Selena Kitt
Grace
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.
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, that 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 that 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 throw 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.
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 that 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 that 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 as 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 that 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 that lingered 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 task 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.
