More than well-being, more than happiness, more than contentment. It was, rather, an infusion of otherness, a sense of being weightless, lifted up by an invisible cable, connected to the soul of the universe, to the meaning of life itself.
So this was what Gracie meant about experiencing the Presence, the touch of God.
She lay back in the chair and shut her eyes. She couldn’t comprehend what had happened. But for a moment—for this moment—she would revel in the glory and try not to ask too many unanswerable questions.
When Edith opened her eyes again, the light had shifted. She knew she hadn’t slept, and yet she couldn’t shake the sensation that time had passed—minutes or hours or days, she couldn’t tell.
She sat up and looked around. Abigail’s room looked the same—or did it? Something felt different. Little things. Details. The door was shut, and she could have sworn she had left it ajar. The big Victorian dollhouse still sat in the corner, but it appeared shabbier, more used. The doll furniture was all in its proper place, and there were no books or toys scattered across the carpet. She couldn’t quite identify the difference, except that an odd impression kept pushing to the front of her mind.
The room felt . . . older.
Edith listened. She heard no sounds—no voices, no footsteps in the hall. She tiptoed to the door, opened it, and—
Vertigo set in. Edith’s head began to spin as she took in the scene in front of her. Not the dimly lit upstairs hallway of Quinn House, as she had expected, but bright sunshine, so bright it made her squint. She was high up on a mountainside, and as her eyes adjusted to the light, she realized she was teetering on a rocky outcropping, looking down at the city spread out before her. She could see the Square and the Vance Monument and closer, off to the right, the road that wound up Town Mountain to the Grove Park Inn, and beyond.
Unless she missed her guess, she was standing on top of Beaucatcher Mountain.
Cautiously Edith backed away from the edge of the precipice. She heard voices, women’s voices. She turned.
There, on a ledge to her left, sat Gracie Quinn. But not the old grandmother of her childhood memories, and not the grieving young mother she had encountered on the day of the twins’ funeral. This was a handsome middle-aged Gracie, in her forties, perhaps. Her thick coppery hair, with a few threads of silver at the temples, caught and reflected back the sunlight. She was laughing.
Beside her sat a younger woman. Although she possessed that same rich auburn hair, hers was not piled in waves on her head, but cut in a bob that fell just below her ears. She wore navy sailor-style trousers and a middy blouse with a large square collar. Her head was down, and she was rummaging in a small picnic basket. When she’d found what she was looking for—a paring knife—she raised her head and faced Gracie.
Edith’s breath caught in her chest as she recognized the face.
“Mother!” she cried.
No response. They went on laughing as Gracie took the knife and began to peel and slice a peach.
Edith drew nearer, her whole body trembling. Of course she had known, from the moment she entered this dream, that the child Abigail would grow up to be her mother. But she hadn’t expected to see Mother like this, young and alive, so nearly like the woman who had given birth to her, raised her, taught her, healed with kisses the cuts and scrapes of life.
In an instant, seven decades fell away, and Edith lurched backward into her child-self. She wanted nothing more than to run to her mother, nestle in her lap, feel her embrace, have her hair stroked and all her cares and worries loved away.
But of course it wouldn’t happen. She could no more feel her mother’s touch than Abigail could see or hear her now. She contented herself, instead, with sitting as close to the two as she could get.
“Isn’t this marvelous?” Gracie was saying. “Such a beautiful day, and such an incredible view.” She took a bite of the peach and handed a slice to her daughter.
Abigail gazed out over the vista. “I remember coming up here so many times when I was a little girl. This was your wishing place, Mama, your dreaming spot.” She smiled. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
Gracie leaned back on her elbows and stared into the cloudless blue sky. “I claimed this place when I was a child,” she said dreamily. “But my most vivid memory of being here came much later, after your father and I were married. It was the day I bought the Wishing Jar, the day my fondest wish came true.” She sat up and touched Abigail’s cheek. “The day I found out I was expecting you.”
