A Gift of Grace

by Cooper, Inglath

  She stood there, surprised. And yet, this was what she had suggested. She owed it to Caleb to do exactly what she had agreed to do. Act as the liaison that would allow Grace to get to know him without fear. She would keep her word.

  THEY AGREED TO GO to the five-thirty showing to keep Grace from getting too off track with her bedtime.

  The theater was half full, and they sat near the middle, Grace in between them.

  Caleb had offered to pick them up, but Sophie had had an errand or two to do before and had said they would meet him there. They waited for him by the ticket counter, and at the sight of him, Grace wrapped her arms around Sophie’s legs and clung to her. Sophie saw the flash of regret on Caleb’s face, and she spoke softly to her daughter. “We’re all going to the movie together,” she said. “Caleb thought you might like it.”

  With that, Grace looked up at him beneath half-lowered lids and lessened her hold on Sophie’s legs. “You’ll be with us, Mama?”

  “Yes, sweetie,” she said.

  Grace looked at Caleb. “What’s it about?” she asked, her voice barely audible.

  “A dog and cat who hitchhike across country to find the little boy they once belonged to,” Caleb said.

  Grace tugged at her lower lip with small white teeth, giving his response consideration. After a few moments, she said, “Okay.”

  Caleb insisted on paying. Sophie stood to the side while the usher tore their tickets. She tried not to notice how alarmingly good Caleb looked in crisp blue jeans and a white shirt. She was sure her smile looked as forced as it felt, and she reminded herself that this outing was about cultivating Grace’s comfort level with Caleb and nothing else.

  They’d taken their seats. Sophie and Grace shared a box of popcorn while Caleb had his own. The movie had its share of sad parts and, at one point, Grace wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. By the end, Frisk the dog and Mimi the cat were reunited with Tommy, the boy they had been searching for.

  On the way out of the theater, Grace took Sophie’s hand and said, “I’m glad they found him, Mama.”

  Sophie nodded and said, “Me, too.”

  They stepped out into the early evening light, squinting after the darkness of the theater.

  “There’s an ice-cream shop just down the street,” Caleb said. “Anybody up for some?”

  “Me!” Grace said.

  “Sounds good,” Sophie agreed.

  The shop was busy and they waited in line, studying the vast menu of choices. Grace decided on Rocky Road, while Sophie ordered pistachio and Caleb plain vanilla.

  “Vanilla should be against the rules with all those flavors to choose from,” Sophie said once they were seated at a table in the corner.

  Caleb held up his cone. “Doesn’t get better than the basic stuff.”

  Sophie glanced away beneath the weight of his gaze, her face warming in a giveaway blush.

  Grace licked at her cone with an appreciation bordering on reverence, while Caleb and Sophie watched, smiling.

  “What was your favorite part of the movie?” he asked Grace.

  She gave the question some thought. “When they’re on the train, and Frisk saves Mimi from falling out the door.”

  “Mine, too,” Caleb said.

  Grace smiled and then giggled. “He had to walk on that skinny pole to get her.”

  They talked back and forth for several minutes, Grace’s responses growing less wary, more natural. She smiled at him once and the effect of it was clear on Caleb’s face.

  They finished their ice cream, dropped their napkins in the trash can by the door and strolled back up the street to the lot where they’d parked. Grace was getting sleepy by now. Sophie picked her up and carried her the last couple of blocks.

  At her car, Caleb took the key from her and opened the back door, stepping aside as she tucked Grace into the car seat. “Say thank you for the movie.”

  Grace looked up at him and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Caleb said.

  Sophie stepped back and closed the door. “Well,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “We’ll be going then.”

  “Sophie?”

  She turned, keeping her expression neutral.

  He was silent for several long moments before saying, “I won’t be calling again.”

  She looked at him, a feeling of unease settling over her. “I— What do you mean?”

  He glanced down and kicked a booted toe against the asphalt. “I called my attorney today and asked her to drop my petition for custody.”

