by BJ Hoff
“You heard Pastor Ben. They’ll start looking for a new teacher right away. And I’m sure they won’t object to my staying on until they hire someone. So you need to let it go now. Just…let it go.”
She was being so strong, so practical. That was Maggie. She’d always been able to put a brave face on things. But he’d seen the tightening around her eyes. She was hurt. She was disappointed. And he hated it.
He pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his chest. He didn’t know what to say to her, didn’t know how to comfort her. And he was angry. Mostly with himself. How could he have been so irresponsible as to think this would all take care of itself?
“Maggie, there may still be something we can do. I just need a little time to think—”
She eased back from him. “Jonathan, listen to me. Please. I don’t need anything else besides what I have. I have you, Gracie, a wonderful family, a home. It would be the worst kind of sin to want more.”
She held his gaze with those incredible deep-set eyes of hers, as if she could convince him just by the strength of her own intensity. And it almost worked.
“In truth, Jonathan,” she said quietly, “there’s something else I’m much more concerned about than losing my teaching position.”
“What?”
“Richard. Richard Barlow. You haven’t forgotten that he threatened to take Evie’s baby, have you?”
The reminder brought a stab of pain to the base of Jonathan’s skull. “No, I haven’t forgotten.”
“Have you contacted your father about Evie? Does he know that we have Gracie?”
He nodded. “Yes. And don’t forget, before we ever left Lexington he assured me he’d have Barlow investigated.”
“That’s good. But it’s not enough. We have to take some precautions, Jonathan. Because I know what I saw in Richard’s eyes that day when he tried to take Evie back to Lexington. He will come after Gracie. He’ll try to take her.”
“Our lines are probably down now because of the storms. But tomorrow I’ll go to the company store and place a call to my father. He’ll know what to do. We’ll want to start the adoption process as soon as possible.”
“How can we do that with Richard still in the picture?”
“We have to get him out of the picture. If we can prove that he beat Evie—and by doing so endangered the baby—we should be able to put a stop to any interference on his part.”
Maggie gripped his forearms. “We can’t let him near Gracie, Jonathan. We can’t!”
“And we won’t,” he assured her, catching both her hands in his. “He’s not going to take Gracie away from us, Maggie. I give you my word. Whatever it takes, we’ll keep her safe with us.”
She let out a long breath and slumped against him. “I get so frightened when I think about that man. There’s no telling what he might try.”
“Maggie, there’s always a chance he won’t try anything.”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean? Jonathan, you didn’t hear him! You didn’t see his eyes.”
Jonathan nodded. “I know. And I understand why you’re frightened. But it’s just possible, now that some time has passed, he may have moved on. Barlow is intrinsically selfish, we know that. He may have decided he doesn’t want a child complicating his life. There might even be a new woman in the picture.”
She studied him. “Do you really believe that’s possible?”
Do I? Or am I just trying to convince myself along with Maggie?
“I have to believe that anything is possible with a man like Barlow. For the present, at least, I don’t think we need to worry too much.”
“But he does know about Eva Grace and the baby by now. You said your father’s partner was going to notify him.”
“Yes, and I didn’t mean we won’t take precautions. For now, though, try not to let worry interfere with your enjoyment of Gracie.”
After a moment, she gave a reluctant nod. “You’re right. I’m afraid that’s what I’ve been doing.” She stopped, putting a hand to his face. “Jonathan—about the teaching. I really do accept things as they are. I’ll be content to stay home. However things work out, I’m fine. God knows where He wants me, and I’m fine with that. It’s just as I told you. I couldn’t possibly want anything more than what I already have. As long as I have you and Gracie, I don’t need anything else.”
Warmed by this expression of love for him, Jonathan brought her closer. “Oh, Maggie, what a gift you are to me. You and Gracie, a family of my own, our home. No man could be more blessed.”
“You’re going to be a blessedly hungry man if I don’t get downstairs and start supper,” she said, giving him a little push to extricate herself from his embrace.
He tugged her back. “It’s still early,” he murmured. “And Gracie’s sound asleep. We can always eat later.”
She narrowed her eyes and slipped out of his arms. “Not that much later, you outrageous man.”
From his place in the hallway Figaro gave a chuff of agreement.
Chapter Nine
Two Are Better Than One
Best and worst, whate’er they be,
We shall share together.
Winthrop Mackworth Praed
The next three weeks passed in a flurry of activity, but somehow life settled into a fairly normal routine. The snow melted. Gracie thrived. And Maggie gained a two-month exemption for her position at the school. Until the weather eased, there could be no serious search for her replacement, so the school board agreed to keep her employed through the end of March.
Although their mornings and most evenings were hectic, Maggie and Jonathan had established a workable pattern on weekdays. They dropped off Gracie on their way to school in the morning and picked her up on the way home. Housework was kept to a minimum until the weekend. They planned and marketed for meals in advance, and they learned to share responsibilities at school and at home.
Figaro accompanied Gracie to the MacAuleys every day, though Maggie knew the children missed having him at the schoolhouse. They had grown used to his being part of their day, either napping in Jonathan’s office when classes were in session or running free in the schoolyard during lunch time and recess.
