when she loved, she loved with everything she had to give. She was his in every way except the one that really mattered. She could never be his wife, never be the mother of his children. They would watch Sophie grow up from opposite ends of town, watch each other grow old, watch each other grow lonelier as the days grew shorter and there was nothing in heaven or on earth that could give their story the ending it deserved.
Gracie's legs caved underneath her when she reached the rocky shore. She tried to stand but the combination of icy water and terror had done a number on her and she collapsed on her side, careful not to hurt Sophie who was clinging to her like a baby monkey.
"I'm c-cold," Sophie whimpered, burrowing closer to Gracie.
"So am I, honey," she managed, hugging her tightly. "We'll get you home as fast as we can and get you into some warm clothes."
Noah took Sophie from her and the exhausted child fell deeply asleep almost immediately with her head resting against his shoulder. The sight of Noah and his daughter standing there on that rocky beach was almost Gracie's undoing. They looked right together, as if all that had happened between Noah and Gracie, the years of loneliness and despair, had found their purpose in the little girl who slept soundly in his arms.
Noah held out his right hand to Gracie and she took it. Their fingers laced together automatically, the way they had when they were young and newly in love. Nothing had changed. Not the jolt of recognition she felt each time they touched. Not the sense that they were meant to be together forever. He helped Gracie to her feet and they stood close together, foreheads touching, bodies shielding Sophie from the wind as if they had been watching out for her all of her life.
"Thank you," he said, as the bitter taste of broken dreams filled his throat. "I couldn't have—"
"We're still a great team," she said, her voice breaking with emotion.
"It's not enough. I want us to be together. I want—"
"I know," she whispered, "but we can still be a part of each other's life, Noah. Maybe not the way we wanted but—"
He leaned forward and kissed her one last time, long and sweet and desperate. "I love you, Gracie. Nothing they throw at us will ever change that."
"We'd better get Sophie home," Gracie said, taking a step back from the dream. "She needs some warm dry clothes and a cup of hot chocolate."
He took her hand and they made their way back to the house.
Storm set up a cheer when she saw them dashing across the driveway with Sophie and the next thing they knew they were surrounded by people, all thanking God and good fortune that Sophie was safe. Ruth stepped out of the shadows near Laquita's car and touched a gentle hand to her sleeping granddaughter's cheek. She had touched Gracie's cheek that way, too, a long time ago.
"Look at the lot of you!" Rachel exclaimed. "We need to get you all into warm tubs and dry clothing."
"I'm fine," Gracie said. "I think I'll just head home."
"You can't go home yet," Rachel said. "You're drenched and shivering."
"I really should get back," Gracie said. "Ben will be wondering where I am."
"No, Gracie!" The voice was loud and clear; the tone brooked no argument. "You're not leaving yet."
Everyone turned to stare at Ruth. They had never heard her use that tone of voice before.
"What I mean," Ruth said, "is that I'd like you to say a little longer, Gracie. I want to talk to you and Noah once you've changed into dry clothes."
"I don't think that's necessary," Gracie said, edging toward Laquita's car.
"Please," Ruth said, looking from Gracie to Noah. "There is something I need to say."
#
Ruth took a steadying sip of whiskey while she waited for Noah and Gracie to change into dry clothes. There was no turning back this time. She had made a pact with God and God didn't look kindly on people who reneged on a deal. No matter what else she had done wrong in her life, this was one thing she intended to get right.
"There's hot chocolate for you on the desk," she told Gracie when she arrived. She repeated the same to Noah two minutes later.
They looked so bereft, so terribly sad that she thought her heart would break. What had she done to them? What had she allowed Simon to do?
She took a deep breath then went straight to the heart of the matter. "You asked a question before, Noah, one about paternity. I had started to answer when the commotion with Sophie began. I'd like to finish my answer, if you don't mind."
"That isn't necessary," Gracie said and Noah concurred. "We know the truth. Now we have to find a way to live with it."
Ruth arched a brow. "Will you let me tell my story?
Gracie's cheeks reddened. "Of course."
"You asked me a question, Noah," she continued, "and the answer is no. Simon was not Gracie's father." She turned to Gracie. "He lied to you, honey, and I'm so sorry I didn't tell you this a long time ago." Simon died. Gracie and Noah left Idle Point. The years flew by and after awhile Ruth convinced herself that anything Simon might have said or done no longer mattered. Surely her son and Mona's daughter had moved onto other loves by now.
