by Selena Kitt
Leah stirred in his arms, lifting her eyelids as if they were heavy, only getting them halfway.
“Find her?” was all Leah managed. Erica realized she was drugged. The needle in her arm had obviously had a purpose.
Erica looked helplessly at her father, shaking her head. She couldn’t speak, she couldn’t tell her best friend they had failed. The baby was gone. It was Father Michael who spoke up.
“I’m sorry, Leah. We tried.”
Erica saw Leah’s shoulders shaking with her sobs as she turned her face into Rob’s chest, and he cradled her, rocking and whispering soothing words. Erica watched them, her own joy at finding Leah immediately dampened by the loss of Leah’s child. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Leah was feeling, but if it was a tenth of what she was feeling herself, it had to be torture.
Erica looked up at Father Michael, tears in her eyes. “What do we do now?”
“We go home.” Erica’s father said, looking over at his daughter.
Leah stirred in his arms, mumbling, “My baby? Where’s my baby?”
“We’ll find her.” Rob tenderly pressed his lips against Leah’s forehead. “I found you, didn’t I? We’ll find her. If it’s the last thing I do. I promise.”
Rob stood, and Patty Wendt looked up. “Where you going?”
Leah’s eyes opened briefly, seeing Rob, seeing her mother, mumbling, “Where are we going?”
“Home, sweetheart.” Rob caressed her cheek, kissing her fluttering eyelids.
Then he walked out, carrying Leah like a baby, heading home.
The End
GRACE
(Under Mr. Nolan’s Bed)
By Selena Kitt
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Grace Book Description
“By Grace you have been saved...” Ephesians 2:8
Childhood friends Leah and Erica have been sacrificial lambs at the altar of a scandalous corruption within the Catholic Church, violated by those who have, in their lust for power, turned the sacred profane.
The mystery of Leah’s disappearance results in a long-awaited reunion, but it is tainted by both their loss of innocence and a deep, unfathomable sorrow, which only leads to more secrets that have yet to be uncovered.
The revelations Erica and Father Michael have already exposed in their search to find the truth have only scratched the surface of the mystery they are about to unravel.
But will their discovery serve to save them and redeem the innocence they have lost, or will the sins of the fathers prove to be too powerful and destroy them all?
Chapter One
There was a ghost in the house.
Leah woke up every night in the loft, jerked awake by a dream within a dream, feeling Rob beside her to make sure he was real, warm, solid flesh under her hands, positive she could hear a baby crying.
There’s no baby.
There’s no ghost.
You’re imagining things.
If she woke Rob, that’s what he would whisper as he cuddled her close, soothing her back to sleep like a baby in his arms, when all she wanted was her baby, their baby, sweet little Grace, who had been stolen out of her bassinette by a ghoul, right there in front of everyone, in broad daylight.
Leah had really believed, once upon a time, there was order in the world, that bad things didn’t happen to good people, and from fairy stories to David and Goliath, good always conquered evil. But nothing was so black and white anymore in her world. Demons wore the faces of adults who said they were just there to help you. The devil disguised himself and came to visit during the day, just like everyone else.
She didn’t wake Rob, who slept peacefully in a slant of light from the skylight overhead. His hair fell in dark waves, far too long for fashion, but that was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him in the first place—he defied convention at every turn. He slept on his back, one arm thrown over his head, the other on her side, always touching her, even at night, like he thought she might disappear the moment he let his guard down.
His hand had slipped away from its resting place on her belly when she had jolted awake and sat, ready to fly out of bed to answer the plaintive call of her baby.
There’s no baby.
Oh if that were only true.
In the early days, when she had been at the Mary Magdalene House for Moral Welfare, she had often wished her baby dead, just so life could go back to the way it had been before. Maybe this was her punishment for those thoughts, for wishing her unwed pregnancy away as her belly grew bigger and the days stretched toward the finish line. She had known the day would come when she would have to sign her name and give her baby away to strangers.
She had wished her baby dead, and she was wishing it now, because Grace was out there somewhere, right now, wailing for her mother, but some other woman would answer Leah’s daughter’s cry. She thought, maybe, if Grace were gone from the world altogether, it wouldn’t feel so much like having lost a limb. At least she would know where her child was. She could visit her grave, grieve, mourn her loss, and move on.
But this, this not knowing, it was just like losing a limb. You expected it to still be there, every time you looked, but it wasn’t. She had heard that men who came home from World War II, many of them who had fought alongside Robert Nolan, the man who slept now beside her, had something called “phantom limb” syndrome. A hand, a foot, a leg, an arm—their appendages had been blown off by land mines or grenades, but still, the mind couldn’t accept the limb was gone. The walking wounded still felt those missing pieces. They ached. They itched. They demanded attention, and yet when you looked, there was nothing there. Nothing at all. It was like having a phantom limb, a ghost.
