Grace floated down the steps of her mother’s apartment, the smile never leaving her face. Antonio would never believe where she’d been. Or who she’d been with.
Antonio! It was almost midnight, and she couldn’t remember what she’d had planned for the evening before her plans—her entire life—had taken an amazing detour. Had she missed dinner with him? Her thoughts were so scrambled that she couldn’t remember.
She yanked her cell phone from her purse and checked for messages. There were none. She breathed a sigh of relief and dialed his number. As she waited for him to answer, her pulse quickened, keeping pace now with her strides.
“Hi babe,” he said. “I’m just finishing up here and then I’m on my way. I should be home in—”
“No. Stay put. I’m coming by the office. I have some earth-shattering news.” She flipped her phone closed and shoved it into her pocket, not giving him a chance to reply.
Five minutes later, Grace blew into the offices of Free the Innocent, past Valerie, on her way to Antonio’s office.
“Hey!” Valerie called after her.
Grace turned around, ran back and grabbed Valerie by the hand. “Come with me. You need to hear this.” She dragged Valerie into Antonio’s office, closed the door and sat down. Then bounced back up.
She focused her gaze on Antonio, then shifted it to Valerie. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the right words.
Antonio crossed the small office and put his hands on his wife’s shoulders. “Sweetheart, is everything okay?”
Grace nodded, though the words still didn’t come.
He eased her down into a chair and sat beside her. “Grace, why are you here…in my office, at midnight? Are you sure everything’s alright?”
She nodded again. Suddenly, she noticed the fear in Antonio’s eyes, and a similar look of concern on Valerie’s face. And she realized what her outburst must look like.
“I…yes, I’m fine. Better than fine. I’m amazing. The most incredible thing happened to me today at the book signing. You see, there was this woman—she was the last person in line—and I asked her who to make the inscription out to but she didn’t answer. Then I looked up at her, and she looked familiar, but I didn’t know why. I asked her what her name was, and do you know what she said? She said, ‘My name is June Crandall.’”
Grace pulled away from Antonio and paced the small office. “Then I fainted, and when I came to, I was sitting face to face with her. And it was her, Antonio—the woman from the sketches—it was June Crandall. It was my mother.”
Antonio reached for his wife’s hand and gently pulled her back down into the chair. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“Your mother? This woman just showed up at your book signing and announced that she is your mother?” Valerie asked.
“Well, yes. I guess so. She finished reading my book and when she read the name of my birth mother, she knew. You see, Elena Borgese was her mother’s name. They told her I died when I was born. She never knew I was alive! I’ve just spent the entire evening with her. She only lives a mile or so from us. Can you believe it?”
She looked from Antonio to Valerie. “I know what you’re thinking, but she wasn’t some crackpot. She was real. She’s the woman in the sketches. You’ll see for yourself. She’s coming to dinner tomorrow night.”
“Okay, honey. You know what? I’m going to wrap up here and go home with you. You can tell me all about her on the way home.”
A few minutes later, they stepped out into the night. Walking home, Grace told Antonio everything she could remember from her conversation with her mother. She could tell he was skeptical, but she knew that as soon as he saw June the following night, all his doubts would fade.
Antonio found her in the studio the next morning, working on a portrait of her mother. He kissed her neck and she nearly flew off the stool she was sitting on. “It’s beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you.” She settled back down and dabbed the brush in the black oil paint. “What time is it?”
“Almost six o’clock. Have you slept at all?”
“No, and I’m not about to now. There’s too much to do. I have to go shopping and clean the place, and you have to cook.” Antonio had become the chef of the house, much to her delight.
“I have to work today, sweetheart, but I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you go shower while I run down to Pekarski’s market and get some skirt steak. Then try to get a nap. I’ll put it in to marinate, and I’ll come home early to make everything else. Sound good?”
“Yes, thank you.”
When Grace finished showering, Antonio was gone and three steaks were marinating in a shallow bowl filled with something that smelled wonderful. She spent the rest of the day cleaning the loft. She scrubbed, vacuumed, dusted, and polished everything in the place until it sparkled, and then carefully arranged the flowers Antonio had bought.
