Selena Kitt

Grace

Chapter One

There was a ghost in the house.

Leah woke up every night in the loft, jerked awake by a dream within a dream, feeling Rob beside her to make sure he was real, warm, solid flesh under her hands, positive she could hear a baby crying.

There is no baby.

There is no ghost.

You’re imagining things.

If she woke Rob, that’s what he would whisper as he cuddled her close, soothing her back to sleep like a baby in his arms, when all she wanted was her baby, their baby, sweet little Grace, who had been stolen out of her bassinette by a ghoul, right there in front of everyone, in broad daylight.

Leah had really believed, once upon a time, that there was order in the world, that bad things didn’t happen to good people, and from fairy stories to David and Goliath, good always conquered evil. But nothing was that black and white anymore in her world. Demons wore the faces of adults who said they were just there to help you. The devil disguised himself and came to visit during the day, just like everyone else.

She didn’t wake Rob, who slept peacefully in a slant of light from the skylight overhead. His hair fell in dark waves, far too long for fashion, but that was one of the things that had made her fall in love with him in the first place-he defied convention at every turn. He slept on his back, one arm throw over his head, the other on her side, always touching her, even at night, like he thought she might disappear the moment he let his guard down.

His hand had slipped away from its resting place on her belly when she had jolted awake and sat, ready to fly out of bed to answer the plaintive call of her baby.

There is no baby.

Oh if that were only true.

In the early days, when she had been at the Mary Magdalene House for Moral Welfare, she had often wished her baby dead, just so life could go back to the way it had been before. Maybe this was her punishment for those thoughts, for wishing her unwed pregnancy away as her belly grew bigger and the days stretched toward the finish line. She had known the day would come when she would have to sign her name and give her baby away to strangers.

She had wished her baby dead, and she was wishing it now, because Grace was out there somewhere, right now, wailing for her mother, but some other woman would answer Leah’s daughter’s cry. She thought, maybe, if Grace were gone from the world altogether, it wouldn’t feel so much like having lost a limb. At least she would know where her child was. She could visit her grave, grieve, mourn her loss, and move on.

But this, this not knowing, it was just like losing a limb. You expected it to still be there, every time you looked, but it wasn’t. She had heard that men who came home from World War II, many of them who had fought alongside Robert Nolan, the man who slept now beside her, had something called “phantom limb” syndrome. A hand, a foot, a leg, an arm-their appendages had been blown off by land mines or grenades, but still, the mind couldn’t accept that the limb was gone. The walking wounded still felt those missing pieces. They ached. They itched. They demanded attention, and yet when you looked, there was nothing there. Nothing at all. It was like having a phantom limb, a ghost.

Leah knew just how they felt as she rocked a ghost baby in her arms, closing her eyes, her arms aching, literally aching, from the weight of a phantom child she could feel but not see. She had no pictures of Grace, but she had memorized every feature-all that dark hair, those sweet rosebud lips, the curved pinkie toe with the barely-there nail. Grace had Leah’s long limbs and delicate fingers, already the body of a dancer, even in newborn form.

She pushed the covers aside, slipping quietly out of bed and heading for the ladder. The warehouse was always a little chilly at night in the winter months and Leah shivered as her bare feet touched the hardwood floor as she reached the bottom. There was no light except that of the Christmas tree in the corner of the living room area. It was a monster of a tree, nine-feet tall, but it didn’t come near the warehouse ceiling above.

She remembered, long ago when she was little, when the Nolans lived in the big house on the river, how they would all go shopping for a tree together. The Nolans always got the biggest trees, while Leah and her mother found something more “sensibly sized” for their little house. Thinking about her mother made her chest burn and Leah tried to block out the memories she had of Christmas dinners together with the Nolans, back when Susan Nolan, Rob’s first wife, was alive.

It had been after Susan’s death that things had changed. Rob had packed up his only daughter-Leah’s best friend, Erica-and they had closed up the big house on the river and moved into the converted warehouse. Rob had claimed it was for work-he was a portrait photographer, and half the warehouse had been converted into a studio and dark room-but Leah and Erica both knew it was because of the memories that lingered in their house on the river.

Leah thought she could understand better now, how he’d felt.

Too many ghosts.

She went over to the Christmas tree, smiling at the sight of the familiar ornaments, the way the lead tinsel hung heavy and straight-“The trick is to put them on one strand at a time,” Mrs. Nolan used to say, a tedious task to say the least-reflecting the big, multi-colored lights, including Erica’s favorite “bubble lights.”

