A Gift Of Grace

She stopped at Starbucks for her morning fix, then got back in the Volvo and turned the radio to NPR, only half listening to Terry Gross interview a newly published author. Her thoughts were on the day ahead and the details left to tie up for Grace’s birthday party. After her first class, Sophie planned to pick Grace up from day care and run a few errands, things she wouldn’t have time to do tomorrow.

Her cell phone rang just as she pulled into the faculty parking lot.

She glanced at caller ID, ran a hand through her hair and suppressed a groan. She could ignore it, but that would only prolong the inevitable.

With a sigh, she hit the talk button. “Hi, Aunt Ruby.”

“My goodness, you actually answered,” was the dry reply.

“What’s up?” Sophie said, ignoring the barb behind the greeting.

“Do I need a reason to call and see how you’re doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse with forty years’ worth of cigarettes. “We haven’t heard from you in months. I thought something might be wrong.”

“Everything’s fine,” Sophie said, not adding that it was these conversations that usually sent a perfectly fine day flying right off track.

“How’s little Grace?”

“She’s great.”

“About to turn three, isn’t she?”

“Yes, difficult as it is to believe.”

“Are you doing a party for her?”

“Nothing elaborate,” Sophie hedged.

“Oh.” Ruby paused and then said, “I assume we aren’t invited.”

“Aunt Ruby, it’s not that kind of thing. Just a few of her friends from preschool—”

“Are you ashamed of us, Sophie?” she interrupted. “After everything we did for you?”

Sophie let several beats of silence pass, reaching for calm. “Of course not.”

“What else am I supposed to think?” Ruby said, her voice threaded with quiet hurt.

Sophie started to protest, to say once and for all that she’d had enough of her aunt’s guilt trips, but stopped herself just short of it as she always did. Because Ruby was right about one thing. She and Uncle Roy had taken Sophie in when she’d had no one else in the world, and the only other option for her would have been a foster home.

“It’s not a big deal, Aunt Ruby. I didn’t think you’d want to come. That’s all.”

“You don’t have to justify your actions to me, Sophie. I mean, we hardly know the child.”

Sophie dropped her head against the seat, massaging one temple where a subtle headache had begun to throb. “You know you have an open invitation to visit anytime.”

Another stretch of silence. “Then maybe we’ll drive up for the party and bring her a present. When is it?”

“Saturday afternoon at one,” Sophie said with resignation.

“Nothing like advance notice,” Ruby said, sarcasm coating the words. “Anyway, we’ll be there. Don’t want that little girl to grow up not even knowing who we are.”

Sophie bit her lip to keep from reminding her aunt she had never once invited Grace and her for a visit. “I have a class to get to, Aunt Ruby. We’ll see you on Saturday.”

She clicked off the phone and then sat for a few moments thinking how odd the call had been, trying to remember the last time they had even talked. It wasn’t like her aunt to call her out of the blue. With Ruby, there was always a catch. Sophie felt sure this time would not be an exception.

CALEB LIKED TO drive with his window rolled down; even on winter days, he’d turn the heater up full blast and let the outside in. This Thursday morning, he pulled into his parking space at the side entrance of Tucker Farm Supply, warm April sunshine pouring in. The store sat at the south end of Main Street in an old two-story brick building that had once been home to Miller Produce.

Jeb had bought the building and started the business some twenty-five years ago, and Caleb had grown up working summers loading trucks and running the front register. It was a small business by most standards, but firmly rooted in the community with a following of loyal customers.

Caleb got out of the truck, Noah leaping down behind him, tail wagging. Inside the store, Noah did a quick survey for Russell, an overweight tabby whose job it was to patrol the building for trespassing mice. Noah glimpsed Russell’s tail disappearing behind one of the display cases and spun out on the concrete floor.

The cat made it to the fescue seed barrel with seconds to spare, already cleaning his front paw with a touch of arrogance by the time Noah slid to a stop in front of him.

“Never gives up, does he?” Macy Stephens stood behind the old wood counter at the front of the store with a bottle of Pledge in one hand and a white cotton cleaning rag in the other. She spritzed the top of the counter, rubbing hard until the aged wood shone.