No doubt the great hound missed the students as well. But Maggie was fairly certain he would miss Gracie more. By now he had appointed himself the baby’s guardian angel, personal watchdog, and best friend, and there was no telling what it would take to pry him away from the object of his devotion.
Fortunately, Maggie’s mother seemed unperturbed by his being underfoot. What went unsaid among them all was the fact that having the big, protective hound on the premises created a sense of security they wouldn’t have enjoyed otherwise.
In the busy but fulfilling evenings, Jonathan would tend to the baby while Maggie fixed supper and tidied whatever clutter they’d left behind that morning. They took turns with Gracie’s bath and feeding schedule, and when she was finally down for the night, they graded papers, worked on the next day’s lessons, and managed a quiet hour or so for themselves. They reflected on their day or simply relaxed in front of the fire, content with the quiet of their home and being together.
Most days Maggie’s mother tried to coax them into staying for supper when they came for Gracie. And they did so often enough that Jonathan insisted on taking groceries over at least once a week. Maggie hated to admit it, but not only was her mother spoiling Gracie, she was getting a bit spoiled herself—having a warm meal waiting at the end of the school day.
Gathering was a good thing for them all as a family. Da got home not long after she and Jonathan arrived, and Ray came in an hour or so later after sweeping up and doing odd jobs at the company store, the exact parttime job Maggie had held as a girl.
Having all of them there seemed to ease her mother’s sadness. With her family around the supper table, Kate MacAuley seemed content, if not actually happy. No doubt evenings were lonely for her, with Da asleep by the fire soon after supper and Ray off
somewhere with his friend Tim Duggan until bedtime. With Maggie and Eva Grace no longer there to talk with when the others were gone, the hours must have loomed long and empty.
Mum’s spirits had often seemed to sag low on winter evenings, when darkness gathered early and a hush fell over the house. Even as a child, Maggie had sensed the heaviness that hovered near her mother when there was little or no family activity taking place around her. It was as if the absence of her loved ones drained her energy. With the selfishness and self-centeredness of youth, Maggie and her sisters hadn’t let concern for a parent divert them from their own pursuits. But every once in a while the distant, wistful expression in her mother’s eyes would stay with her after leaving the house and intrude on whatever she was doing, wherever she happened to be.
Tonight—Friday night—as they left her parents’ home after a particularly convivial evening with her family, she was finding it impossible to shake the image of her mother’s drawn features as she stood at the door waving goodbye. Ray had already taken off with Tim to join up with some of the other teenage boys at the square. And Da, with still one more workday to go before Sunday, had looked bone-weary and gripped with pain during supper. His only smile this evening had been for Gracie.
Her mother was alone again.
“I’d offer you a penny for your thoughts, but I have a feeling I’d need several dollars to cover the cost.” From the easy chair by the fireplace, Jonathan was watching her over the top of his newspaper. Figaro lay dozing at his feet, occasionally opening one eye just enough to make sure his charges were still in the room. Lately the big hound divided his evening hours between watching over Gracie upstairs and spending time with Jonathan and Maggie downstairs.
Maggie, sitting at the table by the window, realized she’d been wool-gathering instead of grading the papers she’d brought home. Her intention had been to get the schoolwork out of the way early so she would have the rest of the weekend to devote to Jonathan and Gracie and—a less pleasant thought—housework. She’d been staring out the window, the night’s darkness relieved only by the thin wedge of moonlight filtering through the pine trees out front.
She put her pencil down with a sigh. “I’m worried about Mum.”
“Worried?”
She nodded. “She’s so sad, Jonathan.”
“I thought she seemed unusually cheerful tonight.”
“She was good because we were all there. But did you see the look on her face when we got ready to leave? You could almost tell she was steeling herself for the rest of the evening. She’s missing Eva Grace terribly.”
“You have to give her time, Maggie. Probably a long time.” He paused. “That’s true for you too.”
“Oh, believe me, I do know. In fact, I think being a mother to Gracie not only makes me more aware of how awful this is for Mum, but it’s also made it more painful for me as well. Every time I look at Eva Grace’s baby girl, my heart feels as if it’s going to break all over again. She’ll never know her real mother, and Eva Grace will never know her.” She paused. “And I miss her. I miss my sister,” she added quietly.
Jonathan studied her for a long moment, folded his newspaper, and patted the space beside him in the chair. “Come here.”
Maggie didn’t hesitate. She crossed the room and curled up next to him in the oversized chair, soaking up his warmth and that of the fire. This had become almost an every-evening ritual for them, sharing the big chair and enjoying the fire together. Sometimes they talked; sometimes they sat in silence. It brought Maggie a peace that nothing else could match.
Jonathan wrapped his arms around her. “I know you miss Eva Grace. Of course you do. But you are Gracie’s ‘real’ mother, Maggie. You’re the only mother she’s ever going to know.”
