Grace

“Does she know?” Leah wondered out loud. “Does she know about the Mary Magdalenes?”

“Of course she knows,” Leah’s mother replied, staring at her daughter with a look that was both patronizing and incredulous at the same time. “They all know. The doctors, the nurses, the nuns, the priests. Even with the incentive bonuses the Magdalenes get for giving up their babies, the church more than doubles that in adoption donations. And the agency Goulden works for gets a cut, of course. I think the social workers even get adoption bonuses for every successful adoption they facilitate.”

That fact horrified Leah so much she had a hard time forming words. “Did you know… did you know she was going to trick me? Did you and… Joan…”

It was hard to say her name, hard not to think of her as anything but “the ghoul,” hard to imagine she was a human being with feelings. The lawyer had said he believed the social workers were doing good. No, he said he believed they believed it. There was a difference. The social workers truly believed they were doing the right thing. Joan Goulden was a person, a woman who probably had a family of her own. How had she spent the adoption bonus she’d received for Grace, Leah wondered? A new pair of earrings? A summer vacation?

“Did you and Joan plan to take Grace away from me?” Leah whispered her worst fear, saying it out loud to her mother for the first time.

“No!” Patty Wendt looked truly horrified. “Leah, no! Never! I just didn’t want you to go through what I went through, that’s all. We always want to protect our children from the hard things, and being a mother on your own isn’t easy. Besides, remember, I really believed that Rob was your father…”

“You knew he might not have been.”

“I just didn’t…” Her mother closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to think about that. I think I convinced myself, over the years, that he was your father. We were all such good friends, and the Nolans were always so generous. Before Susan died, I thought it might be because she was afraid I would tell him… but I never did. I never would have. And when she finally told him, she was dying…”

“So he didn’t know?” Leah had wondered if Rob knew about the Mary Magdalenes all along. How in the world had he gotten involved? She couldn’t imagine Rob agreeing to Erica’s participation in the Mary Magdalenes, not in a million years. But she also never would have imagined that he had a secret room under his loft bed that contained what amounted to a mountain of obscene, illegal images-both still and moving-either.

“No!” Patty snorted. “He didn’t know anything until Susan got cancer. That’s when she told him everything.”

“She told him about Father Patrick?” Leah wondered aloud. “About being in love with him?”

Her mother smiled thinly. “There are some secrets a woman keeps for a lifetime.”

“How long has this been going on?” Leah got up, pacing back and forth in front of the dresses, wheels turning.

“The Mary Magdalenes? I honestly don’t know,” her mother admitted. “A long time.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Leah flipped through the dresses, one by one. “Why didn’t you expose them? Stop it?”

“Oh Leah, I wish it was that simple.” Patty joined her daughter by the rack of dresses, her voice low. “The church… it’s so powerful. You have no idea. Father Patrick has the ear of every bishop and cardinal in the state. He’s had an audience with the Pope!”

“But he’s still doing it.” Leah grabbed one of the dresses off the rack, shaking it at her mother, brandishing it like a weapon. “And you knew it.”

Patty shrank away, blinking back tears. “What else could I do? I was a woman, alone! I was just glad to get out. And I got to keep you, didn’t I?”

Leah looked down at the dress in her hands. “I don’t know if that’s much consolation…”

“Oh Leah, no.” Her mother grabbed hold of her daughter’s hands, still gripping the hanger.“Think of little Grace, how much you love her, how much you want to give her. Think of how much you would sacrifice for her.”

Leah lowered her head, feeling the tears she’d been holding back start to fall. Thinking about Grace inevitably brought them to the surface. “I would do anything.”

“I know.” Her mother whispered, cupping Leah’s face in her hands. She hadn’t done that since she was a little girl. Leah lifted her eyes, meeting her mother’s gaze. “I know because I love you like that, Leah. Please believe me. I didn’t do it for me. I did it for you.”

“Oh Leah, you have to try that on!” Erica interrupted them both before Leah could respond, coming around the corner and seeing Leah still holding a dress in her hands, knuckles white, fingers tight around the hanger.

“That is one of our lovelier gowns,” Irene agreed, peeking around the corner and joining them when it looked as if the coast was clear. “It was modeled after Grace Kelly’s-twenty-five yards of peau de soie, twenty-five yards of silk taffeta, three-hundred yards of Valenciennes lace and countless seed pearls.”

“It suits you perfectly,” Leah’s mother said, touching her daughter’s cheek. Leah glanced down at the dress. She had hardly even looked at it. “Innocent and beautiful, just like you.”

“Well go try it on!” Erica urged.

Irene took Leah into one of the fitting rooms, leaving her alone with the gown but telling her to call for her when she got it mostly on, as there were dozens of buttons to be done up the back. Leah undressed slowly, hands shaking slightly, still trying to absorb what her mother had revealed. She had asked for honesty, had demanded it in fact, but the news she’d received had been more shocking than anything she could have imagined. It was true after all-you should be careful what you wished for.

Leah left her clothes on the padded bench, standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bra, panties, garters and stockings, still wearing her heels. The wedding dress was voluminous, the layers of fabric shockingly heavy as she slipped her arms through the long, full-length lace sleeves, white satin falling all around her hips. The neck was high as her mother had suggested, but it was sheer lace, showing the pale cream of Leah’s throat and the upper part of her chest.

“You can come in now,” Leah called and Irene opened the door, smiling as she stepped into the dressing room.

“Oh, lovely,” Irene murmured, looking at Leah’s reflection in the mirror. Irene produced a tool to do up the buttons in back and they were fastened in no time.

Leah stared at herself in the mirror, her long, dark hair falling in carefully set waves over her shoulders, down the back of the dress. She would probably have it put up for the wedding, depending on the type of veil she chose.

“Do you have a veil for this dress?” she asked, smoothing the fabric over her middle. She was two sizes larger than she’d been before Grace, and her body was still resuming its original shape, although she was beginning to wonder if it would make it all the way back. She needed to start dancing again.

“It’s divine. Stay here.” Irene disappeared again and Leah touched the lace at her throat, marveling at the gorgeous handiwork. What would Rob be thinking when she walked down the aisle in this dress, she wondered? How long it would be before he could get me out of it. She giggled at the thought, cheeks flushing. She’d thought a great deal about her wedding when she was young, but never her honeymoon. Now she was looking forward to both.

“Here we are!” The veil was a delicate, Juliet cap affair that Irene clipped into place, fluffing the veil over Leah’s face, arranging. “Oh my goodness, what a beautiful bride you make!”

Leah blushed at the compliment, following Irene out of the dressing room and down the hallway. She heard Erica’s gasp before she saw her wide eyes and the bemused smile starting on her face. When Leah looked over at her mother, she saw with wonder and a little bit of awe, that she had tears in her eyes.

She stepped toward the three-way mirror, the train of material following her, looking at herself in amazement. She’d been transformed from an ordinary girl to a goddess with one simple costume change. Irene urged her up on the pedestal so she could arrange the train and veil behind her. Erica crowded next to Leah, looking at their reflection side by side in the mirror, her eyes damp too.

“I feel like a fairy princess,” Leah whispered, taking Erica’s hand in hers and squeezing.

“You look like one,” her mother assured her, stepping into view on Leah’s other side, going up on tiptoe to brush her daughter’s cheek with a soft kiss. Leah couldn’t remember the last time her mother had kissed her.

Leah met her mother’s eyes in the mirror, not as a daughter looking at her mother, but as a woman meeting