Brought Together by Baby

by Carolyne Aarsen

  “I see,” he said, a grin developing. He brushed the curls back from Gracie’s face and set her on the floor. “Well, little lady, you better learn to control that temper of yours.”

  Gracie wavered a moment, caught her balance, then toddled off down the hall to the playroom her parents had made for her just off the kitchen, one arm tucked against her body, the other spread out to balance her hitching step.

  “And how are you doing?” Eli asked, turning his attention back to Rachel.

  She blew out her breath and shook her head. “I don’t know if I’m cut out to be a mother,” she said ruefully. “I can’t keep up to her. I can’t imagine what she would be like if she was a normal toddler.”

  “Gracie is normal,” Eli said. “She is just facing a few more challenges than other kids.”

  Rachel felt her cheeks burn. The single word, spoken without thinking, made her feel insensitive. “I meant, if she had all her capacities,” she said, a defensive note creeping into her voice. “What else am I supposed to say about her?” she said, the frustration of the past few days spilling out. “You were the one who told me yourself how I had to change my life to work around her disabilities. You were the one who said if I’m not careful, she could end up in the hospital. So if she’s normal, why am I doing all this? Moving my office from downtown to my parents’ place? Trying to juggle taking care of her and working? Trying to keep everything going?” Her voice grew more agitated with each sentence.

  As the last word reverberated in the spacious foyer of the house, Rachel felt the fight sift out of her. Eli didn’t bother to hide the surprise on his face.

  “I’m sensing a subtext to all of this…text,” he said carefully.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. “It’s just that the past few days have been crazy. Things are happening at the Foundation I can’t control and I’m not used to taking care of a child who needs to be periodically dunked in cold water.”

  Eli burst out laughing, a pair of matching dimples winking out from beside his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he said, taking a quick breath. “Did you have to do it again?”

  “No. Thank goodness.” Rachel felt the tension that had held her in its tenacious grip the past few days loosen in the face of Eli’s humor. “She’s been delightfully healthy since I came back here.” She glanced over her shoulder at Gracie, who was now dragging around one of Rachel’s shoes. “It pains me to say this,” she said, giving Eli a cautious smile, “but you were right about her. She just needed to be home.”

  “And with someone she knew,” Eli added softly. “In spite of what you may think, she does seem to have formed an attachment to you.”

  A gentle silence drifted between them. As it lengthened, Rachel felt a faint tug of something indefinable. As if under its own power, her gaze lifted toward him and she caught him looking at her, his expression suddenly serious.

  She had an urge to lean on him. To rest her head against his shoulder and just let him take over her life.

  She swayed a moment, then caught herself. Silly girl. You are on your own. It’s the only way you stay in control.

  “Well…” She stopped, cleared her throat and tried again. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry if I sounded a bit, well, out of sorts. I’ve been crazy busy.”

  Eli gave her a careful smile. “I think it’s great that you are willing to take care of your sister, you know.”

  His quietly spoken words settled over the uneasiness she had felt since Gracie charged into her life. Gave her a feeling of approbation.

  “Thank you. I, uh, haven’t been the most willing. And I have to confess she still scares me a little…”

  “Hey, at least you’re honest about it.” He took a step back and retrieved his helmet from the table. “Well, I gotta run. I was on my way to the hospital to check on some tests we ran yesterday and thought I would see how you were doing.”

  Rachel nodded, surprised at the regret that spiraled through her. “Okay, then. Thanks for stopping by.”

  Eli hesitated as if about to say something. Then he ducked his head, turned and left.

  Rachel felt a warmth, kindled by Eli’s approval, curl through her. For a moment she let it flow, grow.

  The sound of his motorcycle roaring away was like a dash of cold water. A reminder of the pain of loving. She was heading down a path she had thought she would never travel again, and as the roar of the motorcycle faded into the distance she felt the fanciful feelings she had momentarily indulged in fade away, as well.

