And what about Patsy Landers? How could the woman call herself a Christian, then without the slightest hesitation take Grace from the most stable home she’d ever had? How could she deny the girl a lifetime of love from two parents who cherished her?
Hannah’s eyes welled up. She wasn’t sorry they’d taken Grace in. The little girl had been worth every minute. The memory of watching her blossom into a talkative, confident little girl in the months they had her was something all of them would cherish forever.
But still it didn’t seem right. Mrs. Parsons should have checked Grace’s background better, researched to see if Grace’s mother was telling the truth about the grandmother in Oklahoma.
Hannah took another sip of coffee just as the door opened. Matt stepped outside and sauntered over, taking the seat beside her. “Hey.”
Immediately a ray of sunshine pierced the darkness around Hannah’s heart. “Hi.” Matt rarely came home in the middle of the day, and almost never in the morning. She situated herself so she could see him. “Did you get fired?”
“Nope.” His eyes twinkled. He leaned back in the chair and lifted his chin, letting the ocean breeze wash over his face. “I’m home for two reasons.”
“One …”
He reached for her hand and wove his fingers between hers. “One, I had something profound to tell you.”
She raised her brows, hearing the teasing tone in his voice. “Two?”
The corners of his mouth rose a notch. “Two … I forgot a file I need for a meeting this afternoon.”
“I knew there had to be a catch.” She dusted her thumb over the palm of his hand. “Okay, what’s so profound?”
Matt’s expression grew serious. He shifted his weight forward and met her gaze. “We need to talk.”
Hannah’s stomach tightened. “You sound serious.”
“I am.” With the fingers of his free hand, Matt traced her cheek. In his eyes she saw love, but something else. Concern, maybe. Or disappointment. “You’re doing it again, Hannah.”
His words hung together and formed something she didn’t recognize. “Doing what?”
“I know you don’t mean it—” he rested his forearms on his knees and studied her— “but ever since Grace left …” He met her eyes. “You’re angry again. Like you were after Tom and Alicia died.”
The hairs on the back of Hannah’s neck rose as quickly as her temper. How dare he accuse her of being angry! Who did he think he was, telling her how to feel? “I have a right to be mad.”
“Okay.” Matt leaned back in his chair. “At who?”
“At Mrs. Parsons … at Patsy Landers.” Hannah balled her hands into tight fists. “At myself for agreeing to take Grace in the first place. At you for not stopping me. I don’t know.” She released a loud huff. “I’m just mad! It wasn’t right what happened with Grace. She was our daughter, Matt.”
Something about the calm in his eyes made Hannah even angrier. She raised her voice, her tone harder than she intended. “That was the profound thing you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes.” Matt shrugged. “And that I found something in the Bible today that might help you.”
His suggestion felt like a slap in the face. “My faith is fine, thank you.”
He studied her as though weighing what he was about to say. “You wasted a year hating Brian Wesley, Hannah. Where did it get you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t throw that at me, Matt. I had a right, and you know it.”
“Hey …” He reached for her hand, but she jerked it back. He hesitated, and she knew he was trying to maintain his cool. “You gave up your rights when you agreed to be a Christian, remember? The only real right you have now is to ask God for help in forgiving your enemies. Whoever they are.” He softened his tone. “Isn’t that what Tom’s last words were all about?”
The reminder tightened like a noose around her neck. Frustration multiplied within her, and she hissed her response. “That isn’t fair.” She stood and glared at him. “I don’t need Scripture or a lecture or a reminder about Tom’s dying words, okay?”
Matt cocked his head, his expression harder than before. “What do you need, Hannah?”
“I need Grace, okay? And I need you to leave me alone.” Before he could say another word, she stormed inside, through the kitchen and upstairs to their bedroom. There she slammed the door and flopped on the bed.
Fifteen minutes passed, and she heard Matt leave. She sat up and watched through the bedroom window as his car pulled away, and regret welled up within her. She balled her hands into fists. Why was she taking it out on Matt? He’d coddled her fragile emotions since Grace left; it wasn’t his fault. Hannah exhaled through clenched teeth.
Still she was angry. Even at him.
Matt’s words came back to her.
You’re doing it again … being angry only hurts you more …
Was it true? Was this the same way she responded four years ago after losing Tom and Alicia? Memories moved across the screen of Hannah’s mind. The times when she shut everything from her mind except her desire to see Brian Wesley pay for what he’d done. Times when she asked Matt to stop praying for her, stop mentioning God, stop making references to Scripture.
She had been too angry to hear any of it.
Hannah crossed her legs and dropped her head in her hand. Since Grace left, she’d told herself that she was handling it better than before, especially when it came to her faith.
I still believe in You, God, don’t I? I haven’t turned my back on You.
There was no response, no whispers of holy assurance …and Hannah realized it had been days since she’d prayed. She stared at the pattern on their bedspread. Maybe she wasn’t openly against God like before, but she certainly hadn’t gone to Him for help.