As little girls, they had sat in front of the tree when Mr. Nolan turned the lights on for the first time, focusing their attention on one of the lights with a long glass tube filled with red-colored liquid until the heat from the bulb began to make the water boil and bubble. Then one by one, those bubble lights would begin to simmer and come to life. It was just basic science, but to them, it had been magical.

Solie, the Nolans’ housekeeper, made Rob turn the tree off and give the lights a break, especially at night, claiming, “If you keep that tree on all the time, you’re going to start the whole place on fire!” The lights did get awfully hot. Leah could feel the heat of the bulbs when she cupped her hand over one, not touching it. But tonight the lights had stayed on overnight. Tonight was special. Tonight was Christmas Eve.

They had all attended midnight mass, and although she had feared seeing her mother at church, it was so crowded they never ran into each other. Leah watched from their vantage point near the back of the church as the Virgin Mary-a role played this year by Erica, who looked the part with her blond head covered in a blue veil-put the baby Jesus into the empty manger. Leah watched and wept, Rob squeezing her hand hard the whole time. She felt his love and support, but she couldn’t do anything but sob and turn away from the sight of the swaddled baby-a real newborn, part of the Christmas Eve play.

They’d come home to Solie’s hot chocolate-she had left a pan in the ice box they could heat up-and they had placed their own baby Jesus in the manger. The Nolans’ nativity was set up beside the Christmas tree, a tradition every year, and although Erica had suggested they “skip the baby Jesus bit” this year, Leah had insisted on doing it herself, opening the box and unwrapping the little baby from its tissue paper shroud, putting him down in his cradle, her tears falling on his painted ceramic face.

He was sleeping peacefully where she had left him, although in her dream, she had heard him crying, and in her dream, she had been sure it was Grace. If she just went to look, she would see her baby in the manger, brought home to her, a Christmas miracle. Leah swallowed the lump in her throat, thinking of the Virgin Mary giving birth in that little stable. Had she been frightened? Had she cursed the pain of childbirth, Eve’s fallen gift to all women? Had she come through it to the other side, as Leah had, instantly in love with the child in her arms?

Every mother thought their baby was the best, the sweetest, the most wonderful. They were all miracles in God’s eyes, weren’t they? But the Virgin Mary had held her child in her arms and smiled the secret smile every mother recognized, the one full of joy and pain all at once, holding life in your hands, knowing it will someday be gone again.

But Mary got to keep her baby.

Yes, for thirty-some years, and then she’d watched him sacrifice himself, like stabbing a knife through her own heart, in order to cleanse the world, to wipe the slate clean. Mary had mourned him for three agonizing days, and then, the miracle of miracles, her baby had come back.

Grace was out there somewhere, right now, without her. That knowledge was like a hole inside of her, a void that was made to be filled, a vacuum created by her daughter’s absence, and in its place was a pain so vast Leah could barely contain it. She knew everyone was watching her, worrying about her, talking in whispers like she couldn’t hear or understand them.

Leah had done her best to smile. She’d even caught herself laughing at some of Erica’s goofy jokes and Rob’s gentle teasing. She didn’t want to ruin everyone’s Christmas, after all. And in spite of Grace’s absence, she was very glad to be home. She turned away from the painful sight of the nativity, smiling at the pile of gifts, their Christmas stockings stuffed to the brim.

It looked as if “Santa” had already been there to fill their stockings. Too heavy to hang, they were in front of the tree, amidst the gifts that had been accumulating all month in preparation for Christmas day. Erica and Leah had bought things to put into Rob’s. Solie had a stocking too. Leah thought about her mother again, how her stocking at home would be empty that morning. She missed Ada, their housekeeper, who would come bring them breakfast every Christmas morning, leaving her own family to tend Leah and her mother.

Leah knelt in front of the tree in her nightgown, touching the stocking she had knitted for Grace during her last month of pregnancy at the maternity home. It was red and white candy-cane stripes. It had taken her hours, and she had spent all of them thinking about how she could possibly manage to keep her baby.

A sound startled her and she looked up in the dimness, seeing Erica appear at the end of the hallway. She had her coat and boots on. Both girls stared at each other for a moment, too stunned to speak. Then Erica grinned, one of her mischievous smiles that stretched wider and wider as she held out her hand.

“Come on!” Erica urged. “You have to see.”

Leah stood, frowning, looking at her friend’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes. “Where were you? Were you outside?”

Erica grabbed her hand and dragged her down the hall toward the warehouse door. It was a big steel entry affair with a bolt on the inside. Erica drew it, glancing back at her friend as she swung it open.

