Hiding. I had made the choice to hide. In many ways I’d been hiding since the day a toddler was left on my porch. Or maybe since I’d lost Ellen the first time.
“That’s why you never married,” Roger said. “You never let anyone else get close because you had a secret to hide.” He shook his head. “I thought the problem was me. It wasn’t, was it? You wanted to protect yourself.”
“Wrong.” Suddenly, I was on my feet, shouting, “I protected my daughter. I gave my life caring for my daughter. Who are you to judge me? I always knew you’d condemn me if you knew the truth. You are so much about right and wrong. Everything for you is simple. My life looked simple on the surface. It wasn’t, but it was blessed. That child saved our lives—both Gran’s and mine—and I did my best to make sure she benefited from it. I was a good mother to her. I still am. She was repeating the mistakes I’d made, that my mother had made. I stepped up and told her the truth. I know she may never forgive me.”
Roger’s voice dropped low. “What about your other daughter? The first one. Have you forgotten about her?”
My arms crossed, protecting my body, the vital organs in my body, from the sharp pain, but the pain was inside, always inside, reawakened for the moment by Roger’s callous words. I closed my eyes and tried not to fold. “I’ll never forget her.”
He came around the table. He put his arms around me. I stood like a statue and refused to accept or reject his embrace. He whispered, “Hannah, you are so focused on Ellen—and don’t think I don’t know you’re hiding from more than public gossip—and I don’t know how it will work out. That’s yet to be seen, but the reality is that you buried your deceased child in the family cemetery without consulting anyone—not a doctor, not police, not authorities. I’m sure that’s against the law.”
Blindly, I shook my head. My face brushed his shirt. “My daughter. She went to sleep. She didn’t wake up. I couldn’t hand her over . . . I couldn’t say the words . . .”
“What’s to prevent the authorities from accusing you of harming her, even accidentally, like a shaken baby situation? They could say you buried her to hide your crime.”
I pushed against him, trying to shove him away and hitting him with my fists, all at the same time. He tightened his arms around me.
“How did she die?” he asked.
My hands managed to work themselves up to cover my face. “She went to sleep. Her midday nap. A storm came up, and when I went back inside, both she and Gran were sleeping. I checked on her, but she was gone. Already gone.”
The blackness tried to move in on me again, darkening the edges of my vision, both literally and in my head. I ceased struggling and was grateful his arms held me, kept me from falling. Somehow his breath was on my hair, and I pressed my face against his chest.
He spoke softly. “I’ve made mistakes. Done things I regret. Some I was able to fix. Some I couldn’t. That’s true for everyone.” He touched my hair. “Now you, you made a big mistake and, if I’m being honest, in your situation I might’ve made the same choices. I won’t judge. It’s up to Liam and Ellen. But it’s possible there could be legal involvement—for both daughters, for both Ellens.”
His hand touched my face, my chin, lifting my face up, and I met his eyes.
“If that happens, Hannah, you’ll face it. Make up your mind right now. Don’t be frightened; don’t run away. Face it and deal with it as it comes. Be prepared. You won’t be able to hide here in Cooper’s Hollow, and not on Rose Lane, either. If you are questioned, make sure you don’t speak to the police without an attorney present.” He added, “It’s real life, and real life has consequences that you can’t solve by hiding. I know this isn’t what you want to hear right now, Hannah, but it’s important.”
I pushed at him again, and he relented and released me. Suddenly, I felt alone. That was what I’d wanted, right? Maybe not entirely. Not at this moment.
“How do you know what I want to hear?”
“It’s simple. You want to hear Ellen say she understands and forgives you and loves you and wants to come home.”
“Close. Mostly I want her to move forward with her life. Go to college. Not to get stalled like I did, like my mother and grandmother did. If she can do that and can also forgive me, then that would make it all worthwhile. That would be a happy ending I could rejoice in. If Ellen or Liam wants to press charges, I won’t fight them. I deserve whatever comes my way. I’ve already hurt her too much.”
“You’re right. It’s not just about you,” he said.
Roger stared at me with his brilliant blue eyes, but I couldn’t read them. His face wore a blankness whose meaning eluded me, and he left. Left me there alone.
Face it, he’d said. Be prepared. What did he mean? This was in everyone else’s hands now. There was nothing more for me to do except wait while Ellen worked her way through this. Worked her way through it alone? No, she had Liam. Her father. A man she hardly knew. A man who’d lost his own child years ago and now might not want to let her go. I knew how that worked. But at some point, even the Cooper women, strong-minded though they were, had to take a chance and give the good and bad the opportunity to fight it out, and have faith that the outcome would be the right one, no matter if it meant leaving oneself defenseless and leaving one’s loved ones to figure it out on their own.
A few days passed. Each night I said a prayer for Ellen and for healing, and each morning I hoped, and feared, to see her. True to her decision, she had stayed away from the graduation ceremonies. I knew because the high school principal called me. My response to him was regretful but deliberately short on details. Ellen didn’t visit me, either, but I chose to find hope in that. I saw Liam a couple of times. I was amazed he continued to work at carving the porch posts. But he didn’t seek me out to speak with me, and I returned the favor.
By the end of a week, I’d established a routine of sorts incorporating trips to Rose Lane and the shop with my continued, and increasingly extended, stays in the cabin. On a lovely Saturday morning, when the workmen were off enjoying their weekend, I decided to tend to the cemetery. I had avoided it since those hallucinations. They’d been caused by the extreme circumstances, and I couldn’t get them entirely out of my mind. I decided the best way to erase them was to replace them with more familiar memories of when I’d tended to the cemetery through the years.