A Mom For His Daughter

Fiona breathed in a deep lungful of the crisp mountain air before she pulled open the door to the Hazardtown Community Church hall. She’d gone back and forth as to whether it would be better to be one of the first to arrive for the Bridges meeting or one of the last, and had decided on last. She hadn’t wanted to risk being there with only Marc, Stella and the meeting leader, even though that was the idea of the Bridges program, to help bring together members of changing families.

Fiona swallowed, remembering what Marc had said about Stella’s hostility toward women like her. Perhaps arriving early when fewer people were here may have been better after all, given that she didn’t know how Stella would react to her.

Too late now. She stepped into the hall, the door closing behind her with a startling bang that brought everyone’s attention to her.

“Welcome,” a man called to her.

“Hi.” Fiona looked past him to the table where the group was gathered, searching for Stella. She saw only adults, and her gaze settled on Marc’s expressionless face. The others blurred around him. She set her jaw against the shudder that threatened her composure. She wasn’t that poor little Bryce girl anymore that everyone had been quick to pity, no matter how little time her family spent in one place.

“I’m Noah Phelps, the group facilitator,” said the man who’d greeted her. “You must be Fiona.”

Fiona pulled her focus from Marc. She lifted her chin. She’d been the last to arrive. Not the unobtrusive entry she might have wanted, but she’d accomplished her goal of not being alone with Marc and Stella.

“Come join us,” Noah said. “We were about to go around the table and introduce ourselves.”

Fiona slipped into an empty chair kitty-corner across the table from Marc.

“As you already know, I’m the director of the Bridges program at the Christian Action Coalition. I’ll be moderating the group. Unlike the children’s programs Bridges offers, this group will focus on the needs of the adults in the transitioning families. Let me remind you of the confidentiality agreement you all signed when you registered for the group. What we share in group stays in group.”

Absorbing Noah’s words, Fiona looked around the table. Most of the people appeared to be couples, except for one, an older woman with a twentysomething man that might be a mother–son or mother-in-law and son-in-law pair.

Noah continued, “This group is as much or more about your sharing what you’ve found works for your family as it is about my providing guidance to give your new family structure a solid start.”

Fiona gazed down at her hands, running one thumbnail against a rough edge of another. She wasn’t against getting some guidance to use as a ruler against her perceptions. The promising start she’d made with Marc businesswise—his asking for a contract before his partners had agreed—hadn’t carried over when their situation became personal. And the start she’d thought she’d provided Mairi had crumbled when Fiona hadn’t been there to hold it up.

She shouldn’t be surprised. That had been her life. The glimmer of something going well followed by crushing reality. Her stepfather’s new job that had ended up being a prelude to his leaving. Her mother’s multiple promises of a new start. Fiona’s optimism when a teacher at her first high school had taken an interest in her, only to have her mother pull her out of the school a few months later for another new start. Fiona pulled her hands apart and straightened. That’s why she meant to be there for Stella, to carry through—no matter what it took.

“I’ve done enough talking. Now it’s your turn.” Noah motioned to the person on his right. The people between Noah and Marc shared about themselves and their families.

Fiona had been wrong. A few of those attending were single, divorced or widowed, with children. Had Marc signed on for the group before she’d told him Stella was her sister’s child? For whatever reason, that thought relaxed her.

“I’m Marc Delacroix.”

Fiona focused on Marc.

“I have a daughter, Stella, who’s almost three.”

Fiona’s stomach flip-flopped at the emotion in Marc’s voice when he said Stella’s name.

“My wife, Cate, died of cancer almost two years ago, and after a tough time of it on our own, I moved here with Stella to be close to my family.” He glanced at Fiona for a split second before looking away and taking a deep breath. “Stella is adopted, and this week I learned that she has an aunt in the area on her birth mother’s side. So Stella is adjusting to new family on both sides.”

The introductions moved around the table to Fiona. She’d been right that the older woman and younger man were an in-law combination, and one of the other women was an aunt raising a niece whose parents had abandoned her.

“Fiona,” Noah prompted her.

“Hi, I’m Fiona Bryce, and I’m the aunt Marc mentioned.”

She glanced across the table and ignored the frown Marc shot her for sharing the detail he hadn’t. Why wouldn’t she tell the group? They needed to know why she was here. She hadn’t brought a child with her. Besides, this was a small town. The information would be out soon anyway, even if no one here leaked it. That’s the way it was.

“I was working out of the country. I returned briefly after I was notified of my sister’s death, but I didn’t know I had a niece until last week.” She lowered her gaze to the table to avoid any looks of sympathy in the other people’s eyes so she could get through her introduction. “Stella doesn’t know who I am—yet.” Fiona smiled around the table, ending with Marc. “That’s it.”

“Thanks, Fiona, everyone,” Noah said. “I’ll let Renee know she can bring the children back in.”

The woman next to Fiona nudged her elbow. “Noah had his coworker take the kids to one of the Sunday school rooms to play while we had our meeting.”

“I wondered where they were. The pastor said we’d be interacting with the kids.” She bit her lip. Interacting. That sounded stilted and impersonal.

“Fiona,” the woman sitting next to Marc said—the other aunt in the group. “Do you want to trade places since you’re with Marc?”

She wasn’t exactly with him. Fiona looked to Marc for direction, considering Stella would be returning to him when the kids came back. He’d assumed the reserved expression he’d had when she’d joined the group at the table, which irritated her. They were supposed to be working together for Stella.

“Yes,” she said, louder than she’d intended. “Thanks.”

She and the woman changed places, with Fiona positioning her chair as far from Marc as she could without looking like that was her intention, which it wasn’t entirely. She wanted space for Stella to climb on his lap, as well as a buffer between her and the guarded signals radiating from the stoic-looking man beside her.

The sound of high-pitched voices and little feet preceded the children’s appearance at the inner door to the hall. Noah led the children in, with a woman who looked so much like Claire and Marc that she had to be another sister or other relative following behind, holding Stella’s hand.

“My youngest sister, Renee.” Marc answered the question in her mind with a chin lift toward the door.

Fiona felt Renee’s gaze on her before she saw it. “She knows?”

“Yes. She works with Noah, and I told my parents the other night,” Marc said.

His face didn’t give her a clue as to how they’d reacted. She counted the family members who knew: Marc’s parents, his brother-in-law Pastor Connor and, Fiona assumed, Marc’s other sister Natalie, the pastor’s wife.

Renee walked the children to their parents and guardians, bringing Stella over to Marc last and approaching him from the side opposite Fiona. The little girl scrambled onto Marc’s lap and gave him a big hug. A wave of longing for her sister, for family, rolled over Fiona.

“No Luc today,” Stella said.

“Luc’s our sister Natalie’s little boy,” Marc said.

Fiona remembered. The toddler in the video Pastor Connor had showed her.

“He goes to preschool with Stella.” Renee had walked around behind Marc’s chair. “I’m Renee Maddox, Marc’s sister.”

“Fiona Bryce.” She met Renee’s blatant perusal and reached around her obvious baby bump to shake her hand.

Fiona dropped her hand to her lap as Renee left to join Noah at the head of the table. She was going to have to get Marc aside and talk with him about her meeting his family, preferably one or two at a time. That way, she could talk with each of them personally before they set themselves against her as a group.

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