“Like you love the animal shelter, and broken hearts.” Kaine didn’t appreciate the way her words came out in a muted, cracked tone. The tears in her throat clogged her voice.
“Well,” he chuckled, “maybe God was sort of setting me up to be the more sensitive type.” Grant smiled, and it reached his eyes, saturating his face with warmth. “But a manly sensitive,” he clarified with an exaggerated flex of his left bicep.
Kaine gave a weak smile. It was that empathy in him that she was coming to rely on. A trait that caused her to open up and see her emotional bruises and scars. Even before Danny’s death, she’d been suffering wounds. The wounds of abuse, of her father’s abandonment, and of her mother’s death.
“Where is God in all of this?” The question escaped her. Kaine let it rest between them.
Grant pursed his lips and stared ahead at the garden. She was thankful he didn’t leap into an answer. Kaine knew God was here. She never doubted it. But the existence of evil was something mankind would wrestle with until God righted the world.
Kaine twisted on the bench to face Grant. “Do you know why I love daffodils?”
“Why?” Grant looked deep into her eyes, listening with focused intent.
“Because they have simple layers. Tulips don’t seem real. They’re like wax flowers with five or six petals all wrapped around a center. Roses make no sense. They have so many elements to them, it’s chaotic. But daffodils? Their layers are in order, simple and consistent from flower to flower. Their yellow cheers me and makes me believe in beauty.”
Grant nodded but said nothing. He knew when to listen, and she was glad of that.
“I want to see beauty. Not darkness. Not death. But life and promise.”
Her breath caught as Grant’s eyes softened and his brows drew together in a look so tender she thought for a moment she might become lost in it.
“Our promise of life is so much larger than this moment, Kaine.” His hand came up, and his fingers trailed down her cheek. “God promises that this world will have trouble. And a lot of it. But He also promises that He has overcome it.”
“How?” Kaine whispered, blinking furiously against tears.
Grant threaded his fingers through hers. “He gives us glimpses now, but His plan for us is so much greater than what we see. That’s the pitfall of humanity. We look at our present circumstances, our trials, even our joys, and believe that this is all there is. But the Lord’s vision is so much broader and stretches into eternity. We limit ourselves by looking at the here and now when hope, real hope, is found in our relationship with Him and the future that Christ went ahead to prepare for.”
“And He will come again . . .” Kaine whispered.
“Until then”—Grant kept his hand interlocked with hers but looked back at the garden and its tiny promises of life—“we live on His promises. We hope.”
“Like Gabriella,” Kaine murmured.
“Like Gabriella,” Grant echoed.
The musty smell of Foster Hill House greeted her nose as Kaine climbed the stairs after disarming the security alarm system. Their intimate chat at the library helped Kaine to regain the gumption to continue to piece together the puzzle. She and Grant drove in silence to the house, Kaine staring at the trees whizzing by. The road, paved and curved, was probably the same road Ivy had walked once, so many years before. Grant had parked the truck outside, stating he needed to catch up on some voicemails from work before he followed her in. Kaine didn’t mind. Sometimes, even as an extrovert, she needed time alone.
Now she paused by Myrtle Foster’s portrait. Warped and torn, it had more than seen its last day on display, yet Kaine was loath to take it down. She had witnessed everything in her silent sentinel. Myrtle Foster knew the secrets of this house, had witnessed the night Gabriella was murdered, understood why Ivy’s locket had been hiding in the attic, and somehow her face reflected the grief that the horrors demanded.
“You hated what you saw, didn’t you?” Kaine whispered, adjusting the shoulder strap of her backpack laden with books from the library. Of course, Myrtle Foster didn’t respond. But her tiny black eyes stared back, empty and sorrowful. “And they called you crazy, just like Ivy.”
She backed away, turning toward the third bedroom. Kaine stared at the half-torn-up floor and the empty chasm where Gabriella had hid her pages. If she’d been held captive, she must have hidden a pencil stub there too. How she’d ever gotten her hands on something to write with would probably always be a mystery, but Kaine was thankful she had.
Kaine slipped the backpack from her shoulder and unzipped it, pulling out an accordion folder with the loose pages of Gabriella’s makeshift diary. Sifting through the papers, she paused on page forty-two of Great Expectations. The ink in the margins was faded. Kaine held up a flashlight even though daylight streamed through the window.
I choose to believe.
Kaine lowered the flashlight to the next line.
I know God’s presence here. Even in darkness, He is here. He awaits.
Kaine moved to the next page.
I am glad Maggie remains with me. She will be here when my baby is born. God provides.
Kaine released a shuddering breath. It was evidence that Joy’s grandmother had indeed been held at Foster Hill House. So why hadn’t they run? If Gabriella was free to write on the pages of a book, to hide them beneath the floor or in the library, what had kept them within the walls of the house? And why, after Gabriella had been killed, did Maggie stay in Oakwood?
Another line captured Kaine’s attention.
Someday I will see His face and all of this will wash away. What will I leave behind? What will my legacy be? I choose hope.
Kaine clicked off the flashlight.
That was why Gabriella was so compelling. Her story had sucked Kaine in. Gabriella was someone who truly grabbed hold of God’s hand when life threw curveballs. No. Not even curveballs. Fireballs, really. What life attempted to destroy, God only made stronger. Gabriella’s strength reflected in her story.
And they didn’t even know her real name.
A door banged and Kaine started. She needed to show Grant the reference to Joy’s grandmother. Jumping to her feet, Kaine tightened the laces on her red Converse tennis shoes and scooped up Gabriella’s pages.
She hurried down the stairs, straightening the stack of pages as she spoke.