Satisfied that the place looked as decent as possible, she went back to her painting. Her mother would be arriving in two hours and she wanted to be finished with it by then. Antonio came home shortly after she’d begun to paint, and she heard him tinkering in the kitchen.
She shuffled into the kitchen and gasped when she saw the spread he had put out. He’d made guacamole and salsa, meat and potato empanadas, and was now making refried beans, Spanish rice, and fajita-style vegetables to go with the skirt steak. The only items he’d bought were tortillas and a tres leches cake for dessert.
Antonio had been teaching her a few of the secret family recipes. She told him to go change and she would try not to burn the rice and beans. As soon as he was out of sight, Grace picked all of the peas out of the rice. She hated peas and could never understand why he put them in there in the first place. When he came back into the kitchen, he saw the peas in the garbage.
“Grace, did you pick the peas out of the rice again?”
She looked at him sheepishly and nodded.
“What if your mother likes peas?”
“She’s blood, Antonio. Trust me, she does not like peas.”
He rolled his eyes. “What about me, then—don’t I count?”
“Not when it comes to peas. They are the single most disgusting food item on the planet.”
The doorbell rang at precisely six o’clock. Grace raced to the front door. Antonio followed behind her, making the sign of the cross. Grace laughed and pulled the door open.
She heard her husband inhale loudly behind her, and she knew that he was seeing what she herself had seen the day before. The woman was the real deal. She was June Crandall. Grace’s mother.
June’s arms were weighed down with bags and Antonio rushed to help her. He set the bags on the kitchen counter, and turned to get another look at her.
“It’s uncanny, isn’t it?” Grace said. “Mom, this is my husband, Antonio. Antonio, this is my mother, June Crandall.”
June shook Antonio’s hand.
“It’s lovely to meet you,” June said.
He couldn’t help but stare. “Believe me, the pleasure is all mine. You two look like sisters.”
June pulled a box from Mama C’s out of one of the bags and handed it to Grace. “Cannoli. Best in town.”
“Oh my gosh, you know about Mama C’s?”
“It’s been my Friday hangout for more years than I care to remember.”
“I just discovered Mama’s recently. And, oh my God, their cannoli are the best.”
Antonio hung her coat up. June pulled two bottles of champagne and a bottle each of red and white wine from one of the bags. “I didn’t know what you liked.”
“Let’s start with champagne,” Antonio suggested. “Honey, why don’t you show your mother around while I pour?”
Grace took June by the hand and gave her a tour of the apartment. They stopped in the art studio and June looked at the drawings covering the walls. Antonio caught up with them and handed them each a glass of champagne.
“Tonight I stand in the presence of a living, breathing miracle. I could not be happier for you both.” He raised his glass. “To miracles.”
“To miracles,” they all toasted.
June pointed to the sketches of Rose on the wall. “Who is this?” she asked.
Grace felt a rush of warmth at the memory of Rose. “She was my foster mother. But more than that, she was like a mother to me. I drew these shortly before she passed away.”
June smiled tenderly. “I’m sorry, Grace. I’m sure that was very difficult for you.”
Grace nodded and June continued perusing the drawings. She stopped suddenly and reached toward one of the drawings. “Is this…me?”
“Yes.” Grace waved her hand over a series of sketches. “They all are. Every time you appeared in one of my dreams, I did a sketch from memory. You were a different person in every dream, but your face was always the same, and so was your name. That’s how I became convinced that you were my mother.”
“I remember from the book,” June said. “I’ve been thinking about it, how it might have been possible. And you know, after I lost you, I did quite a bit of volunteer work with a few of the orphanages in the greater Los Angeles area, including St. Francis.”
June’s face grew pale. She sat down on Grace’s old trunk with a thud. “Oh God, I might’ve held my own daughter and not even known it.”
Grace sat down beside her. "My God. Maybe Carolyn was right." She turned to June. "She was my therapist. She suggested that maybe yours was a face I had seen before, someone warm and kind who got buried in my subconscious.”
She studied her mother. “Do you remember me at all from that time?” She wanted her mother to say yes, that she remembered her, that she’d stood out from all of the other children. That she’d felt their connection.