Abigail turned and looked into her mother’s eyes. “You loved being a mother, didn’t you?”
Gracie chuckled. “Not past tense, sweetie. Once a mother, always a mother. But yes, I love being your mother.” She sobered then and shook her head. “Being a parent is a rich and rewarding job, but it’s also one of the most painful and challenging undertakings of one’s life.”
Edith watched Gracie’s face, saw a shadow hover over her eyes. Apparently Abigail saw it, too.
“You’re thinking about the boys, aren’t you? I was so young when they died. I can’t imagine how you got through it all in one piece.”
Gracie bit her lip. “I’ll not deceive you, honey, there was a time when I doubted I would get through it. I nearly lost faith in life itself.”
Abigail scooted closer, closing the distance between them. “I need to talk to you about that, Mama. That’s why I suggested we come up here today.”
“About your brothers?”
“About the kind of woman you are,” Abigail said. “You’ve endured the worst kind of heartache, and yet you still believe in God’s love. I want to be that kind of person, but I’m not sure I have the strength within me.”
Gracie looked off into the distance. “You’re nineteen years old, Abigail. I’ve watched you grow into a solid, sensible young woman. I’m very proud of you.”
“I know, Mama. And I’m grateful. But that doesn’t answer my question. Thanks to you and Papa, I’ve had very little grief and pain in my life. I haven’t been tested. How do I know, when the difficulties come, that I’ll be strong enough to endure them?”
Gracie turned to face her, and Edith leaned forward, eager to hear the answer. “You don’t know. You can’t. Until those times come, the times that afflict your soul and rack your heart to its limits, you cannot really comprehend the reserves of strength and courage that lie within you. But I will give you one small piece of advice. When your trials come—and they will come, sooner or later—don’t look for the answers. Look for the love.”
Abigail frowned. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“It’s a great temptation, when grief knocks at your door, to ask why. Why did this happen to me? What have I done to deserve this? What must I do to fix it? Those questions, natural as they are, come from a misunderstanding of God, and of the way the world works. All of us suffer. It’s part of being human. When bad things happen, we look for someone to blame—others, ourselves, even God.
“When the twins first contracted the measles,” Gracie went on, “I prayed that God would save them, heal them. That didn’t happen. They died. I wanted to know why, demanded to know. But there is no answer to that question—no good answer, anyway, no answer that satisfies. For more than a year I was so caught up in my grief and pain and questioning that I couldn’t see anything else. I was hurt and angry—angry at God, for taking my babies.”
“But you’re not angry with God now,” Abigail said. “You have a deeper faith than anyone I’ve ever known. What made the difference?”
Gracie shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. All I can say is that I woke up. I stopped asking for answers and asked instead for a renewed sense of God’s presence. And when it came, almost like a miracle, I realized, even in the midst of the pain and the loss and the anger, that God loved me. You loved me. Your father loved me. It was as if I were enveloped by love, embraced by generations of it—before me and even after me.”
She paused and thought
for a moment before continuing. “Remember the Wishing Jar? When you were little, you used to hold it up to the light, waiting for the phoenix to fly, hoping to get your wish.”
“Yes, but I was just a child then,” Abigail protested.
“Sometimes childish notions hang on after we’re grown up. Sometimes we act as if God is a big, invisible genie who can wave a magic wand and make our wishes come true. Yet often we don’t even know what we should be wishing for. We want answers, solutions to life’s dilemmas, and in searching for them, we lose sight of the love and grace and mercy that surround us.”
She smiled and patted Abigail’s hand. “Look for the love, my dearest daughter. When life seems to go terribly wrong, when the storms come and night closes in, try to remember that the way out may not be around your struggles, but through them. Take life as it comes, and look for the love. God may not always push back the darkness, but God is present in it.”
The sun was beginning to set. Gracie and Abigail packed up the remains of their picnic and started down the mountain path toward home, with Edith trailing along behind.