Leah knew just how they felt as she rocked a ghost baby in her arms, closing her eyes, her arms aching, literally aching, from the weight of a phantom child she could feel but not see. She had no pictures of Grace, but she had memorized every feature—all her dark hair, those sweet rosebud lips, the curved pinkie toe with the barely-there nail. Grace had Leah’s long limbs and delicate fingers, already the body of a dancer, even in newborn form.
She pushed the covers aside, slipping quietly out of bed and heading for the ladder. The warehouse was always a little chilly at night in the winter months and Leah shivered as her bare feet touched the hardwood floor when she reached the bottom. There was no light except that of the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room area. It was a monster of a tree, nine-feet tall, but it didn’t come near the warehouse ceiling above.
She remembered, long ago when she was little, when the Nolans lived in the big house on the river, how they would all go shopping for a tree together. The Nolans always got the biggest trees, while Leah and her mother found something more “sensibly sized” for their little house. Thinking about her mother made her chest burn and Leah tried to block out the memories she had of Christmas dinners together with the Nolans, back when Susan Nolan, Rob’s first wife, was alive.
It had been after Susan’s death when things had changed. Rob had packed up his only daughter—Leah’s best friend, Erica—and they had closed up the big house on the river and moved into the converted warehouse. Rob had claimed it was for work—he was a portrait photographer, and half the warehouse had been converted into a studio and dark room—but Leah and Erica both knew it was because of the memories lingering in their house on the river.
Leah thought she could understand better now, how he’d felt.
Too many ghosts.
She went over to the Christmas tree, smiling at the sight of the familiar ornaments, the way the lead tinsel hung heavy and straight—“The trick is to put them on one strand at a time,” Mrs. Nolan used to say, a tedious t
ask to say the least—reflecting the big, multi-colored lights, including Erica’s favorite “bubble lights.”
As little girls, they had sat in front of the tree when Mr. Nolan turned the lights on for the first time, focusing their attention on one of the lights with a long glass tube filled with red-colored liquid until the heat from the bulb began to make the water boil and bubble. Then one by one, those bubble lights would begin to simmer and come to life. It was just basic science, but to them, it had been magical.
Solie, the Nolans’ housekeeper, made Rob turn the tree off and give the lights a break, especially at night, claiming, “If you keep that tree on all the time, you’re going to start the whole place on fire!” The lights did get awfully hot. Leah could feel the heat of the bulbs when she cupped her hand over one, not touching it. But tonight the lights had stayed on overnight. Tonight was special. Tonight was Christmas Eve.
They had all attended midnight mass, and although she had feared seeing her mother at church, it was so crowded they never ran into each other. Leah watched from their vantage point near the back of the church as the Virgin Mary—a role played this year by Erica, who looked the part with her blond head covered in a blue veil—put the baby Jesus into the empty manger. Leah watched and wept, Rob squeezing her hand hard the whole time. She felt his love and support, but she couldn’t do anything but sob and turn away from the sight of the swaddled baby—a real newborn, part of the Christmas Eve play.
They’d come home to Solie’s hot chocolate—she had left a pan in the ice box they could heat up—and they had placed their own baby Jesus in the manger. The Nolans’ nativity was set up beside the Christmas tree, a tradition every year, and although Erica had suggested they “skip the baby Jesus bit” this year, Leah had insisted on doing it herself, opening the box and unwrapping the little baby from its tissue paper shroud, putting him down in his cradle, her tears falling on his painted ceramic face.
He was sleeping peacefully where she had left him, although in her dream, she had heard him crying, and in her dream, she had been sure it was Grace. If she just went to look, she would see her baby in the manger, brought home to her, a Christmas miracle. Leah swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking of the Virgin Mary giving birth in that little stable. Had she been frightened? Had she cursed the pain of childbirth, Eve’s fallen gift to all women? Had she come through it to the other side, as Leah had, instantly in love with the child in her arms?
Every mother thought their baby was the best, the sweetest, the most wonderful. They were all miracles in God’s eyes, weren’t they? But the Virgin Mary had held her child in her arms and smiled the secret smile every mother recognized, the one full of joy and pain all at once, holding life in your hands, knowing it will someday be gone again.
But Mary got to keep her baby.
Yes, for thirty-some years, and then she’d watched him sacrifice himself, like stabbing a knife through her own heart, in order to cleanse the world, to wipe the slate clean. Mary had mourned him for three agonizing days, and then, the miracle of miracles, her baby had come back.
Grace was out there somewhere, right now, without her. The knowledge was like a hole inside of her, a void made to be filled, a vacuum created by her daughter’s absence, and in its place was a pain so vast Leah could barely contain it. She knew everyone was watching her, worrying about her, talking in whispers like she couldn’t hear or understand them.