  He hadn’t come for her, she reminded herself. He had come for Gracie. He had come to make sure Rachel was doing her job.

  But even as she talked herself into that, a curious thought circled lightly and landed.

  He could have called to see how Gracie was doing.

  And right behind that came another.

  The plantation was not at all on his way to the hospital.

  Chapter Eight

  Well, that was brilliant, Eli thought as he twisted his wrist and kicked the motorcycle into a higher gear. He leaned into the curve of the long driveway of the Noble Plantation, then slowed for the last corner.

  As he headed down the road toward the hospital he sped up. The wind rushing past his face could not rid him of the notion that he had just made a colossal fool of himself in front of Rachel Noble. He had only meant to see how she was managing at home with Gracie. The visit was strictly as Gracie’s doctor.

  Doing it at her plantation home did not help much, either. What in the world had he been thinking?

  Right now, he was thinking of how cute she looked with her hair slightly loose and wearing a faded T-shirt. He was thinking of how approachable she seemed in her bare feet and blue jeans.

  And he was thinking of that huge home she lived in. And how much money her parents had. And how he was sure that in spite of their easy and relaxed airs, her parents had someone in mind for her. Someone who had a known past.

  What Eli knew about his parents could be written on the palm of his hand. The same hand that still held the scar from the accident that took them from him.

  Peggy and Tyrone did not often talk about his parents or encourage him to find out more. As a young man he had not understood this. Now, he realized that it probably was partly a self-defense mechanism for them.

  He tried to imagine Gracie wanting to know about her own mother, a woman who had treated her with such disregard, when the Nobles had done so much for her.

  Thinking of Gracie brought him squarely back to Rachel. How the wisps of dark hair framed her face, brought out the brown tints in her hazel eyes. He wondered what her hair looked like down, flowing over her shoulders. He was fairly sure it was long, silky.

  With a start he pulled himself back to the present. Rachel Noble was out of his league.

  Rachel carefully wiped the remnants of Sunday morning breakfast from Gracie’s face with a damp cloth. She set her on the floor, wiped down her high chair and turned just in time to see Gracie toddle off toward the patio doors. Aleeda always kept the windows sparkling clean but since she left for the weekend, Gracie’s hand prints already decorated the glass.

  At first Rachel had tried to wipe up behind her, but when Gracie slapped her pudgy hands against the glass for the third time, Rachel gave up.

  Rachel cleaned up the breakfast dishes and rescued a ficus from Gracie’s inquisitive hands. Put the dishes in the dishwasher and pulled Gracie down from a chair she was trying to climb. Wiped the counters and Gracie’s high chair and took away a fork that Rachel had forgotten to load in the dishwasher and that Gracie had found on a chair.

  How did people with more than one child survive?

  “So, Gracie,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “What do we do next?”

  She looked at the clock, then back at the girl. She knew her parents normally went to church on Sunday. When she was young she always went, but after Keith, she had stayed away. Even since she was back in town, the
only time she had been to church was to attend Meg and Jared’s wedding.

  She knew it was a huge disappointment to her parents, but she no longer felt she had to do things simply because they expected it. She was living her own life, and God had not been a part of it.

  As she looked at Gracie, though, she suddenly felt an extra responsibility. Sure she was only two, but while Rachel felt she could make decisions about her faith for herself, she did not feel right about doing the same for this child.

  But her parent’s house created its own memories and history of Sunday. Work had always been frowned upon on Sunday.

  “So, Gracie, do you want to go to church?” she asked, rinsing out the cloth and laying it to dry on the rack inside the cupboard door.

  “Go church. Go church,” Gracie said, bobbing up and down.

  Rachel didn’t have the time, but her work was making her feel as if she was going in circles. Besides, after being housebound for a couple of days, she desperately needed to get out.

  Half an hour later Rachel stood in the back of the church, hoping to spot either Pilar, or Meg and her husband. She had seen the twins when she brought Gracie to the nursery.