14
A Prayer for the Future
Even without the paralysis in her left side, Edith had difficulty keeping pace with Gracie and Abigail as they made their way down Beaucatcher Mountain. They were accustomed to walking; she had the disadvantage of living in an era where people got in their cars and drove a quarter of a mile to retrieve fast-food dinners from a pick-up window.
As dusk closed in, she lost sight of them halfway down Charlotte Street. But there was no danger of Edith getting lost— she had lived in Asheville all her life and was only a few blocks from home. The streetlights came on, shedding dappled light and casting a romantic glow over the sidewalks, lawns, and houses along her way.
When she finally climbed the steps and stood on the wide porch of Quinn House, the front door was shut and there was no sign of either Gracie or Abigail. Cautiously she turned the handle and entered the foyer.
Every light in the house was on. She heard voices and heavy footsteps overhead.
And then a scream.
Edith bolted up the stairway and paused on the landing, flattening herself against the wall as a tall, rangy man flew past her down the stairs. He stopped for just a moment and turned back, and she saw his face—young, clean-shaven, and attractive. Vaguely familiar. And terrified.
“Don’t panic, darling!” he yelled up the stairs. “I’ll be back with the doctor as soon as I can!”
Then he vanished into the gathering night, slamming the door behind him.
Edith heard a car engine sputter to life. She peered out the landing window to see a Model T roadster backing out of the driveway. It rattled off into the darkness, and she climbed the rest of the stairs to the second floor.
Another scream—coming, she thought, from the master bedroom. She hurried forward, apprehension clutching at her throat.
The bedroom door was shut. A small tow-headed child—a boy, dressed in woolen knickers and a blue cotton shirt—stood at the door banging his little fists on the panels. “Mommy! Mommy!” he shouted. When no one came, he sagged against the door, slid to a sitting position in the hallway, and began to sob.
Edith sat down next to him and leaned against the wall. She wished she could take him in her arms, comfort him, tell him everything was going to be all right. But he couldn’t see or hear her. And besides, she couldn’t very well reassure him when she had no idea what was going on.
At last the door opened, and Gracie emerged, looking tired and haggard. She seemed to have aged several years in the past hour—her hair showing more silver, the lines around her eyes and mouth more pronounced. She knelt down and scooped the little boy into her embrace.
“It’s all right, Jay-Jay,” she soothed. “Your mommy’s going to be just fine. Come on. Gramma will take you downstairs and we’ll get some milk and a cookie—how about that?”
Edith stared, disbelieving, at the two of them. Jay-Jay. Her brother, born in 1924. The eldest child of James and Abigail Nelson, who died on D-day, just three days shy of his twentieth birthday. How old was he? Three, maybe? That would make this year 1927, and if the sounds emanating from the bedroom were any indication, someone was in labor.
Edith’s heart palpitated as the truth settled in on her. That someone was Abigail. Her mother. About to deliver her second child . . .
A daughter, who would be given the name Edith Quinn Nelson.
Somehow, on the trip down Beaucatcher Mountain and back home again, Edith had skipped four years. Abigail was married and already the mother of one child. And the frantic man on the stairs was—
Of course. Daddy.
Edith shook her head and tried to clear her mind. She felt as if she had landed in the middle of surrealistic painting—one particular painting, in fact. Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory. Time was incomprehensibly skewed, with clocks melting all over her inner landscape. If she were, in fact, dying, teetering on the border between this life and the next, then everything she had experienced so far was simply a preview, and the main feature of her own life was about to begin.
Jay-Jay had been put to bed. James, Abigail’s husband, had been banished to the lower reaches of the house to pace and wait.
The contractions were coming faster now. Exhausted and sweaty, Abigail leaned back against the pillows and gripped Gracie’s hand, taking advantage of a brief moment of respite. The doctor, who had arrived an hour earlier, crouched on an ottoman at the foot of the bed. “We’re close now—very close.”