Caleb shook his head. “One of these days, he’s gonna flatten some nice old lady who never saw him coming.”

Macy smiled. “We all have our goals in life.”

Caleb registered a hint of fresh-smelling perfume and the fact that Macy was wearing her hair down most days now instead of in the ponytail she used to keep it pulled back with. She had started working at the store part-time when she’d begun classes at the university. She was about to finish up this year and planned to teach elementary school in the fall.

“The Spring Festival starts this weekend.” Macy added another squirt of furniture polish to the countertop, her gaze a few inches short of his.

Caleb stepped behind the counter and reached for the box of receipts beneath the register. “Mmm-hmm.”

“Any interest in going?”

Normally, Caleb would have answered with an automatic no, but something in her face made him reach for a softer note. “Lotta work to do this weekend.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding.

“You going?”

“Thought I might.”

“Sounds like good weather for it.”

“Hope so.”

“All right, then. I’ll be upstairs taking a look at the month’s statement.”

“Okay,” she said and turned her back to him.

In his office, Caleb pulled a chair up to the heavy oak desk by the window that looked out over the feed store’s main floor. He worked for a couple of hours, glancing over receipts, comparing margins on certain labels of feed they sold, dog food, cat food, grain for horses. Tucker Farm Supply wasn’t the kind of business that would ever make a man rich, but it was a comfortable living, a stable one. If there was anything Caleb appreciated now, it was stability. He clung to the things in his life that didn’t change, weeded out what did.

The bell to the front door dinged several times while he worked, customers going in and out. It was almost noon when he stood and stretched just as the door jingled again. A woman came in with a little girl holding on to her hand. The child said something and the woman nodded. The little girl took off for the corner of the store, headed straight for the seed barrel where Noah and Russell were still maintaining their standoff.

The woman stepped to the counter, said something to Macy. The child squatted beside Noah, rubbing his head. Noah’s attention, strangely enough, had been diverted from the cat. He sat with his nose in the air, his eyes closed in absolute appreciation of the child’s doting.

Caleb turned away from the window, sat down at the desk a little too quickly so that the chair tipped back. The phone buzzed. “Yeah, Macy.”

“Do you know if we’ve got any more of that hay in the shed out back?”

“Few bales, I think.”

“Dr. Owens wants to buy some.”

Caleb peered over the window again at the woman by the register. He didn’t recall seeing her in the store before. “That’ll be fine.”

“Eddie left for lunch a few minutes ago. Think you could help load it?”

“Be right down.”

He took the stairs two at a time, nodding at the woman as he passed the register and said, “Where you parked, ma’am?”

“In front,” she said.

“Mind pulling around back?”

“No.”

“It’ll be the first white shed.”

“Okay.” She looked at Macy and added, “Is it all right if my daughter stays in here for a minute?”

“Of course. Noah’s loving it. I’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Be right back then,” the woman said, following Caleb out the door and then veering right to a dark blue Volvo station wagon parked near the front of the store.

Caleb opened the shed, flicked on the light and tossed out three bales of orchard grass hay just as the woman backed toward the building.

She got out of the car and smiled at him. “Oh, good. That’s exactly what I needed.”

Her smile was open and friendly, as if she used it often. He eyed the car and said, “How many did you want?”

“Four or five would be great, but—”

“Looks like two’s about all that’ll fit if you leave the tailgate open.”

She worried a full lower lip with noticeably white teeth. “Oh. Well, I can come back for whatever doesn’t. Except I have a class this afternoon. What time do you close?”

“Five o’clock,” he said.

“I won’t be able to get back by then. Maybe I can come in the morning?”

He glanced at his watch. “Where do you live?”

“Ivy Run Road.”

“I could drop them off for you. I was headed out on an errand, anyway.”

Her face brightened. “That would be great. We’re having a birthday party, and I still have a thousand things to do—”

“No problem,” he said. “Just give me the address.”

“Actually, I have to run back by there on the way to school. Could you possibly go now?”

“Sure. I’ll follow you over.”

“Let me just run in and pay then.”

