A Mom for His Daughter

by Jean C. Gordon

  I love you. She’s safe with the people at Precious in His Sight. I couldn’t wait until you came back. Find her. I have to go now. I’m going to put this out in the mailbox. Mairi.

  Fiona choked, her mind flooding with questions. I have to go? Did that mean Mairi had OD’d on purpose because of whatever her letter was talking about? Either before she’d written the letter or right after, and become disoriented or passed out before she could mail it? Or had she decided not to send it? Struggling to draw a breath, Fiona shuffled to the next sheet and dropped it as if it were a burning ember, her gazed fixed on the words “Fiona Elsbeth Collins, born...”

  A baby? Her breath left her lungs in a sudden rush. Hand shaking, Fiona picked up the birth certificate and read the remainder of the information. Mother: Mairi A. Collins. Father: Unknown. Date of Birth: March 3. Place of birth: Town of Ticonderoga. Mairi had a baby.

  Fiona muffled her sobs. She might never know all that happened with Mairi, why her baby was born in Ticonderoga rather than in the central New York village where she had worked as a nurse. Why Mairi had never sent this letter. But there was a precious piece of Mairi remaining in the world—a three-year-old niece. Maybe this was God’s path to closure on her sister’s death. The opportunity to make up for not being able to keep her family together, for her failing Mairi. All she had to do was find the little girl.

  * * *

  Marc pushed open the door to the church hall, still debating whether tonight was a good idea. But Claire had sounded desperate, texting that several members of the Twenty-/Thirtysomethings group had bailed on her. The group was supposed to be spending its usual Thursday night meeting time helping set up for the winter bazaar and book sale Saturday.

  He’d been resisting his sister’s urging to join what had been the Singles group at church, but was now made up of a mix of marrieds and singles. Marc wasn’t looking to meet anyone for a romantic relationship—which his attraction to Fiona contradicted. From the disastrous months following Cate’s death, he knew juggling work and being a single parent was more than enough for him to handle.

  “Daddy, school,” Stella said when they stepped into the hall.

  Marc tensed. After refusing to take a nap at his mother’s—he’d taken Mom up on her earlier offer to watch Stella this afternoon while he went down to Lake George to look at the restaurant property—Stella had zonked out on the couch right after dinner and woken up cranky. She’d still been out of sorts when they’d left the house. Maybe they should have stayed home. What if she was getting sick? He talked himself down. She wasn’t running a temperature, had eaten a good dinner and hadn’t complained about not feeling well.

  He unzipped her coat and took her hat and mittens off. “Not school. Playtime with Aunt Andie’s big girls, Aimee and Amelia.”

  “Stella big girl.”

  “Yes, you are.” At times, he wondered if she said that because he babied her or to affirm it to herself. He scanned the room for his teenage nieces or Claire, and stopped at a tumble of red curls. Fiona. Did Claire’s call for help have an ulterior motive? The bigger question was, did he mind if her motive had been more than getting his assistance?

  “Uncle Marc!” His niece’s shout drew his attention away.

  She hurried over. “Hi,” she said breathlessly. “We’re watching the kids in the preschool room. We’re going to make snowflakes with silver and gold glitter.”

  “Stella help?” She looked up at him.

  “Definitely. I’m sure they can use your help.”

  Stella smiled and walked away with his niece. That was easy. He shoved Stella’s hat and mittens into his jacket pocket. A bit of him wanted to see Stella’s hesitation to leave him that he’d come to expect, but most of him was relieved that Stella was becoming more comfortable with other people. His family, at least.

  “You made it. I wasn’t sure from your text if you would.” Claire appeared beside him.

  “I’m here. What do you have for me to do?”

  “Table setup. You can put your coat on the table by the door with the others. And a truck full of books is coming that needs to be unloaded.”

  “Who else do you have to bring the tables down from upstairs?”

  “Pastor Connor. Then he has an appointment. The rest of the guys bailed, as I said in my text.” Claire looked around the room. “Fiona can help you set up the tables and unload the books.”