  “You what?” she asked, certain she had misheard him.

  “I’ve let my own grief be my sole compass since Laney died. Somehow, I thought I could make things right with her by doing what I should have done when Grace was born. But sometimes, it really is too late.”

  Sophie stood there, stunned. This was the very last thing she had expected him to say. “Caleb—”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, backing away. “For all of it. I’m sorry.”

  SOPHIE DROVE HOME on autopilot.

  She couldn’t quite believe what had just happened, Caleb’s words still swirling in her mind.

  At home, she tucked Grace into bed, while the little girl talked about the movie they had seen. When Grace grew sleepy, Sophie said the prayer they said every night, then gave her daughter a kiss and left the room.

  Downstairs, she called Darcy and asked if she could come over.

  Darcy arrived twenty minutes later, wearing a jacket over her pajamas. “This could have been a little embarrassing had I gotten pulled over.”

  Sophie tried for a smile, but didn’t quite make it. She poured Darcy a cup of the decaf she had just made, slid the cream and sugar across the table, then poured herself a cup.

  “What is it, Soph?” Darcy asked, concern in her voice. “You look a little shell-shocked.”

  “I guess I am,” Sophie admitted. “We went with Caleb to a movie tonight. He’s dropped his petition for custody.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what he said. I’m not sure what to think.”

  Darcy jumped up, ran around the table and threw her arms around Sophie. “But that’s wonderful! I can’t believe it.”

  “Neither can I,” Sophie said, subdued.

  Darcy pulled back, giving her an assessing look. “Aren’t you ecstatic?”

  “I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet.”

  “What’s that old saying? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? Why doesn’t really matter, does it? All that matters is that you have your daughter, and this nightmare is over.”

  Sophie nodded, taking a sip of her coffee. “You’re right. It is all that matters.”

  “Sophie?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re not feeling sorry for him, are you?”

  Sophie shook her head. This much was true. Pity wasn’t what she felt for Caleb. “No. It’s just sad, you know. In the beginning, I wanted to see him as some bad guy trying to take away the child I love. But he’s just a man, Darcy. A man who has lost more than I can begin to imagine.”

  “Don’t go there, Sophie. You’re not responsible for what’s happened to him. You can’t fix any of it.”

  Sophie laced both hands around her coffee mug. “You’re right,” she said. “I can’t.”

  BUT FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS, the heavy feeling in Sophie’s chest didn’t lessen. The awful cloud of fear that had hung over her since the day Caleb Tucker had walked into her office and dropped a bomb in the middle of her life had finally lifted. Food had regained its taste, the trees their color, the air its summer scent. And yet she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that she could not pretend he didn’t exist. Couldn’t stop wondering what, if anything, she owed him.

  One Wednesday morning, she sat in her office going over plans for a class she would be teaching in the fall. Life had resumed its previous rhythm, its familiar cadence comforting, and yet at th
e same time, she felt unsettled. With Caleb’s entrance in her life, something had broken inside her, and now healing, it was as if the bones had not quite rejoined, refusing to fit where they had once been.

  She should be happy. But a door had been opened. And try as she might, she couldn’t seem to bring herself to close it.

  CALEB EXPECTED THE DREAMS to come back, but they didn’t.

  He wasn’t sure what to think of this, uncertain whether he had gotten it wrong when he’d let himself believe her tears had been about giving her child away. He chose to think now that he had. That she would be happy knowing that the child she had given birth to had a mother who loved her as Laney would have loved her.

  For the first time in over three years, Caleb found himself getting up in the mornings with an interest in what the day would unfold. It started out as a trickle. He took a renewed interest in the store, made some changes in inventory that were long overdue, ordered new computers, even spoke to a Web designer about creating a Web site with the possibility of selling products online. At the farm, he made a long list of things that needed to be done, fences to mend, fields to fertilize in the fall, equipment to repair.