Caleb nodded, tossing a couple more bales from the shed while she pulled her Volvo out front. He backed his truck up, loaded the hay, then headed inside to tell Macy he would be gone an hour or so.

The woman and child stood by the register. Macy was looking at the little girl with that same odd expression on her face that he’d noticed when they’d first come in the store. The little girl clutched her mother’s hand, talking nonstop about the yellow dog and the big cat. Something about her rang out like an echo inside him. He frowned, then glanced at the woman, who smiled expectantly and said, “I really appreciate this.”

“No problem,” he said. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Ten minutes later, they turned onto a paved driveway off tree-lined Ivy Run Road. Caleb backed in behind her. He got out and she met him at the truck. The little girl had already taken off around one side of the house.

“Do you think we could put those in the backyard?” she asked, raising her voice above the rumble of the truck’s diesel engine.

“Sure,” he said, popping the tailgate and grabbing a bale with each hand. “Just show me where.”

She nodded and moved off in the direction the child had taken, saying again how much she appreciated his help.

The house was neat and well maintained, not huge, but cottagelike with groomed boxwoods neatly clipped into roundness. A huge old magnolia tree stood to one side of the lawn. At the rear of the house, Caleb came up short. The backyard looked as if FAO Schwarz had set up a display. Big red slide with a small trampoline-like thing at its base. A playhouse in bright yellow and green with shutters. A mini picnic table where two dolls sat waiting for tea. The little girl was at the top of the slide, getting ready to come down.

“Watch, Mommy!”

She turned to look, shading her eyes with one hand. “Be careful, honey.”

The girl zipped down, hitting the trampoline at the bottom and letting out a high squeal-giggle that had delight at its center.

The woman stopped at the edge of the yard. “You can put that down here,” she said, smiling at him. “I’ll figure out where to place it later.”

“I’d be glad to put it where you need it.”

“Well, okay.” One finger under her chin, she said, “I thought we could use them as chairs for the children. How about under the oak tree?”

Caleb nodded and dropped the bales. “I’ll get the rest.”

Two trips back to the truck, and the last of the bales formed an L-shaped backless bench at the yard’s perimeter.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “We’re having a barnyard party on Saturday. Mini-donkeys. Grace has hardly been able to sleep for thinking about it.”

The little girl skipped over and took her mother’s hand. “They’re only a little taller than me,” she said, looking up at Caleb.

“Perfect size then, huh?”

“I haven’t even introduced myself,” the woman said. “I’m Sophie Owens. And this is my daughter, Grace.”

“Caleb Tucker.”

“Oh.” She tipped her head back, her eyes widening a fraction. “Then you own the—”

“My family does, yes.”

“Well, again, thank you so much for hauling those out here for me.”

“No problem.”

“Is that your dog at the store?” the little girl asked.

“He is.”

“I like him.”

“I think he liked you, too.” Caleb looked into the child’s clear blue eyes. She smiled at him, a shy child’s smile, and in that single moment, Caleb saw her. Dark arching eyebrows contrasting with sunshine-blond hair. The small square chin.

He took a near stumbling step backward, as if he’d been delivered a blow to the chest. Snapshot memories of Laney as a little girl flew through his mind. Not possible. A too-long stretch of silence dropped over them like a blanket trapping all available air beneath it.

“How old will you be, Grace?” he asked, his voice unsteady.

She held up three fingers. “This many.”

Her birthday was Saturday. The twenty-second of April.

The day Laney’s child had been born.

The day Laney had died.

CHAPTER THREE

HE WAS LOSING HIS MIND.

No other explanation for it. Things like this didn’t happen. The world was too big a place.

When Caleb arrived back at the store, Macy stood at the front counter, sorting invoices.

She looked up, started to say something, then stopped. “Caleb, you look like you just saw a ghost. What’s wrong?”

“Dr. Owens. Is she married?”

Macy closed the folder in front of her. “Divorced. I know a graduate student who helps out as a part-time nanny to her daughter. Ann Whitley. Really nice girl. She says Dr. Owens has inspired her to adopt a child some day.”