  Marc pinned his twin’s gaze, questioning the possibility of a different type of setup. “I didn’t know Fiona was a member of the group.” He hadn’t seen her at church service in all the time he’d been here.

  “She’s not, but I’m working on it as I am with you. Fiona helped her landlady, Mrs. Hamilton, the other evening, sorting items for the rummage sale.”

  Marc wasn’t sure what that had to do with tonight.

  “Mrs. Hamilton was going to supervise the work tonight, but her hip is acting up, and she asked Fiona to step in for her.” Claire stopped. “What’s with the face? It’s like you want to avoid Fiona. Didn’t your meeting yesterday go well?”

  “It went well enough.” What was with him was that he wanted to spend time with Fiona, and that put him on edge. Fiona belonged in the business part of his life, not the social one. He raked his hand through his hair. He didn’t have a social life anyway. Not anymore.

  * * *

  Fiona stopped dead, her gaze glued to the red-haired toddler holding Marc’s hand. The copper curls. Her profile. The little girl’s button nose. She looked so much like a photo Fiona had at home of Mairi as a toddler. Fiona’s lungs burned, reminding her to take a breath.

  It couldn’t be. Claire hadn’t said anything about her niece, Stella, being adopted. Fiona pushed her hair back from her face. Her emotions were worn raw from reading and rereading her sister’s letter, trying to fully understand. She’d hoped busying herself with the bazaar setup would give her mind and emotions a rest for a few hours. Fiona watched the toddler walk out of the room with a dark-haired teenager. She couldn’t let her desires distort reality. She’d only be setting herself up for disappointment again.

  Fiona started when Claire touched her shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to startle you,” her friend said. “Are you okay? You’re so pale.”

  Fiona waved her off. “I’m fine.” As fine as she could manage at the moment.

  “Marc and Pastor Connor are bringing the tables down from upstairs. Give them a few minutes and they should be ready to help you arrange them.”

  “Okay.” Fiona waited until Claire had taken a few steps in the opposite direction and fled to the ladies’ room. She splashed water on her face and stared. The smattering of freckles across her nose popped against her still pale skin. She had to get a grip on herself, work out a systematic plan for finding her niece. Otherwise, she’d be seeing Mairi in every red-haired little girl she saw on the street, in the store...

  Fiona returned to the hall and approached Marc and a man she assumed was Pastor Connor, who were adding a table to a stack leaning against the wall.

  “Hi, I’m Fiona Bryce. You must be Pastor Connor.”

  “Yes. Nice to meet you. I read about your program at the Research Farm.”

  “Speaking of which,” Marc said, “did you get my voice mail?”

  “No, sorry. I didn’t check it. I had meetings all morning and left the office early.” After reading Mairi’s letter, she couldn’t concentrate on work, so she’d gone home to research and contact Precious in His Sight and to rehash where she’d gone wrong with Mairi. She’d tried to give her the support and direction their parents hadn’t given them.

  “Go ahead and write up a contract proposal for La Table Frais,” Marc said.

  “Great. I’ll get to work on it tomorrow.” She tried to force the enthusiasm she should be feeling for her program’s first major client. “Your partners agreed, then?”
>
  “They will.” Marc’s dark eyes sparkled.

  This Marc jibed more with the description his sister had given Fiona of a man who could have won their high school’s most-likely-to-succeed award when he was in kindergarten than the quiet, intent man she’d met with at the farm.

  “I’ve got to get ready for my meeting,” Pastor Connor interrupted, tilting his head toward the outer hall and his office. “You two should be able to handle setting up without me.”

  “Where do you want the tables?” Marc asked as Connor walked away.

  Fiona showed Marc the diagram Mrs. Hamilton had given her, unsettled by the awareness of him close beside her, looking over her shoulder at the paper she held. Sheesh! She’d stood next to attractive men before. Mairi’s letter had her nerves totally on edge about everything.

  “Simple enough,” he said, and they went to work.