  As the days passed, the trickle became a steady flow of energy, and he went at each of the tasks on his list with an intensity he had never imagined feeling again.

  His dad came out and joined him every other day or so. They could talk again, as they once had, father and son. Caleb’s mother was responding well to the medication she had agreed to try, and his father looked as if ten years had been lifted from him.

  And, too, the work kept him from thinking. Kept him from wondering about Grace. And Sophie. Whether he would ever see them again.

  AGAINST HER BEST FRIEND’S advice, Sophie called Caleb one Friday and asked if he would be willing to take Grace for a ride on one of his horses. Grace had been asking about learning how to ride a number of times in the past few weeks.

  Sophie’s call obviously caught him off guard. He was quiet for a few moments, his voice neutral when he finally said, “Sure. I’d be happy to.”

  Sophie hung up the phone, wondering if she was crazy for not leaving well enough alone. But now that the plan was made, it seemed right to her.

  Sophie and Grace drove out to Caleb’s one Saturday, the weather cool for August. Caleb met them at the front of the house, dressed in blue jeans and a navy polo-type shirt. Sophie’s heart rate accelerated at the sight of him, and she realized, suddenly, how much she had missed him.

  She unbuckled Grace from her car seat and lifted her out, then turned to look at him. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” Caleb said.

  The greetings were short and awkward, and any comfort level they had found with one another had disappeared. “How are you?” she asked.

  “Good. And you?”

  “Good,” she said, noticing that something about him seemed different. He looked more relaxed, more…she searched for a word. Peaceful.

  He dropped down on one knee in front of Grace. “Hey,” he said. “I hear you’re interested in learning how to ride.”

  Grace smiled and nodded. “Mama, too.”

  “Oh, really?” Caleb looked up at Sophie.

  “Ah, I don’t think that was in the plan.”

  “Oh, come on, Mama! You have to,” Grace said, tugging on her arm. “Then we’ll both know how.”

  Sophie looked at Caleb, wavering. “Do you have something really, really slow?”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, a smile at the corners of his mouth, “I do.”

  SOPHIE’S EXPERIENCE with horses had been limited to the carousel kind. Or so she said. Watching her trot around the ring on Zach, his twenty-year-old quarter-horse gelding, Caleb wasn’t sure he believed her. There wasn’t an inch of space showing between her seat and the big western saddle, and she had the kind of straight-backed posture new riders often found hard to maintain since the natural inclination was to pitch slightly forward or backward in an effort to find balance.

  Behind her, Grace ambled along on his mom’s good-natured old mare, whom he’d ponied over behind Zach this morning for her to ride. Grace’s smile would have lit a room, and something caved a little inside his chest at the sight of it.

  Sophie passed the center of the ring where he stood. “Ready to try a lope?”

  “A lope?” she called back, still sitting Zach’s jostling trot.

  “The next gear up.”

  Sophie looked doubtful. “Is it harder than this?”

  “Easier, really. Like riding a rocking horse.”

  “Try it, Mama!” Grace cheered.

  “You’re doing great,” Caleb said. “If you like that trot, you’ll love his lope.”

  “All right,” she said. “So how do I change gears?”

  “Little pressure with your left leg only. Cueing him with the outside leg tells him which lead to pick up.”

  “Then what?”

  “Just ride it.”

  Sophie trotted another half turn of the ring, looking as if she were gathering her courage.

  “Outside leg?”

  “Yep.”

  Zach responded as if she’d flipped a switch, easing into the lope as smooth as peanut butter. Sophie’s laugh was infectious.

  “Oh, my gosh! I’m loping!”

  “Yaaay, Mama!” Grace yelled.

  Caleb smiled. “Sure you’ve never done this before?”

  “Oh, I’m sure,” she called out. She did three circles around the ring and then said, “How do I stop?”

  “Gently pull on the reins, then release the pressure and ask him to trot.”

  The horse did as she had requested.

  “Same thing and now ask for the walk.”