Leah had done her best to smile. She’d even caught herself laughing at some of Erica’s goofy jokes and Rob’s gentle teasing. She didn’t want to ruin everyone’s Christmas, after all. And in spite of Grace’s absence, she was very glad to be home. She turned away from the painful sight of the nativity, smiling at the pile of gifts, their Christmas stockings stuffed to the brim.
It looked as if “Santa” had already been there to fill their stockings. Too heavy to hang, they were in front of the tree, amidst the gifts that had been accumulating all month in preparation for Christmas day. Erica and Leah had bought things to put into Rob’s. Solie had a stocking too. Leah thought about her mother again, how her stocking at home would be empty that morning. She missed Ada, their housekeeper, who would come bring them breakfast every Christmas morning, leaving her own family to tend Leah and her mother.
Leah knelt in front of the tree in her nightgown, touching the stocking she had knitted for Grace during her last month of pregnancy at the maternity home. It was red and white candy-cane stripes. It had taken her hours, and she had spent all of them thinking about how she could possibly manage to keep her baby.
A sound startled her and she looked up in the dimness, seeing Erica appear at the end of the hallway. She had her coat and boots on. Both girls stared at each other for a moment, too stunned to speak. Then Erica grinned, one of her mischievous smiles that stretched wider and wider as she held out her hand.
“Come on!” Erica urged. “You have to see.”
Leah stood, frowning, looking at her friend’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “Where were you? Were you outside?”
Erica grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall toward the warehouse door. It was a big steel entry affair with a bolt on the inside. Erica drew it, glancing back at her friend as she swung it open.
Leah gasped as cold air swept in. “Erica, I’m in my nightgown!”
“So? Put this on.” She grabbed Leah’s long wool coat off a hook, tossing it to her. “And these.” She kicked her tall winter boots.
Leah pulled on her coat more to keep warm than anything else—the air from outside was bitter cold.
“Come on!” Erica complained, standing in the doorway, her breath rising up like steam.
“Okay, okay!” Leah grumbled, yanking on one boot—she was barefoot and it wasn’t easy—barely getting her foot into the other one before Erica grabbed her again, pulling her out the front door.
“It’s snowing!” Erica declared, raising her arms and twirling in the orange halo of a streetlight, big, fat flakes of snow falling all around them.
Leah shivered, hugging herself and watching Erica sticking her tongue out to try to catch snowflakes, and she couldn’t be mad that her best friend had dragged her out into the snow in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. She could never stay mad at Erica too long, no matter what. She couldn’t imagine her life without her.
“Snow angels!” Erica announced, grabbing Leah’s hand and pulling her along the unshoveled sidewalk. There was at least of foot of snow on the ground already and they had to shuffle their way along toward the other side of the warehouse, away from the street.
“Plow!” Erica called, turning her back and covering her head. Leah was a little too late and the truck with the flashing orange lights and the big blade on the front sprayed her with snow as it slid by, clearing the city streets. The snow was heavy and wet, and a good chunk of it ended up sliding down inside Leah’s boots.
“Erica!” she protested, shaking snow out of her hair, but her friend just laughed, dragging her around the corner into the empty lot behind the warehouse.
Leah couldn’t remember what the warehouse used to be, but there had been a parking lot behind it, and beyond that, a plot of grassy land in the middle of the city with no purpose whatsoever. It had come along with the sale of the warehouse, and although Robert Nolan had been approached by several Detroit developers looking to expand their business, he refused to sell it.
“Ready?” Erica held Leah’s hand in hers and the girls grinned at each other. “One… Two… Threeeee!”
They fell back together, letting the white blanket of snow catch them. Leah felt her breath leave her body for a moment as she landed, and then she was gasping, laughing, looking over at Erica, her blond hair making wet punctuation on her ruddy cheeks.
“It looks like we’re gonna have a white Christmas!” Leah laughed as they scissored their arms and legs in the snow, leaving impressions like white butterflies, satisfying angelic prints that would abide until warmer weather came to melt them aw
ay, just like they used to do when they were little.
“The morning star!” Erica pointed and Leah saw it, knowing, thanks to their senior year high school science class, it was just the planet Venus appearing before sunrise. “On Christmas morning. It has to be lucky. We should make a wish.”
“Okay.” Leah reached over and took her friend’s gloved hand in her bare one. “Ready?”
“Star light, star bright...” Erica began the familiar rhyme and the girls finished it together. “Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight...”
Leah closed her eyes, her silent wish so big, taking up so much space in her head, she was sure she must be bursting with it. When she opened her eyes, she saw Erica watching her, looking thoughtful.
“What did you wish for?” Leah wondered aloud.