  As Fiona watched Marc snap the legs of the last table into place and tip it upright, an elderly woman with a cane stepped into the hall from the parking lot and looked around.

  “Can I help you?” Fiona asked.

  “I have books to donate. I talked with Betty Hamilton.”

  “Yes, we’re expecting you. Tell us which vehicle and we’ll unload. You can wait in here where it’s warm.”

  “The gray SUV with the Essex County Farm Co-op sticker on the back window. The hatch is unlocked.”

  Marc and Fiona grabbed their coats from the pile on the table by the door and headed out. Fiona quickly spotted the woman’s SUV. She pointed at the decal on the back window and touched her foot to the hatch opener. “It’s short notice, but I didn’t think of it yesterday. When we’re done unloading, remind me to talk with you about the co-op organizational meeting tomorrow morning.”

  “Sure. Let’s get started,” Marc said, and she wondered if he was in a hurry to be done. Or was that just her perception because she wasn’t in any hurry? She traced his profile with her gaze as he leaned into the SUV. He probably wanted to get back to his daughter, and she had nothing else to do this evening except go back to her empty apartment and Mairi’s letter.

  He lifted one of the smaller boxes and passed it to Fiona. Her hand brushed his as she took it from him. The warmth of the contact left an imprint on her in the cold evening air.

  “Go ahead and take your box inside,” he said before reaching for another one. “If we alternate, we won’t be bumping into each other.”

  “Good idea.” She gripped the box tighter and headed back to the hall. Had he felt something, too, when their hands had brushed? She glanced over her shoulder. He’d stacked two boxes to carry in, confirming her thought that he wanted to be done.

  “Only two left,” Fiona said a few minutes later, placing a box on the table next to the two Marc had brought in.

  “I’ll get them,” he said.

  “And I’ll come and close the hatch.”

  He opened the outside door, and she brushed by him.

  “About the Farm Co-op meeting I mentioned. You might want to come and meet some of your potential food suppliers. I can tell you about it while we walk. I understand if you’re in a hurry to get your daughter home.” Fiona paused. “I saw her come in with you. She’s a cutie.”

  “I have time,” he said.

  “She must take after her mother, the red hair.” Fiona absently touched her own hair, then jerked her hand away. Why was she going on about his daughter and not the meeting? Because all she could think about was her unanswered questions about her sister and her niece.

  His eyes narrowed. “I can’t really say. She’s adopted.”

  Fiona stumbled, catching herself on the back of the car they were passing. Stella was adopted? Her heart leaped to her throat. From what she’d found out about Precious in His Sight, although the adoption agency was based near here in Glens Falls, it served Christian families throughout New York state.

  Fiona pressed her palm to her throat as the realization hit her. Stella could be her niece.

  Chapter Two

  The north wind blew the icy snow in Fiona’s face as she dashed from her car to the Ticonderoga Birthing Center. She was here in search of answers to questions about her sister. She hadn’t gotten any answers about Stella last night. Before Fiona had been able to form coherent words to ask Marc about the little girl’s adoption, a teen had come racing out to the parking lot to get him because Stella was crying and wouldn’t stop. And the callback Fiona had received this morning to the voice mail she’d left with Precious in His Sight yesterday was what she’d expected. The adoption records for Mairi’s daughter were sealed.

  Maybe she’d learn something about Mairi today from the birthing center’s midwife, Autumn Hanlon, or her ob-gyn husband, Jon. They apparently were the only game in town when it came to delivering babies. The next closest facility was in Vermont, and there were two others, each an hour away, in Saranac Lake and Glens Falls. But Mairi’s baby’s birth certificate said the Town of Ticonderoga.

  Fiona stomped the snow off her boots on the entryway mat. But what if Mairi had given birth by herself? She shuddered at the thought of her little sister giving birth all alone in the remote cabin where her body had been found. And her date of death was almost four weeks after the baby’s birth date.