  Zach made another perfect transition. Sophie looked down at him, open delight on her face. “That was incredible!”

  “I’d say you’re a natural.”

  She looked pleased by the assessment. “You’re a good teacher.”

  “Nothing to it,” he said.

  She swung her leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. Stiffness instantly infused her thighs, and she took a few cautious steps. “How long before I walk normally again?”

  “Few days,” he said, smiling.

  “Can I lope?” Grace asked.

  “If it’s all right with your mama, I’ll take you for a ride.”

  “Please, Mama?”

  “Okay,” Sophie said, looking less certain than she sounded.

  “I’ll need your mount, ma’am,” Caleb said.

  He took Zach’s reins from Sophie and climbed into the saddle. “Could you hand her up?”

  Sophie did so, and Caleb settled the little girl into the saddle in front of him. He held the reins in one hand and looped his other arm around Grace’s waist. “I’ve got you,” he said, “so just sit tight.”

  Grace nodded, and he urged the horse forward in a walk and then asked for the lope. They circled the ring four or five times, Grace’s high-pitched giggles clear illustration of her pleasure. Caleb never let himself look directly at Sophie, although he was completely aware that her eyes never left them.

  SOPHIE WATCHED THE TWO circle the ring, one hand pressed to her chest, struck by the picture they made, Caleb tall and strong, Grace small and protected in front of him.

  “Mama, we loped!” Grace said when Caleb brought the horse to a stop beside Sophie.

  “That was amazing,” she said. And then added to Caleb, “You make it look so easy.”

  “It’s like riding a bike. It is easy once you get the hang of it.”

  “Can we do it again?” Grace asked.

  “That’s probably enough for Zach since it’s getting pretty hot out here,” Caleb said. “He’s got a good sweat going.”

  “Can we do it again soon?” she asked, still smiling.

  “If your mama says so.”

  “We’ll see,” Sophie said, reaching out to lift her from the saddle.

  They walked the horses back to the barn
where Caleb gave them both a quick shower in the wash stall. He let Grace apply a few squirts with the water hose, and she was as happy as Sophie had ever seen her.

  When they were done, they put the horses back in the pasture. Caleb turned to look at Sophie. “My mom and dad wondered if you’d like to come over for a cookout.”

  “Oh, well—”

  “Only if you’d like to,” he said. “Please don’t feel pressured to say yes.”

  She glanced down, then looked up and met his gaze. “We’d like that.”

  They took his truck over to his parents’ house. Catherine and Jeb were in the kitchen, assembling macaroni salad when they walked in. Sophie hovered in the doorway, feeling awkward. But Catherine waved her forward and put her to work slicing tomatoes while Grace went out back with Caleb and Jeb to get the grill started.

  When the screen door closed behind them, Catherine looked at Sophie and said, “I’m so glad you could come.”

  “Thank you for having us.”

  Catherine went to the refrigerator, pulled out a head of lettuce, then rinsed it at the sink. They were silent for a few moments before she said, “I don’t want to overstep my bounds, but there is something I’d like to say to you.” She turned and met Sophie’s gaze directly, her eyes moist with tears. “Thank you for what you’re doing. You seem like a very kind person. And if anyone has been undeserving of pain, it’s you and that beautiful little girl out there.”

  Sophie swallowed against a sudden wave of emotion. “Thank you.” She hesitated and then said, “To be honest, at first I could not imagine sharing my daughter. But I know now that the story is so much bigger than just the piece that involves me.”

  Catherine reached over and squeezed Sophie’s hand, brushing tears from her cheek with the other.

  The back door opened and Caleb stepped inside, his presence filling the room. “Dad says we’re ready for those burgers,” he said, his smile fading as if he’d sensed the somber mood in the kitchen.

  Catherine pulled a platter wrapped in plastic from the refrigerator and handed it to him. “Now be sure and tell him I said not to burn them. He likes to cook them until they look like shoe leather.”