But she knew it was unfair to even ask. “I’m sorry, Mom, you don’t have to answer that.”
June sighed. “Oh, Grace. I looked at every single child your age and imagined that they were mine. Truth be told, I’ve done it ever since. But I had your death certificate to remind me that my child was gone.”
“Well, there was obviously some powerful connection between the two of you in order for Grace to dream about you. She must have sensed it.” Antonio grinned. “It’s a good thing her handsome husband convinced her to write a book about it, isn’t it?”
Grace gave him a kiss. “It is indeed, my love.”
They finished touring the loft and settled into the living room. June had brought some family photo albums, and she pulled them out. They munched on the tapas Antonio had made, and June showed them pictures of her mother and father, and her grandfather.
She told Grace more about her grandfather, how they’d had date night every Friday for years. “Even after I moved to New York, we would go see the same movie and eat the same foods, and then call each other and review the film. I’m so sorry you never got to know him. You would’ve loved him.”
June showed her pictures of Bernie and told her how special Bernie had been to her, and still was. And then she showed Grace the photos of her and Will, taken the summer that Grace was conceived.
Grace looked carefully at the photos of her parents. “It’s easy to see how in love you were.”
Grace showed her mother the meager photo album from her own childhood, and June told her she wanted copies of all the pictures. June pointed to one photo in particular. In it, Grace was wearing a beautiful white dress and shiny new shoes, but she looked like she was about to cry.
“That was the day I did my first communion. I’d done my first confession the week before and screwed it up royally, and I was determined to get this day right. I was terrified, as you can see.”
“So, you were a perfectionist, even back then, huh?” Antonio said, and they all laughed.
Over dinner, Grace finally found the courage to bring up the question that had been haunting her throughout their conversation. “Mom, I was thinking about what we talked about last night. The part about who is responsible for taking me away from you?”
June nodded. “Me too, but I just can’t imagine who would want to do that to me.”
“It really comes down to motive and opportunity,” Antonio said. “From what Grace says, it doesn’t sound like anyone in your family would have the motive, and they certainly didn’t have the opportunity.”
“Right, so that leaves the doctor, or someone else at the hospital,” Grace said. “Or the nurse who was at the house during the delivery. What was her name?”
June stared blankly across the table. “I don’t remember. She was new. I’d only met her a couple times at the office before that day. Dr. McIntyre’s first name is Emmett, though.”
“Sounds like a good place to start,” Grace said.
“You’re going to talk to Dr. McIntyre?” June asked.
Grace looked at Antonio and he smiled. Then she turned to her mother. “Try and stop me. I’ll go next week.”
June put her fork down and groaned. “Antonio, that was absolutely wonderful. Your skirt steak is the best I’ve ever had.”
“Thank you, June. The rice was supposed to have peas in it, but your daughter picked out every single one. She’s convinced she inherited that from you, and that you also think peas are vile and disgusting.” He gave his wife a satisfied look. They both stared at June.
June laughed. “I used to hide them in my milk so my mother would think I ate them. I think she knew my trick, but she let me get away with it anyway.”
Grace gave him a victorious smile. After dinner, Antonio put the cake and the cannoli on the dining room table and made some coffee. Grace excused herself and came out with the painting she’d made for her mother, draped loosely in a sheet.
“For me?” June asked.
“Yes, I couldn’t sleep last night so I went into my studio. I painted all night and I was able to finish it this afternoon. I hope you like it.”
June removed the sheet and drew in a sharp breath. “Oh, Grace, it’s exquisite!” She pulled her daughter into her arms and held her close. “I love you, my darling.”
“I love you too, Mom. I can’t believe how good it feels to say that.”
Antonio came and put his arms around both of them. “You two are going to make me cry. Welcome to the family, June.”
“Thank you, Antonio, and I promise to try not to be one of those annoying mothers-in-law, although I do want to spend as much time with my daughter as possible.”
“You’re welcome here any time.” He gave her a hug before letting the women say goodnight to each other.
When Grace crawled into bed that night, she curled into his arms, and he told her how happy he was that she and her mother had found each other.
“Um hmm,” she murmured before falling fast asleep.