  She removed her hat and gloves. Where had Mairi and the baby been during that time? Mairi had rented the cabin the day before her death, alone as far as the police could tell, giving a false name and paying cash for her stay. Of course, Mairi had known all about flying under the radar from their mother.

  Fiona crossed the entryway and pulled open the glass door to the center at exactly two o’clock, fifteen minutes ahead of her appointment time. When she’d called the birthing center yesterday afternoon, she’d been thankful Autumn had a cancellation in her schedule and an appointment had been available today. Learning anything about Mairi, what she’d gone through, what she could have been thinking, would help Fiona fill the void inside her.

  She walked to the reception window. “Fiona Bryce. I have an appointment to see Autumn Hanlon at two fifteen.”

  The appointment clerk pressed a key on her computer and handed Fiona some forms. While she waited to be called, Fiona sat in the waiting area, tapping the clipboard with the uncompleted forms against her leg and thinking about Stella and Marc. Marc Delacroix was an attractive, interesting man. An attractive, interesting man who was a business associate and could be her niece’s adoptive father.

  “Fiona Bryce.”

  Fiona gripped the clipboard, rose and followed the nurse to the exam room. A few minutes later, the midwife knocked on the door and stepped into the room.

  “Hi, I’m Autumn Hanlon.”

  “Hi,” Fiona answered, pressing her hand to her stomach to stop the sudden flutter of guilt about approaching the woman under the guise of being a patient.

  Autumn glanced at the clipboard with the blank forms and frowned. “What brings you in?”

  Fiona cleared her throat. “I’m looking for information. I believe you or your husband delivered my sister, well, half-sister’s baby. Her name was Mairi Collins.”

  “I can’t give you any information without your sister’s permission. HIPPA regulation,” Autumn said.

  Fiona blinked. “I know the HIPPA rules. But Mairi is dead.” Fiona took a certified copy of her sister’s death certificate and two other documents out of her bag and handed them to Autumn. “I was the executor of her estate and had her medical power of attorney.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your sister.” Autumn glanced at the papers. “I remember her. We don’t have that many births a year, and she was unusual in that she’d gotten her prenatal care elsewhere.”

  “Thank you,” Fiona said. “She OD’d at a summer cabin not too far from here.”

  Autumn’s eyes widened. “That was your sister? The local news gave a different name.�
��

  “She used a fake name. It took the police a while to actually ID her and contact me.”

  “Again, I’m so sorry.” Autumn examined the document Fiona had given her. “Yes, I helped your sister birth her daughter.” The midwife looked as if she wanted to bite her tongue.

  “I know it was a baby girl. Her original birth certificate recently came into my possession. That’s how I learned the baby was born in Ticonderoga and deduced she was probably born here.”

  Autumn nodded.

  Fiona squeezed her hands in her lap. “Were there any signs of drug use, that my sister was shooting heroine?”

  “No. The baby was born healthy, and your sister tested negative.”

  “About the baby. Mairi gave her up for adoption?”

  “Yes, but not right away.” Autumn hesitated. “About a month after the birth, your sister returned with the baby and said she wanted to give her up for adoption. I talked with her for quite a while. From her demeanor and things she said, I suspected postpartum depression. I suggested an overnight admission so we could observe her and she could be sure adoption was what she wanted to do. Your sister was adamant about not staying. She started to fill out the papers, signed them and excused herself to use the restroom. She never returned. We released the baby to the adoption agency she’d chosen.”

  “Precious in His Sight,” Fiona said.

  Autumn tilted her head in question.

  “That information was with the birth certificate. Do you think Mairi could have committed suicide because of the postpartum depression?” Fiona stared at her hands. “Our mother was an addict. Overdoses were something we were both familiar with.”

  “It’s possible.”

  The signs that Mairi had chosen drugs due to postpartum depression with the objective of suicide lifted one gray cloud of guilt. But it didn’t answer why Mairi hadn’t confided in her. Fiona would have given up her job and come back to the States if Mairi had said she needed her. Fiona closed her eyes. Hadn’t she known that?

  “Are you all right?” Autumn asked.