The DNA test results had come in the day before. I hadn’t fallen apart as I’d expected, I guess because by the time we got the phone call, I’d known there was no other explanation for what had happened than the one Tara had offered. Ted called a Realtor he knew and booked this cottage and I called Hunter High to pull Jenny out of school for a few days. We needed the time together, just the three of us, before we’d allow anyone else—Anna Knightly and her family, to be specific—into our lives. Three days for Jenny, Ted and me to come to grips with this new reality.
For a couple of days after that miserable trip to Washington, I was filled with such a crazy quilt of emotions I could hardly stand it. One minute I’d be furious with Noelle, the next I’d be full of gratitude. One minute, I’d be racked with grief over the baby I’d lost without ever having the chance to see her or touch her, the next I’d be filled with a love for Jenny so pure and bottomless that I was drowning in it. Now, all those emotions had been erased by one simple question: What did our future hold? The only thing I knew for sure, the only thing I cared about, was that I needed to help Jenny find her way through that future. My own fears and losses and anger no longer mattered. All that mattered was Jenny.
I spotted the dogs first. Shadow and Blue bounded in and out of the shallow water, chasing each other across the sand with an energy they never displayed at home. Then I saw Ted and Jenny walking a distance behind the dogs. Ted made an expansive motion with his arms as though he was illustrating the enormity of the ocean. Or maybe, I thought, he was describing his love for Jenny. I’d never felt closer to Ted than I had in the past few days. We were on the same team. “You’re our daughter,” he said to Jenny with such force that no one could doubt that he meant it. “Do you think a DNA test can change that?”
As they came closer to the house, I watched Ted take Jenny’s hand. They swung their arms back and forth between them like they were kids. Like nothing bad had happened or ever could happen. Like our lives hadn’t taken as grim a turn as I’d thought. Watching them, I felt an unexpected surge of happiness.
I opened the sliding glass door and stepped out on the deck. I waved to them and they waved back, and I couldn’t wait for them to come into the cottage. Tonight we’d watch a movie after dinner. Maybe play a game. There’d be time later to make sense of our new and uncertain future. All I knew was that we’d be facing it together.
My husband.
Myself.
And my daughter.
EPILOGUE
Tara
The cleansing of Noelle’s cottage is Emerson’s idea, and I’m so glad she thought of it. I pull up in front of the house and take in the view. The cottage, now yellow with white trim and black shutters, is adorable. Two white rockers sit on the small porch and the yard is filled with azaleas ready to pop with color.
Suzanne is moving into the cottage next week. She knows nothing about the cleansing. She’s never seemed the least bit concerned that Noelle killed herself in the house, but we’re certain Noelle would have approved of what we’re doing here today.
Emerson’s car is in the driveway, and I park across the street. I’ve been inside the cottage a couple of times since its transformation. The kitchen and bathroom have been gutted and refurbished, the floors refinished, and the walls in every room painted in warm Tuscan colors, as Suzanne suggested. It took forever—Emerson had other things on her mind—but it’s finished now and ready for Suzanne to give it a new life.
Emerson greets me in the kitchen. “You’ll take the east corner,” she says as she hands me a bowl containing a smoldering bundle of sage. A tendril of smoke rises into the air above it. She points toward the second bedroom near the rear of the house and instructs me what to do.
Tonight, after the cleansing of the house is complete, Grace and Jenny will begin moving the bags of donated baby items into the second bedroom with some help from Cleve, who’s home on spring break. I can’t go so far as to say that Grace is over Cleve. I swear I can sense her heart beating a little faster when he’s around. But she started going out with a friend of Jenny’s boyfriend, Devon, and she tells me he’s “okay,” which I think means she likes him quite a bit. Grace is never going to be an open book, like me. I’ve learned that the harder I dig, the more she withdraws. But if I wait, if I’m there for her the way Sam used to be without pushing or prodding, she eventually turns to me. Some days it feels like waiting for paint to dry. Every shared confidence, though, is precious. For an entire day, I was unsure who she was and how we fit together. Ironic that the day I feared I was no longer her mother was the day I learned how to mother her.
Jenny was not a match for Haley, but Haley was able to receive her transplant in January after a donor was found through the global database. Her recovery has been extremely difficult, filled with uncertainty, infections and one hospitalization after another. But she’s at home now, at least for a while, and she and Jenny Skype every day. Every
Now Emerson stands on a stepladder to take out the batteries from the smoke detector. Then she lights her own bowl of sage from the candle burning on the counter. She blows it out to let it smolder. “I just hope we don’t burn the place down,” she says as she heads for the room that had been Noelle’s bedroom.
In the second bedroom, I walk in a large circle, stopping to fill the corners with the aromatic smoke. At the windows, I look out at the garden, where daffodils and crocuses seem to have sprung up overnight. We don’t know for sure and we never will, but we believe we understand the love Noelle had for her garden and the birdbath with its statue of the little girl. We thought back, remembering that she first planted the garden shortly after Emerson gave birth to her daughter. Noelle had never shown any interest in her yard before then, but she tended that garden with so much love. Almost the sort of love you’d lavish on a child. A niece, perhaps.
I believe that Sam knew. I believe that one day, when Noelle could no longer keep this final, most devastating secret to herself, she asked Sam to meet her someplace where none of us would bump into them. Someplace like Wrightsville Beach. Maybe she told him everything, client to attorney. She must have told him about the garden, prompting him to question me about it a short time later.
Through the bedroom window, I see Emerson walk toward the garden. I watch as she plucks a few dead leaves from the birdbath, then rests her hand on the head of the little bronze girl. I fill with love for her. I carry the bowl of sage into the bathroom and run a little water onto it, then rest it on the counter. I want to be with Emerson. In this year of changes, only one thing has been certain and solid, and that’s the bond I have with my best friend. I walk outside to help her prepare the garden to welcome the spring.
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