Grace

down the aisle with the man?”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Leah breathed.

Erica laughed. “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

Then she was gone, down the hall and out the front door.

Leah went out to the living room and turned on the television, sitting on the sofa, but not really watching the episode of Tic Tac Dough. She was too lost in thought, too buried in never ending questions that seemed to have no answers. Tic Tac Dough gave way to soap operas- Search For Tomorrow, followed by Guiding Light-but the drama unfolding on screen was nothing compared to the drama unfolding in her own life.

Finally, she got up, stomach rumbling-Solie had packed the refrigerator full of Christmas leftovers-and she glimpsed something on Rob’s desk under the loft. She walked over, seeing it was an envelope addressed to Sergeant Robert Nolan. The return address was simply U.S. Army. Leah knew her future husband had been a sergeant in the army during WWII, but she and Erica had been young then and she didn’t remember much.

She picked up the envelope, turning it over. It was still sealed. She put it back on the desk where she’d found it, realizing that even though she’d basically known the man she was about to marry for almost her entire life, there was a great deal she didn’t know about him. Donald Highbrow had mentioned their age difference, and while Leah didn’t really feel it most of the time, the reality that Rob had lived a lifetime of experience before she had even learned to walk hit home when she thought about him going off to join the army. What if there was another war? Oh God, she couldn’t think about losing him, not again.

When they got Grace back-and they would get her back, Leah held on doggedly to that hope-Rob would be the father of a newborn again. It wasn’t something they’d discussed. It had just happened. They were going to be an instant family. And it hit her, after Erica’s news-Grace was Rob’s first and only biological child. And when Grace graduated high school in 1975, Leah would be thirty-seven, and Rob-he would be sixty.

Did the age difference really matter? Her heart told her it didn’t, but the math was a little frightening. Leah had always felt like an old soul, far more serious and grown-up inside than her peers. She’d never been susceptible to peer pressure, unless you counted the way Leah always tagged along after Erica with her mischievous streak. It was Erica who had led her astray, showing her the wicked collection of photographs under her father’s bed.

Leah stared at the tapestry covering the door, remembering the first time they’d snuck into the secret room, Leah following Erica like Alice down the rabbit hole. There was no turning back then and there was no turning back now. She didn’t want to. She loved Rob, she knew she would love him until the day she died, which she hoped and prayed would be on the same day, because she couldn’t bear the thought of being without him.

She remembered how shocked she had been at their discovery, how intrigued, how titillating the photographs, how exciting the reels of film. Leah opened the top drawer of Rob’s desk, finding the key, the one on the leather fob, and she went to the tapestry, pulling it aside. There was a padlock and a bolt, and she slipped the key into the lock, turning-but it didn’t budge. Frowning, Leah tried it again, but no. It wouldn’t unlock. Was it the wrong key?

She checked the drawer again, finding lots of other keys inside, but none attached to a leather fob. Had Rob changed the lock? He must have. But why? Leah put the key back, continuing her journey to the kitchen, her rumbling stomach insisting. She found a plate of stuffed celery wrapped in plastic with a note written in Solie’s fat, child-like handwriting, “Miss Lee.” Smiling, Leah took the plate, poured herself a glass of milk from the pitcher, and settled back on the sofa in front of the soap operas to eat it.

By the time Rob came in and kissed her awake, Twenty-One was blaring on the television and Leah had slept away the whole afternoon.

“I missed you,” he murmured, his breath redolent with alcohol, and she smiled and stretched, yawning and sliding her arms around his neck, pulling him down onto the couch with her. He laughed, stretching out beside her on the sofa, still wearing his shoes, wet from the snow.

“What’s for dinner?” he inquired. “I’ve been shooting city council photographs all day, and the only thing they had was bourbon and Good n Plentys out of the vending machine.”

“Leftovers?” she suggested. “Solie didn’t come today. She called with a cough and I told her to stay home.”

Rob nuzzled her neck, his hand lightly cupping her breast through her blouse. “How about I take my beautiful future bride out for a nice, big juicy steak dinner?”

“You sound more interested in the steak than me.”

“Only momentarily.” He grinned. “One need satisfied at a time.”

“I’ll have to get ready.”

He groaned. “I’ll starve.”

“Five minutes. Just let me change and freshen up.” She pushed at him and he rolled off the couch, standing and holding out his hand.

“Oh all right.” Rob tossed his suit jacket over a chair and wandered off toward the kitchen. “I’ll raid the fridge while I wait.”

Leah went over to the closet under the loft. Many of her clothes were still at her mother’s, but Rob had cleared room for some of her things in his walk-in closet and she flipped through her dresses, finding a nice casual, cream-colored one with a pencil-thin skirt.

“Don’t spoil your appetite!” she called, stripping down to her underwear and slipping on a garter belt. Then she pulled the dress over her head.

“Not possible.” His mouth was full, his words intelligible, but barely. “Oh, you meant for food?”

She smiled, zipping her dress and choosing a light blue cardigan to cover her shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the desk, she slid one stocking on, slipping it up to her thigh and fastening it to the garter, front and back.

“Rob, can I ask you something?” she called.

“Mmmmph?”

Leah did the other stocking, fastening it to the front, the back giving her more trouble. “Did you change the lock on the darkroom door? The one under the loft?”

Rob went quiet. Leah frowned, still trying to get her stocking hooked to the garter, when he came around the corner, seeing her with her dress hiked up, stockings showing.

“Why?” he asked.

Leah finally got her stocking fastened, smoothing down her dress. “Because I tried the key and it didn’t work.”

He frowned. “Why were you trying to get in there?”

“I don’t know.” She slid up onto the desk, so she was sitting, holding a hand out to him. “I guess I was thinking about what the lawyer said. About having anything incriminating in our past?”

“I suppose you’re right.” He sighed, taking her offered hand, situating himself between her thighs, leaning into the desk to put his arms around her. “If anyone found out, it would be very incriminating.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “So can we get rid of it?”

“No.” He grimaced.

“Why?”

Rob nuzzled her neck. “I promise you, no one is going to find out about it.”

“But what if they did?” Leah asked, pulling back to look at him. “You know, your daughter has been sneaking out in the middle of the night to see that Webber boy.”

“What?”

“Rob, think for just a minute, what Erica’s been through,” Leah said. “She finds out she’s adopted-that you aren’t her father, and Susan wasn’t her mother-and not only that, she learns that one of the conditions of her adoption was that she be sterilized.”

“I didn’t know about that!” he insisted, his eyes flashing.

“I’m not blaming you,” she soothed, touching his cheek. “I’m not accusing anyone. I just want you to think about it from her point of view. She’s confused, she’s hurt. Not only that, but she let herself get involved with that damned baby-selling sex ring Father Patrick is running and she ended up being ritually gang-raped by, oh I don’t know, how many priests?”

Rob winced, turning his head away. “Jesus, Leah.”