A Gift Of Grace. Inglath Cooper

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      At Sophie’s return, Grace smiled and tucked the blanket under her left arm, resting her chin on its threadbare silk edging.

      “Which book do we get to read tonight, Mama?”

      “Which one would you like?”

      “Are You My Mother?”

      They’d read the Dr. Seuss book countless times, and Grace never tired of it. At one point, Sophie had begun to worry that on some level Grace felt the question within herself. She had never explained to Grace how she had come to be her daughter. It wasn’t something Sophie meant to hide from her. She had just never been able to say the words for fear that they would dissolve even an ounce of her daughter’s security.

      Some days when Sophie caught sight of her child, framed in one of her high, sweet giggles, gratitude nearly brought her to her knees. She had lived the first year of Grace’s life in terror that it couldn’t last. That terror had quieted, but never completely gone away. It didn’t seem possible that anyone could give up a gift so precious as this and not realize their mistake.

      But the days had turned to weeks, then months. Had it really been three years since the agency social worker had placed the newborn infant in her arms? Sophie could not remember what her days had been like without Grace. Only that life now had a buzz, a rhythm to it that made her previous existence seem that and only that. Existing.

      Soon then. She would explain things to her daughter soon. She didn’t want to wait until Grace was old enough to think Sophie had intentionally hidden the truth from her.

      She pulled the book from the shelf, sat down on the bed and, putting one arm around her daughter, began to read. Grace’s chin quivered. Tears slid down her cheeks as the little bird went from kitten to cow to dog searching for its mother.

      By the time the bird finally found her, Grace’s tense shoulders relaxed, her eyes heavy with sleep. Sophie closed the book, kissed her daughter’s forehead. “Sweet dreams. Say your prayers?”

      Grace nodded, reciting the verse she repeated each night before going to sleep. Sophie tucked the covers around her and smoothed a hand across her daughter’s silky hair.

      “Good night.” She flicked off the lamp and turned to leave.

      “Mama?”

      “Yes, baby?”

      “I’m glad you’re my mommy.”

      Tears welled in Sophie’s eyes. “Me, too, sweetie. Me, too.”

      CALEB TUCKER SAT on the front porch of the old farmhouse his grandparents had built in 1902. On the floor next to him lay Noah, a yellow Labrador retriever so named for his avoidance of water as a puppy; even rain puddles had sent him flying back to the nearest pair of available arms.

      Surrounding the house were four hundred acres of farmland, the soil rich and dark with three generations of nurturing. Pockets of woods thick with century-old oak and maple trees divided hay fields from pasture. Deer slipped into the alfalfa fields just before sunset every evening. Flocks of wild turkeys pecked their way from one end of the farm to the other and back again in an endless loop of foraging.

      The land had been in Caleb’s father’s family for three generations, the kind of acreage that in this part of Virginia now required the bank account of a stock-market genius or some thirty-year-old Internet wizard to afford.

      The permanence of the land and its need of him held Caleb back from the brink of something too awful to define.

      The moon had just started its ascent from behind Craig Mountain. It was full tonight, the pastures east of the house bathed in soft light, the Black Angus cows grazing there clearly outlined.

      The day had been long, and Caleb had worked his muscles just short of failure. It was how he ended every day, wrung out, collapsing into the wicker chair and forfeiting dinner in exchange for a Dr Pepper and some cheese crackers, most of which stayed in the pack.

      Headlights arced up the gravel drive, his dad’s old Ford truck rumbling over the knoll just short of the house. Caleb’s parents lived on the other end of the farm in a house they had built ten years ago. Jeb Tucker stopped and got out, balancing a plate covered in Saran wrap.

      An older version of his only son, his hair had gone steel gray before Caleb had left home for college. Jeb had passed along the defined bone structure of his face as well as his wide, full mouth. Both father and son were heavily muscled from the daily routine of farm life. Like Jeb, Caleb favored Wranglers and Ropers. Dressy for both of them meant putting on their newest pair.

      He looked up at Caleb now, his jaw set. “Evenin’,” he said.

      “Dad.” Caleb nodded. Noah thumped his tail on the porch floor in greeting.

      “Your mother asked me to bring this over,” Jeb said.

      “You didn’t have to do that.”

      “She thinks you’re not eating.”

      “Tell her I’m fine.”

      “Maybe you ought to tell her. She doesn’t listen to me too much anymore.” Jeb set the plate on the step, then lowered himself down beside it.

      Caleb didn’t miss the note of resignation in his father’s voice, and he realized how long it had been since he’d asked how they were doing. “You two okay?”

      Jeb looked out across the darkened yard. “No,” he said. “I can’t say we are.”

      Caleb let that settle and then asked, “This about me?”

      Jeb looked down at the step, traced a pattern across the wood and answered without looking up. “It’s about the fact that none of us has moved on—”

      Caleb erupted from his chair, his back to his father. “Don’t do this, Dad.”

      “Don’t you think it’s about time we talked about it, son?”

      “About what?” Caleb snapped back, swinging around. “The fact that I miss my wife so much that sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe for the pain of it?”

      Jeb shook his head. “I know you miss her, Caleb. God knows we all do. But the fact is you haven’t moved a step beyond the day she died. It’s like quicksand, and it’s pulling you down. It’s pulling us all down.”

      “That’s not fair, Dad.”

      “There’s not a damn thing about any of this that’s fair, Caleb,” Jeb said, anger in his voice now. “But you are still here. Still alive. Somehow, some way, you have got to move on.”

      “And what does that mean?” Caleb asked, forcing a level note to his voice. “Finding somebody else?”

      “Maybe,” Jeb said quietly. “Don’t you think that’s what she would want?”

      “I think she wanted the two of us to have a family, raise our kids, spoil our grandkids and grow old together. Those are the things I know she wanted.”

      Jeb started to say СКАЧАТЬ