But then Noah returned with Sophie in tow and Gracie came home for Ben's wedding and only a bitter woman, blind to the ways of the heart, could miss seeing that their love for each other had never died.
Gracie leaned forward and rested her forehead on her knees. She was having trouble taking in the enormity of the statement as a thousand what-if's pummeled her emotions into suspended animation. If only she had stayed long enough to ask questions. If only she had demanded that the adults in her life account for their actions. If only she had been a little older, a little tougher, a little harder to undermine. Oh, Simon had read his opponent well. She had been too young, too brokenhearted to do anything but exactly what he had wanted her to do: walk out of Noah's life—and his—forever.
"He had an affair with Gracie's mother after you were married, didn't he?" Noah asked. His emotions weren't in suspended animation; they were there on his sleeve for the world to see.
"A love affair," Ruth said. "Yes, he did."
"So it's possible—"
"No," Ruth said with great certainty. "It isn't possible."
Gracie was almost afraid to breathe deeply for fear she might pop this wonderful soap bubble of hope. She reached for Noah's hand and held on tight. "How can you be sure?"
Ruth's eyes darted toward Noah and a prickle of alarm ran up Gracie's spine. "Because, you see, Simon was sterile." A childhood case of mumps had left him unable to father a child, something he had neglected to tell his wife.
Noah flinched but he didn't look away or let go of Gracie's hand. "So I'm adopted." A statement, not a question.
Ruth shook her head, looking older and more tired than Gracie had ever seen her.
"You're my child," she said. "Simon and I separated for awhile a long time ago. I left Idle Point and went to live in New York. I was seeing a wonderful man, an artist named Michael Shanahan. He was the friend of a friend of mine and he swept me off my feet. He was everything Simon wasn't: warm and considerate and focused solely on me. I wasn't careful about birth control. All those years I had believe our childlessness was my fault but it wasn't. I called Simon when I found out I was pregnant and I asked for a divorce. He refused. He told me that he loved me, and that he wanted me back. He would raise my child as his own. What I didn't know was that Mona had just told him she was pregnant with Gracie and determined to make her marriage work. She loved your father, Gracie, and in the end, it was your father she chose to be with."
She was quiet for a minute or two. "I was always Simon's second choice, but he was the love of my life. I knew he would never love me the way I loved him but it didn't matter. Our lives were bound together and always would be." She left Michael and went back to Simon and they picked up their life together where they had left off.
"What about Michael Shanahan?" Noah's voice was thick with emotion. "What happened to him?"
"Michael is a dear friend," Ruth said softly. "Little did I know that our lives would remain bound together as well." She motioned toward a fabric-covered box resting on the lamp table to her right. "Everything you need to know is in there," she said. Years of letters and notes, newspaper clippings, gallery reviews, wedding and birth announcements. Michael Shanahan married two years after Ruth left him and was now the father of three daughters who shared his love of art and music. She saw the question in Noah's eyes. "He knows all about you, your years at St. Luke's, Sophie—" She stopped for a moment. "He told me that you deserved the whole story. It was something I already knew, but hearing him say it—and seeing you and Gracie with Sophie—gave me the courage at last."
She reached into the pocket of her heavy hand-knit sweater and removed a small white card. "This is Michael's address and phone number. He would like nothing more than to hear from you, Noah. If you choose not to, he'll understand, but I know how much you mean to him."
"If I mean so much, why didn't he ever get in touch with me?"
"Because I asked him not to," Ruth said, her voice heavy. "For Simon's sake, as well as for my own."
For almost thirty years Michael Shanahan had followed his son's life from a distance. In time, he fell in love again and started a family, but a part of his heart would always belong to his first child, the son he had never met.
Simon was the only father Noah had ever known, but it was Michael's blood that flowed through his veins. Who could say which connection was more important? Both men had had the right to claim Noah as their son, but neither had been able to love the child the way he deserved to be loved, openly and unconditionally. That loss had left shadows on Noah's soul that Ruth could never erase.
Next to Noah, Gracie cried softly. Ruth wished she could. Anything would be better than the heavy ache of regret inside her chest. But she pushed forward. The time for ducking the truth was long past.
"You have his smile, Noah. When I look at you, I see the man who gave me the most precious gift in the world."
