The Life You Longed For (9 page)

Taken. Confiscated. Abducted
.

Stephen's hand was on her shoulder. “You scared the hell out of me,” he said. He was out of breath. “I thought—” He stopped and sat next to her, pulled her head against his chest. “What? What happened?” She could feel his racing heartbeat.

She told him about the Web site. All those children taken.

“You aren't like those other women,” he told her

“You don't know that,” she sobbed. “They're normal mothers, Stephen.”

“It doesn't matter if they are, Grace. Listen to me.” He tugged her hands from her face, forced her to meet his gaze. “Children are
not
just taken from families for no reason. Maybe in some other country, but not here. There had to be something.”

“But don't you see?” She lifted her head from his chest. “That's what people are going to say about me.”

J
ack tried forcing the misaligned puzzle piece into place. “Turn it, honey.” Grace leaned forward to show him, but he snatched his hand away.

“No,” he whined. “You can't help me.”

“Okay, but you have to turn it, or it won't fit.”

“It will too,” he said, trying again, dislodging other pieces.

“Yo, cut it out, Jack,” Max said.

“No you cut out, Max,” Jack laughed.

Grace sat back, letting them be. The four of them, Grace and the three kids, had been working on the Christmas puzzle since breakfast, trying to finish it by dusk, the time New Year's Eve officially began in their house. Jack was more hindrance than help, but none of them really cared. He was so thrilled to be included with the “big kids.”

The jigsaw puzzle was a holiday tradition passed down through her dad's family: they started the thousand-piece jigsaw on Christmas Day and had to finish it by New Year's Eve.

When Grace was a child, she and her dad would stay up until two or three in the morning, working on the puzzle. Her father's parents came from Arizona to spend the holidays with them, and they stayed up as well, her grandfather drinking single-malt scotch in his old-fashioned striped pajamas, her grandmother, hair in rollers, trying not to yawn. Her dad attacked the puzzle as if in a battle. “Come on, now, get in there, you bastard,” he'd say to a puzzle piece. Or “Gotcha, ya little devil!” Whenever Grace got a piece in, her grandfather would grin, as if she had accomplished something wonderful. Her dad would slap her five, and tell his parents, “I think our girl's got the puzzle gene.”

The puzzle gene. Was there such a thing? She stared at this year's puzzle, a Norman Rockwell scene of Santa with his feet in a metal tub of hot water. She leaned forward and lifted a piece, part of Santa's white beard, and set it into place. And what would the puzzle gene mean, exactly? The ability to take something broken and piece it back together? She had wanted to believe that she'd done this with Noah, somehow fixed a part of herself that had been broken. And maybe she had, but at what cost? She felt her heart constrict, and tightened her grip on Jack, who only squirmed loose. “Mama, why you squeezing me?”

“'Cause I love you, silly.” How could she possibly explain the love she felt for this child? She'd abduct him herself, go into hiding, before she would let anyone take him. She'd kill someone who tried. Adrenaline raced through her at the thought, her heart racing, arms shaking. How,
how,
could anyone imagine that she would hurt Jack? She glanced at Max as he set another piece into place. If she was guilty of harming any of her kids, it was him, she thought, this huge boy who towered over both of his parents. Six foot three. Size thirteen shoe. Where did he come from? Grace often laughed to Stephen.

“I bet you don't know the name of a single player on the Flyers,” Max had challenged her a few weeks ago. He had failed a science test, so Grace had grounded him: no hockey for three days.

“You can't!” he cried.

“But I can,” she told him. “Hockey isn't everything, Max, and—”

“How would you even know!” he shouted. “You haven't even been to a single game this year!”

She looked at him hard. “And you are old enough to understand why.” Jack was too immune-compromised to take into a crowded gymnasium, and finding a qualified home care nurse to come in for only a few hours was all but impossible. “I'm sorry it's hard on you, but—”

“I bet you don't know the name of a single player on the Flyers,” he interrupted.

She sighed. “Eric somebody.”

“I'm serious, Mom.”

“So am I.”

“‘Eric somebody?' That's the best you can do?”

“Okay, Gag or Gage.” She sighed again. “Something with a G.”

“You don't even care, do you?

“If you want to talk about caring, then let's talk about your science test.”

“Lindros, Mom. Eric Lindros. He's only one of the top scorers in the NHL, and—” His eyes filled. “Never mind.”

“I'll tell you what,” she said. “You bring home at least a B on your next science test, and I'll learn anything you want me to about hockey.”

And so the book,
Hockey for Dummies,
for Christmas.

 

“Gotcha!” Max said now as he connected two large chunks of the puzzle. He held up his hand for Jack to slap him five. “Hit me, brother!”

“Okay, brother!” His fingers were blue-tinged from lack of circulation. He'd been on oxygen all day, the clear tubing from the nasal canula hooked over his ears to keep it in place.

“Wow, Max,” Grace said. “You're going to finish before your dad gets back if you keep this up.” Stephen was still at the Y.

The fire popped loudly, and Jack screamed in surprise, then burst out laughing at himself. “That scared me, Mama,” he said. “It scare you too?”

“A little bit.” She kissed the top of his head. He was sitting on her lap.

“It scare you, Max?”

“No.” Max rolled his eyes.

“Why?” Jack furrowed his brows and turned to Grace. “Why it not scare Max?”