The words hit Caleb at a decibel so high he thought he might have imagined them. The truth fluttered down, registered. He gave an abrupt nod, told Macy he had some work to do at the farm, then called Noah and got in the truck, heading home with little memory of how he’d gotten there.

In the driveway, he jumped out, loping into the house and up the stairs to the second floor. At the top and to the right was another smaller staircase that led to the attic. He opened the door, a whoosh of heat hitting him in the face. Sunlight cut through the dormer window on the far wall. Boxes covered the floor, lined the walls. All Laney’s. He’d put everything that belonged to her in this room. Out of sight. Unable to throw any of it away, equally unable to look at it.

He hadn’t opened this door once since the week after her funeral when he’d hauled it all up here. Box after box until he’d collapsed, exhausted, in the bed they had shared. He had slept for three days straight.

He weaved his way into the room and knocked over a tall box, spilling two of her competition swimsuits and a pair of goggles. He put them back where they’d been.

Most of the boxes were sealed and unmarked. He moved to the far wall, pulled out a couple of smaller ones, using his pocketknife to slit the tape. Inside was a quilt her grandmother had made her for college graduation. A half-full bottle of Chanel No. 5. A set of electric hot curlers. The next box held books and a headset she’d used for running.

He opened a half dozen more, dumping their contents onto the floor, reaching for another when he didn’t find what he was looking for.

Finally. There.

A dozen or more framed photographs he’d pulled from their living-room walls three years before, pictures of them both as children, as high-school sweethearts, as husband and wife.

He lifted them out, one by one, each picture creating its own well of pain. He and Laney at junior-year homecoming, her hair long, blond and straight. He and Laney on the rocks at Badger Creek playing hooky from school. There were pictures of him as a boy, an elementary-school photo when he’d decided to give himself a crew cut with his dad’s horse clippers.

And there were pictures of Laney. Prom queen. Preening with Alice and Amy, her two best friends from high school.

At the bottom of the stack was the one he’d been looking for. Laney as a toddler standing next to her father.

Caleb flipped the frame. On the back she had written: Me and Daddy. Three years old. Me not him!

He turned it over again, stared at the little girl in the picture. If he’d needed proof of the resemblance to the child he’d met today, here it was. Same silky blond hair. Blue eyes with their long, dark lashes. Even the mouth was the same. Wide and full.

Caleb sat down on the wood floor, propped his head on one hand and stared at the picture.

How could this have happened?

His life had finally begun to even out, to settle into something he could accept as living. Now, all the old pain was back, rushing through his veins like injected poison.

He sat for a long time, his eyes closed, head against the wall behind him.

An extraordinary sense of calm slid over him, as it had the other times just before he sensed her presence.

He kept his eyes closed, knowing that if he opened them, she would slip away.

A single touch to the back of his hand, and he knew she was there. As she had been countless times in the past three years.

He wondered if these moments were the only thing that kept him going. Wondered if all this time he had been straddling the line between the sane and insane, if visits from a dead wife automatically put a person in that category.

He had told no one about it. Not his mom or dad. Not his doctor or pastor. As real as he knew her presence was, he could not bring himself to share it with anyone else for fear that maybe he really was going crazy.

He sat for a long time, the peace inside him the only proof he had that he wasn’t losing his mind. It had been like this when she’d been alive, as well, Laney’s ability to soothe, to bring reason and calm to the times in their lives completely void of either.

With the calm, the feel of her touch receded, and he was alone again. He opened his eyes then, stared up at the slow-twirling ceiling fan above him. Tears spilled down his cheeks and fell onto the glass covering her face.

CATHERINE TUCKER SAT in a striped lawn chair, enjoying the sun’s warmth.

The backyard of Betsy Marshall’s modest, but immaculate, North Carolina ranch-style home was full to overflowing. Jeb and his brother Saul were in charge of the grill. The smell of sizzling hamburgers and hot dogs threaded the late-spring breeze.

Jeb came from a large, extended family. The opposite of Catherine, who had been an only child. His sister Betsy was the third in a family of five children, and she was the most like Jeb’s mother in that she loved to get the whole family together, seemed happiest in the middle of so much talking and laughing.