Tears spilled onto her ankles, and a mountain of discouragement settled on her shoulders. She hadn’t learned a thing about forgiveness. She was right back where she’d started all those years ago, back when she and Tom were kids growing up in the same neighborhood.
Hannah pictured the basketball game when Tom first noticed her problem. A boy from two streets over had beaten her at a game in Tom’s driveway. Afterward he turned to her and told her, “You play basketball like a girl.”
The comment infuriated her. Years later the same boy was in a class with Tom and Hannah, and she constantly fired rude comments at him.
“What’s your problem,” the boy shot back at her one afternoon.
Even now Hannah could feel the way her eyes narrowed at the boy. “I play basketball like a girl, remember?”
Tom had witnessed the exchange, and later that day he shoved her playfully in the shoulder. “When you’re mad you never let up, do you?”
Hannah remembered feeling somewhat embarrassed, but her ability to hold a grudge came up a handful of times in the years that followed.
Especially the year Tom began dating a girl at Oregon State University while he was playing baseball there. Some of the biting comments Hannah made about the girl were legendary even a decade later. Comments they laughed about, but comments that were wrong all the same.
At least for someone who professed faith in Christ.
Hannah had studied the Scriptures over the years and read verses about mercy being better than judgment and how anyone who judged another would also be judged. She read about forgiving a brother not once or seven times, but seventy times that. And still she struggled.
Of course the ultimate battle was really more of a war, one that had been waged against Brian Wesley, the drunk driver who killed Tom and Alicia. For an entire year Hannah could barely think about anything but her determination to see Brian Wesley punished. In the end it hadn’t been a conviction or a Bible verse or anything Matt said that helped her live again.
Rather, it had been Tom’s dying words.
She leaned over her legs and dried her cheeks on her jeans. It had been three years since Hannah had looked through Tom’s Bible, the place where she k
ept the letter containing his last message to her. There had been no reason to dig it out during that time. And now … now that there was reason, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
She stared out the opposite window at the still foggy coastline, trying to convince herself she didn’t need the painful reminder of Tom’s last bit of wisdom to help her let go of Grace. But the more time that passed, the more she knew she was wrong. Hadn’t she kept the letter for this very purpose?
She moved from the bed into the hall closet and there, on the top shelf, pushed toward the back wall, was the leather-bound, cracked blue Bible that once had been Tom’s daily morning companion. Hannah took it down and stared at it a moment. Thomas Ryan was engraved in the lower right corner on the cover. She ran her fingertips over the name and hurt with a sadness that hadn’t crossed her heart in months.
Regardless of how happy and in love she was with Matt, a part of her would always miss Tom, the man she’d fallen in love with as a girl, the one she’d fully expected to share her life with. She pushed those thoughts away and carried the Bible back to her bedroom, holding it the way she might hold a bouquet of dried flowers. This time she found a chair and once she was settled, she took a slow breath and opened it to the page, halfway through the book of Proverbs, where the letter lay tucked inside.
Her name was scrawled on the envelope, but it was neither Tom’s paper nor his handwriting. He’d spoken those final words to a police officer at the scene of the accident, a man who failed to pass them on for more than a year because he didn’t think them logical.
Hannah took it from the envelope and remembered how the flood of emotion had been unleashed in her soul the first time she read it. She opened it, and with eyes blurred by tears, she read it once more.
Dear Mrs. Ryan,
My name is Sgt. John Miller. I worked the accident scene the day your husband and daughter were killed. I came to your house with the news that day, and later I talked with you at the hospital. You may not remember me, but I remember you. For the past several months I’ve been thinking about the accident, almost as if God wanted me to remember something.
This morning I remembered what it was. I was with your husband in the minutes before he died, and he wanted me to give you a message. He wanted you to know he loved you and the girls, but there was something else. And that’s what I finally remembered this morning. At the time it didn’t make sense, and I figured he must have been hallucinating or suffering the effects of blood loss. But now I am convinced that I need to deliver his message to you in its entirety.
Tom told me to tell you to forgive, Mrs. Ryan. He wanted you to forgive.
Even now it was amazing to imagine Tom, trapped in the twisted remains of their car, yet having the wherewithal to know exactly what Hannah needed to hear. Tell Hannah I love her … and tell her to forgive. Tell her to please forgive.
But here, now? Did Tom’s words apply to this situation also? To the hurt she’d harbored since losing Grace?
Hannah read the letter once more, and one by one the walls around her heart began to collapse. Tell Hannah to forgive …
Yes, the words applied as much today as they had three years ago.
She pictured Edna Parsons and Grace’s grandmother and even Matt. She’d been angry with all of them and for what reason? Mrs. Parsons hadn’t meant to cause them pain; she truly believed Grace’s adoption would go through. Otherwise she never would have called in the first place.
Patsy Landers was only doing what any grandmother would do in her situation. Certainly if Jenny were jailed and left a baby to the care of the social services system, Hannah would search the country looking to care for that child.
She couldn’t be angry at them or unforgiving, not when neither of them was guilty.
And Matt …
Hannah’s stomach churned as she folded the letter, placed it back in the envelope, and returned it to its place in Tom’s Bible. Then she spent the rest of the day waiting for Matt to come home, praying he’d forgive her.