  Gracie had seemed more than happy to toddle around, playing with the toys and the other children. It was a familiar setting for her, Rachel realized when she gave the attendant Gracie’s bag. Gracie had her own cubbyhole with her name on it. She was given a name tag that was clipped to the back of her dress. Gracie Noble.

  Rachel had felt a touch of melancholy when she saw that. It reminded her that her parents had brought her to this church to a young girls’ club, and when she was older, to a youth group. She had been an active participant up until after her college graduation.

  Until Keith.

  And now, as she looked around the sanctuary, memories flashed through her mind with painful clarity. Memories that had not arisen during Meg’s wedding. Somehow that intimate ceremony had not brought them out so clearly as the rustle of people filling the pews, the murmur of conversation, the early morning sun slanting into the sanctuary through the stained-glass windows.

  She remembered singing with Pilar and Meg. Goofing around during youth group. Listening to speakers. Looking across the sanctuary to see Keith—wondering if he had noticed her. Their romance had begun here, as young students of middle school, then on to high school and college. There was hardly a memory of church that did not have memories of Keith attached to it.

  When she came back from New York, the pain was still fresh, her feeling of abandonment from God still strong. So she had stayed away.

  Until now.

  But to her surprise, as her gaze wandered over the familiar setting, only a gentle pain came on the heels of memories that had, at one time, brought wrenching sorrow.

  What was even more surprising, for a moment, she could not even remember what Keith looked like.

  The realization gave her pause. She had stored most of Keith’s pictures at her parents’ place after his death and hadn’t looked at them since. It had hurt too much. She wondered how she would feel now.

  Finally, she spotted Pilar sitting by her parents, Salvador and Rita Estes. Pilar was reading a piece of paper, frowning at it, as Rachel slipped into the pew beside her.

  “I thought going to church made you happy,” Rachel murmured, leaning sideways.

  Pilar blinked, then almost laughed out loud. “Rachel. What are you doing here?” she asked as she gave her friend a quick hug.

  “I felt I should bring Gracie,” Rachel said.

  Pilar’s smile slipped a notch as if she was hoping for another reason. “Well, I’m glad you are here.” She gave Rachel’s silky hair a casual flick with her index finger.

  “And I’m glad you wore your hair down for a change. I really like it.”

  “It came loose while I was getting Gracie dressed and I didn’t have time to fix it,” she said, self-consciously smoothing her hair back.

  Rachel glanced around the church, taking in the solidity of the aged wooden pews, the wooden pulpit, the stained-glass windows. They gave the church a warm and welcoming glow that called back many Sundays and memories of moments of peace and happiness that slipped past the wall of resistance she had built to God and this place.

  “Rachel. Good to see you again.” Rita Estes had spotted her and leaned across Pilar to greet her. Rita wore her salt-and-pepper black hair in an elegant bob that accented the large gold hoops hanging from her ears. Her bright smile and sparkling eyes called back other good memories. “I’m so thankful you could come.”

  Rachel smiled back. “It is good to be here again.” And as she spoke the words, she realized she meant them.

  As Rita turned to her daughter to ask a question, Rachel looked back around the sanctuary.

  Sandra Lange sat a few seats ahead of them, her head bowed, her folded hands pressed to her chin. She looked as if she was praying. Rachel watched her, remembering Sandra’s enigmatic comments of last Sunday, wondering what she had meant by them.

  Mayor Gerald Morrow and his wife Lindsay sat one row in front of Sandra. He sat ramrod straight, looking ahead as if honoring God with his presence here. Rachel had dealt with him from time to time through her work. She respected him, yet was always thankful he was not an adversary of hers.

  As if in gentle counterpoint to the tough air he always exuded, Lindsay, his wife, sat close to him. As she bent her head to read the same paper he was reading, her thick black hair swung over her narrow cheekbone, a dark contrast to her husband’s white hair. As Rachel watched, Lindsay looked up at her husband and tucked her arm through his. Her affection toward her husband made Rachel feel melancholy. As a young girl she had always imagined sitting with her husband in church, book-ended by children.