Jeb stood by the grill now, smiling at something his brother had said. He looked more relaxed than she had seen him in a long time. Unfair though it might have been, a wave of resentment washed up through her, made her face too warm, like the hot flashes she’d had after she’d stopped the hormone-replacement therapy a couple of years ago.

In that moment, she saw the two of them on either side of a huge divide, she still immersed in grief, he ready to move on. He wanted her to go with him. Catherine knew this. And yet it was as if her feet were planted in concrete. No matter how desperately she tried to pull herself free, she couldn’t.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

Catherine glanced up. Betsy stood in front of her, holding two red cups. She handed one to Catherine. “Iced tea. Sweet like you like it.”

“Thanks,” Catherine said, taking the cup and lacing her fingers together around it.

“Could we talk?” Betsy asked, her voice candid.

Catherine had known the gesture was not of the freestanding variety. With Betsy, they never were. “Sure,” she said, waving a hand at the chair beside her.

Betsy sat down, took a sip of her tea, then sighed. “How are things with you and Jeb?”

Catherine looked up in surprise. “Fine. Why do you ask?”

“May I be honest?”

“By all means,” Catherine said, since to her knowledge, Betsy had never once refrained from speaking her mind, even when the other party did not want her opinion.

“I don’t remember ever seeing Jeb so unhappy.”

Catherine sat for a moment, too numb to respond. “Did he say something to you?” she finally said, her voice cracking a little.

Betsy took another sip of her tea, and then said, “He didn’t have to.”

“Oh. You can just see this in him?” Catherine asked, trying to keep her voice level.

Pity clouded Betsy’s eyes. “And you can’t?”

“Whatever problems Jeb and I have,” she said, anger fanning through her, “I’m sure we’ll work through them.”

“I know things haven’t been the same for any of you since Laney—”

“No, they haven’t,” Catherine interrupted. “But that’s hardly surprising, is it?”

“Of course not,” Betsy said quickly. “These things take their toll on everyone.”

“These things?” Catherine bit out. “My son lost his wife—” She broke off there, her voice cracking in half.

Betsy reached over and covered her hand with her own. “I know, Catherine. I’m not trying to belittle the enormity of it. I’m just saying maybe a worse tragedy would be for this terrible thing to ruin more lives than it already has. From what I’ve seen, Caleb has let it get the best of him.”

Fury tunneled up through Catherine’s chest. She pulled her hand away and pressed her lips together, glancing across the yard where Betsy’s son, Harris, stood with his arm around his very pregnant wife. Third grandchild on the way. “From your point of view, it must be so easy to judge. How could you possibly understand what Caleb has lost?”

“But there, Catherine,” Betsy said softly. “You just said it. What Caleb has lost. It’s his loss. But it’s destroying your marriage.”

She got up from the chair then, and walked back across the yard, leaving Catherine sitting at the edge of the gathering, alone.

GRACE BARELY SLEPT Friday night. She came into Sophie’s room three times to ask if it was time to get up yet. The last question was asked at 4:00 a.m., and Sophie finally folded back the covers and let the child climb in beside her.

They both went back to sleep then, waking with the sunlight. Grace popped up and immediately began bouncing on the mattress. “Today’s my birthday, Mama!”

“It certainly is,” Sophie said, smiling.

“How many hours till the party?”

Sophie propped up on one elbow to look at the alarm clock. “Five.”

Grace held up a hand, five fingers splayed. “This many?”

“That many.”

They got out of bed, Grace too excited to stay still another minute. They had breakfast in their pajamas, after which Grace stood on a stool at the kitchen island and helped Sophie put icing on the sugar cookies they had baked the night before. They used green, yellow and blue, and Grace made sure each cookie had plenty. The icing was the best part, she said.

Once the cookies were done, they made punch with lime sherbet and ginger ale, then put it in the refrigerator to stay cold. After giving Grace a bath, Sophie took a quick shower and dried her hair.

The doorbell rang at ten-thirty. She looked out the window and spotted Darcy Clemen’s minivan in the driveway. The two of them had started at the university around the same time as assistant professors. They’d become fast friends, a connection between them that defied Sophie’s normal tendency to keep people at a distance.