"You waited a long time to tell me."
"Yes, I did," she said, "and I'm sorry for that." It would take an even longer time to tell the entire story, to make her son understand that sometimes mistakes were made in the name of love and family, mistakes a mother would give her life to undo if only she could.
In the end Simon had made a grand gesture toward reconciliation but hadn't the generosity of spirit necessary to see it through. Simon never managed to forgive Ruth for her transgression, same as he never managed to forgive Gracie for her very existence. He had loved Noah in his own way and taken great delight in showing off the child but before long the truth of Noah's paternity began to color everything. Ultimately, Noah and Gracie came to represent all that had gone wrong in Simon's own life and when they found each other, something inside him had snapped.
"Simon was a very proud man," Ruth said. "I learned early on in our marriage to keep his secrets to myself and over the years I became quite good at keeping some of my own." She looked from Noah to Gracie. "Too good, I'm afraid. I wish I could give back to you the eight years you lost but I'm afraid that's beyond my ability. The best I can do is tell you both that I love you and I pray that now that you know the truth, you'll be able to find your way back to each other. There is nothing that would make me happier." She rose from her chair and, leaning heavily on the cane, she left the room.
#
Noah and Gracie sat alone in the library for a long time, holding hands like survivors of a shipwreck. She was his anchor. He was her home. Nothing else mattered. Not the secrets or the sorrows, not even the eight years they had lost along the way.
"The first time I saw Sophie, she was sitting in a lawyer's office," he said. "I walked through the doorway and she looked up at me and I knew there was nothing I wouldn't do to keep her safe from harm." There had been no blood tests, no proof of paternity, only the deepest knowledge that this was where the fates meant him to be. "The lawyers said that we needed blood tests, that proof was required before they handed her over to me, but it didn't matter to me what the tests said. I knew she was mine." He told Gracie of the little girl's courage, the way she'd sat there and watched him with eyes that were far too old, and waited for him to determine her future. "I never want her to doubt that she's loved."
They both knew how it felt to be small and powerless, wondering why it was so hard to make their fathers love them. Sophie would grow up secure in the knowledge that she had a mother and father who loved her and who would slay dragons to keep her safe and happy. Parents whose love for each other would be the foundation upon which their family would be built.
There would be time for anger, for discovery, for healing. There would be time for forgiveness.
This moment, however, belonged to Noah and Gracie and to the future that suddenly loomed before them, golden and theirs for the taking. A future even brighter than the one they had dreamed about when they were young and newly in love.
They listened to the sounds of the old house as it settled down for the night. Soft voices from other floors. Footsteps padding down long halls. Sophie's laughter. Ruth's low murmur. Bathtubs running, doors closing, the sighing sounds of a family at rest.
"This is how I want our house to sound one day," Noah said.
Gracie leaned over and kissed him on the shoulder. "I think you need a big family to get that particular sound."
"I'm game if you are."
She pretended to consider the idea. "Nine kids might be a bit much for me."
"We could compromise at eight," he said, not cracking a smile.
"I was thinking six."
"Seven," he said, "but that's my final offer."
"Much better," she said. "Seven's a walk in the park."
"Papa! Gracie!" Sophie called down to them from the second floor landing. "You must come tuck me in!"
"Be right there, Soph!" Noah called back to her.
Gracie's heart was suddenly three sizes larger than it had been just moments ago. "I've been thinking about what your mother said about the years we lost," she said, choosing her words with great care. "You know I would give anything to get back those years but not if it meant losing Sophie."
He met her eyes. "Not too many women would say that about walking into a ready-made family."
"We have a lot of time to make up for," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Why not get a head start?"
Life was about compromise. They had lost eight years but gained a miracle, a child who needed their love as much as she needed oxygen. Little did Sophie know that they needed her even more. Sophie was their chance to get it right, to love a child the way all children deserved to be loved, with constancy and respect. They both knew how it felt to be on the outside of family life, looking in, and they would see to it that Sophie never felt that way again. They would create a home that endured.
Family bonds were forged in many ways. Some were forged by blood; some by circumstance. If you were very lucky, the bonds were forged by love.
"I'm waiting!" Sophie called down to them and they looked at each other and started to laugh.
Still holding hands, they climbed the stairs to the second floor and went to check on their daughter.