“'Cause I'm not a chicken like you are,” Max said, scanning the sea of puzzle pieces. He was wearing an old Tom and Jerry T-shirt and the faded sweats he'd slept in, his hair greasy and uncombed. He looked so young, Grace thought. He
was
so young. Thirteen. He'd only just this year started liking girls, talking in a low voice on the phone, secreting himself in his room for hours, reeking, a few times, of Stephen's cologne when he left for school in the morning. She smiled and felt her heart slow, overwhelmed suddenly with gratitude: for her children, for this day. The four of them together, snow falling outside, the house filled with the scent of the pumpkin bread she was baking for Max.
Maybe
, she allowed herself to think for the nth time since seeing Bennett,
maybe
the accusation would turn out to be nothing or, if not nothing, then no worse than a warning.
Please,
she prayed silently, promising, as she had from the first moment that she'd heard about the accusation, that she would break it off with Noah; she would devote herself once again, without regrets or longing, to what she had right here, right now—her children. Stephen. It was enough. It was more than enough. She swallowed hard. How could she not have known this?

“I'm tired of puzzles,” Erin whined as she fell back into the couch, her arms and legs limp.

“I know you are, sweets. Come sit with me and Jack.” Grace held out her free hand, gesturing for Erin to come over.

Erin rolled herself forward, dragged herself to her feet, then plopped heavily onto the carpet next to Grace, slumping against her shoulder.

“Tell me what you want to do,” Grace said into her daughter's tangled hair.

“You want to play me cars, Erin?” Jack said.

“No,” Erin mumbled.

Jack leaned forward to peer at his big sister, then stopped, wincing, hand on his swollen tummy. “Ouch,” he said as if surprised. “That hurted me.” He looked at Grace.

“Well, you have to be careful, Goose. Here…” She straightened her legs beneath the coffee table so that he could lean back more. “Is that better?”

“Uh-huh.” He settled against her, then asked. “
You
want to play me cars, Mama?”

“No, Mama's going to play with Erin for a while.”

“Don't worry, Jack.” Max snapped another piece into place. “They're just going to do yucky girl stuff.”

Jack laughed. “Yucky girl stuff!” He reached his hand back to touch Grace's face. “You hear that, Mama? Max says you and Erin doing—”

“Yes, I heard, Mister Smarty-pants.” Grace kissed his hand, then leaned sideways and whispered to Erin, “What do you say we get out your new Barbie makeup case?”

Erin looked up, eyes wide. “Really?”

“Why not? We'll get all beautiful for Daddy.” Grace gave Erin's bottom a little pat as she jumped up and raced towards the stairs, thumping back down a minute later with the glittery silver and pink case that she set on the carpet next to Grace.

 

“Can I do you first, Mama?” Erin asked as she unfolded the mirror trays with their little glass pots of sparkly eye shadow and nail polish and different flavored lip glosses.

“Sure,” Grace said. “What should we start with?”

“Eyes.” Erin said. “Do you want green or purple or blue?”

“Hmmm, how about purple?”

She watched Erin fiddle with the case, her brow furrowed as she tried to open it. Beyond the front window, the pines dipped and bowed, wind and snow swirling in gusts.
Maybe,
Grace thought again. The word lingered. A possibility. A hope.
Maybe
this would all be okay. She would make it up to them. She'd start cooking more, instead of relying on frozen pizzas and macaroni and cheese. She'd bake more with Erin, take more walks with Jack, go to Max's hockey games, finish
Hockey for Dummies
. Already, she'd read two more chapters. She now knew that Wayne Gretzky had scored more goals than any player in NHL history, that teams played eighty-two games a season, that when hockey first started, the referee had to
place
the puck between opposing players' sticks during face-offs, resulting in numerous cases of broken knuckles. And Stephen. A tight band wrapped itself around her chest. She would fall in love with her husband again.

“Did you really question that
I
might have accused you?” Stephen asked as he climbed into bed.

She looked at him. “Only for a second. Less than that.”

“But what made you think it to begin with?”

She sighed. She knew his question was genuine, that he really didn't understand how she could have thought this about him. He was so good. Good the way people used to be good. He believed in volunteer work and helping people, he believed in community and trying to make a difference in people's lives, and he assumed that others were basically as good as he was. He was genuinely surprised, even hurt, to find out they weren't. She glanced at him and, for a moment, felt her love for him rise in her chest like something endangered and rare, something she needed to protect, to fight for, to save, but she didn't know how.

She held her mug of hot chocolate to her chest, hands cupped around it for warmth. “Please don't be hurt,” she said. “You know I wasn't thinking right. I just—” She shrugged helplessly and stared down at her hands. After a moment, she said quietly, “You're such a good person, Stephen.”

“Come on. We're both good, Grace. We do our best.”

“But I'm so angry, Stephen. At everything. Everyone.” Her voice trailed off.

“And everyone includes me?”

She glanced at him. “I don't mean to be.” She wasn't sure this was true though. She'd gotten used to being angry—at him, at the insurance company, at the doctors from Hopkins. At least when she was angry, she felt strong and in control. Like gravity, it weighted her, held her in place. How could she explain that it was this rage that so often exerted the far greater pull on her, greater even than love, and that this rage was, at times, the only thing keeping her from whirling out of this orbit of her life into utter blackness?

“It's stupid to blame you, I know that, Stephen, I just—” She looked at him. “Don't you ever blame me?”

“
Why
? Jack is alive because of you. I know that. Hell, half the staff at Children's knows that, has come right out and said it. My God, the idea that I could blame you—”

“I'm not saying it's rational. But, I mean, didn't it occur to you that my causing his illness would have meant that he was okay?”

“That's a hell of a trade-off, Grace.”