Wisps of fog fingered across the highway as Grace drove home from the last practice on Friday evening. She was officially on vacation—two whole days before the supposedly optional post-Christmas practices started up.
Optional for the kids, not for Grace.
But at least this cold, wet air mass would have moved along by then. The air was so damp she could feel invisible droplets hitting her face as she walked from her pickup to her front door, and the temperature was falling fast.
Even the weather had decided to be miserable this Christmas.
The chill crept down Grace’s neck as she tried to wrestle the door open without dropping any of her bags. She had only just finished her Christmas shopping tonight after work. With so many in the family, the adults drew names, but she always bought gifts for Jeremiah and the boys, plus something small for each of the half dozen nieces and nephews who were still young enough to be more interested in the wrapping paper than the picture book inside.
Her failure to be an enraptured aunt should have been her first clue that she lacked whatever it was that made other women stand in line to cuddle babies.
God. There would be three of them this year under the age of two. Her brain whimpered at the thought of being crammed into her parents’ house with all that nonstop squawling and squabbling—and that was just the adults.
She hadn’t heard a word from Hank since his sister and Wyatt had arrived. Hopefully no news was good news. She should be worrying about how Hank and Wyatt were getting along. Instead, selfishly, all she could think was that Melanie was home, but she and Grace wouldn’t be getting together for lunch, or for a girls’ night with what Violet had dubbed the Earnest Ladies Club. Melanie had respectfully removed herself from their friendship, pending the outcome of Grace’s relationship with her brother.
And Grace had lost the one person other than Hank that she’d been able to talk to without reservations.
She dumped her armloads of bags onto the couch and sank down beside them with a weary sigh. She hadn’t even started wrapping gifts, and she’d promised her mother that she’d make a batch of butterhorns for Christmas Eve, her annual and much-anticipated contribution to the holiday feast. Now exhausted tears balled up in her throat at the prospect of all that kneading and rising followed by rolling, buttering, rising, and rolling again, four times over, to make them flaky and light. And then there was still the icing.
Maybe she could just toss them in the front door and run before she had to speak to her older siblings. Or, more to the point, before any of the big three had a chance to speak to her. She’d heard more than enough of Suzannah’s opinion three years ago, when they’d brought the horde home for Presidents’ Day weekend.
I told Mama and Papa they shouldn’t let you spend so much time with that Brookman kid. Everyone said he was just using you.
At the time, Grace had been in state of mute panic, almost three months pregnant and convinced that everyone could tell at a glance, even though she’d actually lost weight from the stress and thankfully mild queasiness. Every ounce of her energy was devoted to seeming normal and happy until she could escape to Oregon. She’d had nothing left to defend herself, and no reason to defend Hank.
Now? All she could do was repeat what she’d told Papa. He repented. I forgave. The Bible told me so. Not that she would try to argue scripture with them. It was the equivalent of engaging in a debate with a machine gun. They had scoured the good book for psalms and verses that supported their beliefs and kept them lined up like bullets in a magazine, ready to fire in rapid succession.
Poor Mama. But at least she had Jeremiah to defend her.
He wasn’t exactly mad at Grace, but he wasn’t happy with her, either, and his disapproval ate at her. He had accepted her decision to give up her baby without hesitation—until he found out she’d taken up with Hank again. Not that he’d said so, but she saw the question in his eyes.
How could you, Grace?
And Mama. Her acceptance should have made Grace feel better. Instead, she found herself replaying conversation after conversation, weighing every word, every glance, the tiniest inflection in her mother’s voice or her slightest frown, in search of deeply buried disapproval.
In other words, Grace was making herself crazy, and telling herself so didn’t do a damn bit of good.
She pushed at curls gone wild from the humidity and tried to work up the ambition to take off her coat. She would never be so happy to have the holidays over, and that included the year she’d spent Boxing Day curled up in the fetal position, shaking with dread but pretending to have cramps from the period that had failed to make an appearance.
Her doorbell rang. She checked the clock and groaned. It was already seven o’clock? Rather than hoisting herself out of the couch, she waited, and after a few moments a key scraped in the lock. She’d given Hank her spare purely for the sake of convenience, since she never knew exactly what time she would get home from work.
But he always rang first so he didn’t sneak up her—one of a hundred little ways that he continued to respect her space.
Tonight he walked in, took one look at her, and said, “Whoa. Bad day?”
“Not really. It’s just…” She made a vague circle toward the heap of bags. “Christmas is the day after tomorrow, and there’s just so much.”
He crossed over, caught her limp wrists, and pulled her forward so he could push the coat off her arms. Then he gave her a soft, warm kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ll help—if you don’t mind your gifts looking like they were wrapped by a monkey with five thumbs.”
Her laugh was too high and too brittle. “How are you at making butterhorns?”
“Not worth a damn, but I give a killer back rub.”
She moaned softly. “Oh God, that would be wonderful, but then I’d be really worthless for the rest of the night.” She watched him from under drooping lids as he cleared a spot next to her. “You seem pretty chipper. I take it everything went okay?”
“Not a drop of blood spilled or an f-bomb tossed. You would have been proud.”
She was already proud. He had come so far in the short time he’d been home. Been torn down to almost nothing and had somehow kept the parts she’d always loved best in the process of rebuilding. Maybe he and Bing could tell her how to do the same for what was going to be left of her family.
He settled in beside her but didn’t immediately tuck her into his arms like usual. And he was still wearing his coat. He angled to face her, their knees touching. “Before I start mutilating your wrapping paper, there’s something I want to give you.”
