Keeper of Dreams

by Orson Scott Card

  Because Sarah had been so ambiguous about her vision of her daughter—“We’ll love her very much”—Rachel had been half afraid that the baby would be born retarded or crippled. But she was fine, a sturdy, healthy baby. Rachel wondered then if the problems would come later; she wondered what piquant burden of foreknowledge Sarah and Will silently bore. But whatever it was the Lord had shown her, it was certainly true that they loved the baby very much.

  They blessed the baby in Jared’s and Rachel’s ward on the first Sunday in February. They named the baby after her great-grandmother Hazel, and in spite of all her protests, they knew the old soul was thrilled. In March Will and Sarah and the twins and little Hazy moved to Los Angeles. They didn’t come back until Hazie Maw’s funeral the next autumn, a year almost to the day after she had been widowed. Her last words were, “Alma, what kept you?” Sarah gave Rachel a copy of the four-generation picture they had taken: Hazel holding baby Hazy, with Sarah and Will, Jared and Rachel gathered around. “She won’t remember her great-grandma,” said Sarah. “But she’ll have this picture.”

  “And the stories you tell her,” said Rachel.

  “I have parties at the house now, you know,” said Sarah. “I pretend that I’m you and then I act it out and everything goes fine.”

  “That’s awful. You don’t have to pretend to be me or anybody else.”

  “Well, actually, I don’t really have the figure to be you all the time,” said Sarah. “I just don’t rebound to my girlish figure after pregnancy. So when I choose my wardrobe, I pretend to be Barbara Bush.”

  “That’s all right then,” said Rachel. “I can handle the role-model business as long as Barbara Bush is carrying half the load.”