Maggie started to interrupt, but he went on. “Naturally we’ll tell her about Eva Grace. But it’s you she’s going to call ‘Mother,’ sweetheart, and it’s you she’s going to love as her mother. We’ll keep Eva Grace’s memory alive. And the memories won’t always be sad. The time will come when you’ll be able to celebrate her memory and rejoice in the kind of person she was: strong and good and resolved to give her daughter life and a chance for happiness. Her every thought was of Gracie, right up to the end, when she asked us to raise her.”
He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “For now, be grateful that you had a sister like Eva Grace. But at the same time, give yourself the freedom to be Gracie’s mother. Her real mother.”
Maggie studied him. Her mind grasped his words and filed them away. A time might come in the future when she would need them again to remind herself that although she hadn’t given birth to Gracie, she was her mother. By Eve Grace’s request and consent—and by her love for the tiny girl that increased daily, she was Gracie’s mother.
She buried her face against Jonathan’s chest, feeling his heart beat the rhythm, not only of his own life, but hers as well. He was her life, after all. He and Gracie. Her family. She had never thought of it quite that way, but the ones she loved—they were her very life, her very world.
She wept a little then, and as if he knew she needed the release of her tears, Jonathan remained silent and simply held her.
Kate returned from the bedroom with her mending to find Matthew in his rocking chair staring out the window. “I thought you’d dozed off,” she said, sitting down on the end of the sofa across from him.
He shook his head but said nothing.
Setting a button in place on Ray’s shirt, Kate pulled a thread through and began to sew. “Is your back hurting, Matthew?”
“No more than usual. No, I was thinking about our Maggie. How she is with Jonathan and how he is with her. And how both of them are with wee Gracie.”
“They’re grand with her.”
He nodded. “They are. But don’t you find it hard to keep from laughing at the way they handle her? As if she’s a baby doll that might break if they put too tight a grip on her?”
He grinned. “That Jonathan. He all but carries her about on a silk pillow. And have you seen—he can’t look at anything else but the babe or Maggie. And he always has a bit of a dazed expression about him at that. Those two will have him falling over his own feet most of the time, I’ll wager.”
Kate’s hands stilled, and now she also smiled. “He’s a wonderful daddy.”
Matthew gave another nod. “He is that. The babe will lack for nothing, including attention.”
He was quiet for a time, and Kate went back to her mending.
“He’s a good man, Jonathan is,” he said after a few moments more.
Surprised but greatly pleased at this rare show of talkativeness in her husband, Kate again paused in her mending. “Maggie couldn’t have found herself a better man, and that’s the truth. He treats her like fine china, and doesn’t he nearly melt every time she steps into the room?”
Silence again.
“Do I treat you well enough, Kate?” Matthew’s gaze was needle sharp.
Kate stared at her husband. He might just as well have asked her the question in another tongue, so bewildering were his words.
“Matthew, have I ever complained?”
“No, but you wouldn’t. Though the good Lord knows there have been times when I’ve given you cause.”
Her confusion growing, Kate stared down at the sewing in her lap. “Matthew, is something wrong?”
“Wrong?”
She could hardly say what she was thinking, now could she? That he was acting like a total stranger and not the man she’d been living with for nearly three decades. “You just don’t seem quite…yourself,” she said, looking up.
“Because I’m awake, you mean, instead of passed out on pain pills like I usually am every night?”
“No, Matthew! I didn’t mean that—”
He waved off her protest. “It’s true enough, I know. I’m little more than a cabbage-head these days by the time supper’s over. Those infernal pills—”
He hauled himself to th
e window and stood looking out. “I can hardly think straight when I’m on them, but the pain grinds me to pieces if I don’t take them. I hate to think what they might be doing to my brain…what’s left of it.”
Kate’s heart turned over. “Why won’t you at least consider going to see Dr. Gordon? You’ve never trusted Dr. Woodbridge, after all. Why not see another doctor?”
He turned around to her, a humorless smile slashing his face. “Better the devil I know than the one I don’t.”
“Oh, Matthew, really!”
“Now, Kate, we’ve had this out already. ’Tis a dead horse.”
“’Tis your insufferable pride, that’s what it is! You’d live in misery from one day to the next rather than disavow your stubbornness. Dr. Gordon is a good doctor—everybody says so. And she just might be able to help you.”
A scowl turned his features to a thunderhead. “She wasn’t a good enough doctor to save Eva Grace, now was she?”
Caught off guard by this unexpected indictment, Kate stood to face him. “That’s unfair entirely, Matthew. Dr. Gordon did everything that could have possibly been done for Eva Grace, and you know it. You were here. You saw what happened. Are you saying Lebreen Woodbridge could have done more?”
His scowl darkened still more as he hunched his shoulders and thrust his hands into his pockets. “There’s no way to be knowing that, is there?” he grumbled.
“You do know it, just as well as I do. There was nothing anyone could have done.”
His eyes were damp, his mouth slack. The misery in his expression wrenched Kate’s heart and squelched her annoyance. She went to him. “Oh, Matthew. Let’s not quarrel. Not about this. Not about our girl.”
“I’m sorry, Kate,” he said, his voice rough-edged. He clasped her shoulders and pulled her to him. “I suppose you’re right. I suppose there was nothing anyone could do. But sometimes I get to thinking about her, and I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t something…anything…”