Edith had been through this experience before—once when she gave birth to Abby and a second time, vicariously, when Neal Grace was born. She understood what her own mother was enduring. But Abby’s birth had taken place in a hospital, and drugs had assuaged much of the pain. With every contraction, every scream, her own body writhed in torment as well. Children never knew what agonies they inflicted on parents, she mused. And birth was only the beginning.
Another contraction hit, and the doctor braced himself. “This is it, Abigail. When the next one comes, push. Push hard!”
Abigail took a deep breath. Edith leaned close, and even though she knew Abigail couldn’t feel it, she laid a hand on her mother’s arm. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she whispered into Abigail’s ear. “Sorry to put you through all this.”
“My child, my darling child,” Abigail breathed. “It will be worth it—worth it all—to have you.”
Stunned, Edith stumbled back away from her mother’s bedside. Was it possible that her mother had heard?
Gracie leaned over Abigail and held on to her hand. “What did you say, honey?”
“Never mind what she said!” the doctor snapped. “Push, Abigail. Now!”
Abigail pushed. A howl of pain tore from her throat as the infant, bloody and wet and wriggling, slid from her body into the waiting hands of the physician. “It’s a girl,” he announced. “A strong, healthy baby girl.”
With an efficiency born of experience, he wiped the baby’s face and straggly limbs, smacked her hard to get her breathing, and placed her gently into her mother’s arms.
Abigail gazed down at the wailing infant. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Look at her, Mama! She’s beautiful.”
Edith drew forward, marveling. The puckered little face, beet-red. The thrashing hands and legs, so tiny, so perfectly formed, even down to the minuscule fingernails and toenails. A new life, with her future spread out before her like an unpainted canvas. Infinite possibilities in that tiny soul. And even though Edith knew firsthand what that infant’s future held—its joys and pains, its struggles and victories, its mixture of darkness and light—she couldn’t stop herself from thinking that this moment was nothing short of a miracle.
She leaned in for a closer look. The baby’s eyes opened and locked onto Edith’s gaze. Impossible, Edith knew. And yet it happened. Those enormous blue eyes—wise eyes, old eyes—looked at her and peered straight into her so
ul.
Once the child arrived, Gracie’s exhaustion immediately transformed itself into energy. She changed the linens, dressed Abigail in a fresh gown, brought a new, hand-embroidered blanket to wrap the baby in. When all was in order to her satisfaction, she opened the door and called down the stairs.
“James! Come up and see your baby girl!”
Edith heard her father take the steps two at a time with a bouncing, eager gait. He burst into the room and went straight to Abigail’s side. “Are you all right, darling?”
“I’m fine,” she murmured. “Just tired.” She pulled the blanket away from the tiny, wrinkled face. “Meet your new daughter.”
James Nelson gently reached out to stroke his daughter’s downy head. The baby’s hand flailed out, grabbed his forefinger, and held on. A light came on in his face—an expression of complete enchantment and utter tenderness. “Well,” he whispered, “how’s my little beauty?”
Tears sprang to Edith’s eyes. She couldn’t hold them back. She had always idolized her father, but when she was a girl, he invariably spent more time with her brothers—taking them to ball games, working in the wood shop, fixing things. And after Jay’s death at Normandy, all the life seemed to drain out of him. She never doubted that he cared for her, but at this moment, for the first time, she understood how deep his love went.
He leaned down and kissed Abigail. “I’ll go get our son. He should meet his new baby sister.”
In a minute or two he returned with Jay-Jay, half-asleep and a little grumpy, dragging his teddy bear by the ear. The boy rubbed his eyes and squinted at the squirming bundle in his mother’s arms.
“Here’s our new baby,” James said.
“Where’d it come from?” Jay-Jay demanded.
James and Abigail exchanged a wry glance. James chuckled. “From our love, Son—just the way you did.”
“What’s his name?”
“It’s not a he. It’s a she. A girl. A sister for you. Her name is Edith Quinn Nelson.”
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