She went to him the minute he walked through the door. When he saw her, he set his briefcase down in the entryway, and his eyes told her she had nothing to worry about. He forgave her even before she asked. That was the kind of man he was.
“I’m sorry.” Hannah took his hands in hers and stood so their toes were touching. Her voice was thick with pain over what she’d done. “I’ve … I’ve been awful.”
His arms intertwined with hers and he hugged her for a long while. “It’s no one’s fault, Hannah.” His words were a sad whisper, and he pulled back so he could see her face. “Anger is contagious.” He lowered his chin, their eyes locked. “When I left here earlier, I felt just like you. Mad at the state, mad at Grace’s grandmother.” He gave her a sad smile. “Mad at you for being mad at me.”
Hannah’s insides melted. How could she have been angry at Matt? When all he’d ever done was try to help her? She bit the inside of her lower lip, then let her mouth hang open for a moment, searching for the words. “I took your advice.”
He raised an eyebrow, and she giggled, breaking the tension of the moment. “You … Hannah Bronzan … took my advice? Should I call the press?”
She spread her hand on his chest and pushed him with her fingertips. “Stop. I’m serious.”
“Okay.” His smile faded, but the light in his eyes remained. “What advice?”
“I found Tom’s Bible and read the letter, the one from Sgt. Miller.”
“With Tom’s message, right?” Matt’s voice lacked any element of smugness. “About forgiveness?”
“Right.” She hung her head for a minute and then looked at him again. “You were right about all of it. There’s no one to be mad at, just a—” tears burned at the corners of her eyes—“Just a great big hole where that little girl still lives.” She nuzzled her face against his neck. “I miss her so much, Matt.”
“I know.” He worked his fingers into her back and stroked his hand over her hair. “We all miss her.”
Hannah sniffed and a single chuckle came from her throat. “I’m tired of crying all the time.”
Matt shifted his head and brought his lips to hers. “I’m tired of it, too.”
She kissed him then, savoring the feel of his body against hers. She hadn’t felt this alive since the day Grace left. When the kiss ended, Hannah whispered against Matt’s cheek. “What are we supposed to do? Where do we go from here?”
Their noses brushed against each other and Matt caught her gaze once more, his face masked in peace. “We take Tom’s advice. We forgive and we move on.”
“So, you forgive me?”
“Forgiven.” Matt kissed her once more and afterward his expression changed. “I had an interesting day.”
“Interesting?” Hannah lowered her brow.
Matt grabbed his briefcase, slipped it into the closet, and led the way into the living room. When they were seated side by side on the sofa, he laced his fingers behind his head and exhaled long and slow. “We had a good-bye lunch for one of the guys at the firm.”
Confusion roused Hannah’s curiosity. “Who’s leaving, one of the interns?”
“Not an intern.”
Hannah folded her arms. “Okay, I give up. Who?”
Matt settled back into the cushion and angled his head, his eyes locked on hers. “Tanner Eastman. Today was his last day.”
Twenty
Grace’s smile was missing.
Patsy Landers looked out the back window of her Bartlesville home and realized that was what was different.
Outside, Grace sat in the swing, still and alone, staring at the sky. Her expression was wistful, far away. It wasn’t that she was sad, exactly. The past three weeks had gone better than Patsy expected. Sure, Grace had cried some and asked about the Bronzans, but that was to be expected. But by all standards—her sleep patterns, her personality, her behavior—she was adjusting.
She just wasn’t smiling.
Patsy had enrolled her in preschool, an
d three days a week a van with cartoon characters painted on the side picked her up at eight and dropped her back at home at three. Grace brought home artwork, sheets of carefully printed letters, and tales of playground antics.
Patsy studied the child through the window once more. It wasn’t what she brought home that troubled Patsy.
It was what she didn’t bring—the ear-to-ear smile that had always been a part of Grace even when life was at its worst.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Patsy would ask. “Is someone making you sad at school?”
Grace would shrug her thin shoulders, barely lifting the corners of her mouth. “No, Grandma. School’s fine.”
Patsy watched her now as the child shuffled her feet in the dirt beneath the swing. Maybe that was it. Everything was fine, but nothing was good.
A sigh filtered through Patsy’s lips as she limped across the floor to the dining room table. They’d gone to the library earlier in the day, and Grace had picked out two Dr. Seuss books. Patsy chose something more practical. She stared at the book on the table and ran her hand over the cover. 101 Things to Do with Your Kids.
The book was full of activities for parents and their children. If even ten of them brought a spark of life to Grace’s disposition, it would be worth the time spent reading. Besides, there was no time like the present to invest in Grace. Patsy hadn’t done enough of that with Leslie. And look how she had turned out.
If there was one thing Patsy was determined to do, it was prevent Grace from going the way of her mother. The idea that she had a second chance to raise a little girl, another opportunity to rectify the mistakes she had made, to make up for the things she had missed out on the first time around … it made Patsy’s heart swell. And it made losing Leslie almost bearable.