He pulled his hand from his pocket and held out a small package. He wasn’t kidding about his gift-wrapping skills. It was basically a wad of paper plastered with tape. But the size. And the shape.
Her heart launched into an unsteady ker-thump, KER-thump, ker-THUMP. Surely that couldn’t be…
“I know. It’s a mess. Here.” He hiked up a hip to pull the knife out of his back pocket. “I’ll cut the tape for you.”
He sliced most of the way around the box and peeled off the top half of the wrapping like a clamshell. Grace’s breath came out in a whoosh when she saw that it wasn’t a jeweler’s box inside.
Too impatient to wait for her to do it herself, Hank lifted off the lid and set the box in her lap. “You said you were never my girl, but you should have been. And there’s never been anyone else I wanted to give this to.”
Stupefied, Grace stared down at his high school class ring, strung on a gold chain. He was…he wanted…
No. Instead of reaching for the box, she jerked her hands back. “I can’t take that.”
He smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay. I’m not afraid you’ll lose it or anything.”
“No.” She said it out loud this time, shrinking back into the couch cushions. “I can’t do that.”
His smile faded, replaced by concern and the beginnings of apprehension. “What do you mean by that?”
“You. Me. That.” She made a jerky motion toward the box as her heart pounded harder and her lungs started to flail. “I can’t be with you.”
His face softened, and he picked up one of her clammy hands. “I know I’ve let you down too many times to count. This is just one of the ways I intend to prove that I love you, and I don’t ever want to hurt you again.”
I love you.
The words rang inside her like a warning gong, reverberating through her chest and into her guts. Damn him. Now, when it was far too late, he finally gave her what she’d wanted so desperately for so long? She yanked her hand free. “You can’t.”
“Love you? Yes, Grace, I can. I do.” He tried to reach for her again, but she pulled her hands away. He blew out of breath full of remorse and hard-fought patience. “I know…it took me way too long to figure it out, and I don’t blame you for not just taking my word for it. But can you at least trust me enough to let me keep showing you how I feel until you can believe it’s real?”
Trust? It had nothing to do with trust. She made a shaky fist that she pressed to her mouth. “You don’t understand. We can’t do this to Maddie.”
“Maddie?” His brows drew together in confusion. “What does this have to do with her?”
“Everything!” Grace leapt from the couch, sending the ring flying, suddenly frantic to create space between them. She backed away until she came up against the wall, then dug her fingernails into the plaster in a pathetic attempt to steady herself. “How can I be with you after I gave her away? What am I supposed to say to her? Yes, honey, I’ve loved your daddy since we were nine years old. I just didn’t want you?” Her voice was shrill, on the verge of hysterical. “What do I say to my mama, or to Jeremiah, who think I only gave the baby away because I couldn’t go it alone?”
Hank’s jaw had gone slack. “That you love me, and I love you, and someday I want you to be my wife.”
“Wife?” The word came out on a harsh laugh, and she started shaking her head—left, right, left, right—mechanical as a demented doll. “No. I’m not getting married.”
He still looked more confused than hurt. “I’m not asking you to run off to Vegas next week. But in a year, or two…however long it takes.”
She kept shaking her head. “Never. I’m not ever getting married. I gave that up.”
“You…what?” He gaped at her, dumbfounded. “Are you trying to say that you can’t have a family because it might make Maddie feel bad?”
The words were like stones, thumping into her chest. “You. Don’t. Know.” Her breath was coming in choked gulps. “You weren’t there, and you don’t know anything. You haven’t even looked at the damn pictures.”
That arrow hit its mark. His eyes went dark, his face shuttered, but he made no move to leave. “You’re right. I wasn’t there. But I’m here now, and I told you before, I won’t run out on you again. As for the pictures…” He jumped up and strode into her bedroom, yanking open the top drawer of her dresser to grab the shoebox. He settled it on his knees as he sat down again. “You’re right. Come and sit down. You can tell me all about them.”
And rip out her heartstrings one by one in the process. Here’s the reason I can’t have you on her first birthday. And look! Here she is dressed like a unicorn for her first Halloween.
“Take them with you,” Grace said, her voice so raw it was barely recognizable.
His head jerked up. “What?”
“I just…I can’t do this. Please go.”
Alarm flared in his eyes, along with the beginnings of hurt, but he didn’t budge. “I’m not leaving you alone when you’re upset.”
“I wouldn’t be upset if you hadn’t come and said things and brought that.” She made a jerky motion at the ring glinting under the coffee table.
He stood slowly, as if even his body refused to listen to her. “Grace, you don’t mean—”
“Don’t tell me what I feel! You obviously have no fucking idea.” He flinched at the profanity. Good. Maybe she’d finally gotten his attention. She closed her eyes. “It’s too late, Hank. I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”
The silence was interminable, but she refused to open her eyes and see what the words had done. Then she heard the rustle of his jacket, and the jagged echoes of her pain in his voice when he said, “I can’t leave you like this.”
“Please.” It was a whisper. A plea for mercy. The last fragile thread of her composure slipping through her fingers.
Finally, he said, “If that’s what you need me to do.”
The quiet click of the door echoed around the silent apartment. Grace squeezed her eyes even tighter and slowly slid down the wall to huddle on the floor, arms clutched around her knees, her body racked by sobs so powerful they felt as if they were being ripped from the very bottom of her soul.