  Her dream husband had always been Keith.

  Unbidden came the thought of Eli stopping by the plantation house on his motorcycle. His gentle smile when he encouraged her. His presence should have made her feel resentful, but she couldn’t dredge up the emotion. Instead, she found herself thinking of him more and more. Wondering when he would “stop by” again.

  “I don’t know if we are going to be able to make our brunch date,” Pilar said, her voice breaking into her thoughts.

  Rachel jumped.

  “Okay, where were you with that dreamy look on your face?” Pilar asked, her gaze piercing Rachel’s as if trying to get into her mind.

  “Just…well…just remembering,” Rachel said, trying to gather up her scattered thoughts. “What did you say about brunch?”

  Pilar gave her a look that clearly conveyed her disbelief, but to Rachel’s relief she didn’t push the issue. “Meg said Jared is busy with something and Anne isn’t feeling good, so we won’t be meeting this Sunday.”

  “That’s fine,” Rachel replied. “I was thinking of picking up some sandwiches from the diner and going to the park with Gracie anyway.”

  “Winchester Park?” Pilar asked with a knowing smile.

  “Think you might catch a football game while you’re at it?”

  Rachel pretended innocence, even though she knew precisely what Pilar was getting at. “I just might.”

  Pilar was about to say something else when Reverend John Fraser stepped up to the pulpit. He glanced around the congregation, his eyes glinting behind his wire-rim glasses.

  He welcomed the congregation, and as they got to their feet to sing the first set of songs, he encouraged people to take a moment to greet one another.

  Rachel shook hands with an unfamiliar couple in front of her, an old classmate behind her. She caught a quick movement to her left and saw Sandra Lange extend her hand to Mayor Morrow. But Mayor Morrow wasn’t looking at her.

  Lindsay Morrow was, but she didn’t shake Sandra’s hand, either. Then, with an enigmatic smile, Sandra lowered her hand and looked up at Pastor Fraser.

  Curiouser and curiouser, thought Rachel, wondering what that was all about.

  But she didn’t have time to wonder. The firs
t song came up on the screen overhead, and as a youthful worship band struck up a tune, the congregation slipped into song.

  The words were unfamiliar to Rachel, but the tune was upbeat and catchy and by the second verse she was singing along. She had always enjoyed singing, and other than church or the shower, she did not have much opportunity to do so.

  The songs pulled her along as the lyrics became more meaningful and the songs a little slower, as if drawing the congregation away from the busyness of every day life toward worship.

  By the time the last note died down, Rachel felt a curious energy flowing through her, lifting her up. She felt her familiar resistance to God, but at the same time, being in this church where she had some history, brought back an earlier connection to God.

  Reverend Fraser started preaching, his mellow voice drawing out older memories of other church services. She couldn’t help but listen. He moved from anecdote to application drawing Rachel along. His sermon was about control. Something Rachel hadn’t found since Gracie came into her life.

  “…and so we can resent what God is doing in our lives. What He has been trying to teach us. We can try to ignore God, but to do that is like trying to get rid of light by writing the word ‘darkness’ on the wall. We may be hurting and in trouble, but, as C. S. Lewis says, ‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ Our pain and sorrow becomes His way, I believe, of getting our attention. And I believe He needs to because we think we are self-sufficient creatures. We think we can do everything on our own. We think we can live apart from God, which is like the scent of the flower trying to separate itself from the flower. God is always there and He is waiting for us to give over the control of our lives to Him.”

  And in those few words, the reverend had captured Rachel’s confusion. When Keith died, she had stopped her ears to what God may have had to say to her. She had felt the best way to live was on her own. To be in charge and in control.

  In the past few days, the events of her life had shown her how futile that was.