Leah gasped as cold air swept in. “Erica, I’m in my nightgown!”

“So? Put this on.” She grabbed Leah’s long wool coat off a hook, tossing it to her. “And these.” She kicked her tall winter boots.

Leah pulled on her coat more to keep warm than anything else-the air from outside was bitter cold.

“Come on!” Erica complained, standing in the doorway, her breath rising up like steam.

“Okay, okay!” Leah grumbled, yanking on one boot-she was barefoot and it wasn’t easy-barely getting her foot into the other one before Erica grabbed her again, pulling her out the front door.

“It’s snowing!” Erica declared, raising her arms and twirling in the orange halo of a streetlight, big, fat flakes of snow falling all around them.

Leah shivered, hugging herself and watching Erica sticking her tongue out to try to catch snowflakes, and she couldn’t be mad that her best friend had dragged her out into the snow in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. She could never stay mad at Erica too long, no matter what. She couldn’t imagine her life without her.

“Snow angels!” Erica announced, grabbing Leah’s hand and pulling her along the unshoveled sidewalk. There was at least of foot of snow on the ground already and they had to shuffle their way along toward the other side of the warehouse, away from the street.

“Plow!” Erica called, turning her back and covering her head. Leah was a little too late and the truck with the flashing orange lights and the big blade on the front sprayed her with snow as it slid by, clearing the city streets. The snow was heavy and wet, and a good chunk of it ended up sliding down inside Leah’s boots.

“Erica!” she protested, shaking snow out of her hair, but her friend just laughed, dragging her around the corner into the empty lot behind the warehouse.

Leah couldn’t remember what the warehouse used to be, but there had been a parking lot behind it, and beyond that, a plot of grassy land in the middle of the city with no purpose whatsoever. It had come along with the sale of the warehouse, and although Robert Nolan had been approached by several Detroit developers looking to expand their business, he refused to sell it.

“Ready?” Erica held Leah’s hand in hers and the girls grinned at each other. “One… Two… Threeeee!”

They fell back together, letting the white blanket of snow catch them. Leah felt her breath leave her body for a moment as she landed, and then she was gasping, laughing, looking over at Erica, her blond hair making wet punctuation on her ruddy cheeks.

“It looks like we’re gonna have a white Christmas!” Leah laughed as they scissored their arms and legs in the snow, leaving impressions like white butterflies, satisfying angelic prints that would abide until warmer weather came to melt them away, just like they used to do when they were little.

“The morning star!” Erica pointed and Leah saw it, knowing, thanks to their senior year high school science class, that it was just the planet Venus appearing before sunrise. “On Christmas morning. It has to be lucky. We should make a wish.”

“Okay.” Leah reached over and took her friend’s gloved hand in her bare one. “Ready?”

“Star light, star bright…” Erica began the familiar rhyme and the girls finished it together. “Wish I may, wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight…”

Leah closed her eyes, her silent wish so big, taking up so much space in her head, she was sure she must be bursting with it. When she opened her eyes, she saw Erica watching her, looking thoughtful.

“What did you wish for?” Leah wondered aloud.

Erica shook her head. “Can’t tell or it won’t come true.”

Leah squeezed her friend’s hand, smiling. “But we tell each other everything.”

We used to.

Their eyes met and Leah felt the weight of that statement, knowing there were things she wouldn’t-couldn’t-share with Erica now. And Erica… she had changed too, while Leah was gone. She was different, distant, and wary. They’d both been through so much separately, Leah wondered if there was anything that could bring them together they way they’d been before.

“I wished for Grace,” Erica whispered to the stars, not looking at her friend.

Leah felt tears sting her eyes. “Me too.”

And as miraculously as the morning star had appeared, so long ago, to lead three wise men to a baby in a manger cradle, the gap that had grown between the girls during Leah’s absence had been bridged, just like that. Magically, like the snow falling on Christmas or the bubble lights that burst to life in their little girl memories, they came together again, could breathe and talk and laugh together again.

They didn’t talk as the sun began to rise in the east, casting the snow in a dusky blue morning light. They just rested together in their angelic snow patterns, melting the snow with the warmth of their bodies as it fell and trying to catch the big flakes that drifted lazily down toward their open mouths.

“I think I’m frozen to the ground,” Leah finally announced. Her calves ached with cold from the snow inside her boots.

“What time is it?” Erica wondered out loud. “Is it present time yet?”

“Erica! Leah!”

They looked at each other, wide-eyed, hearing Erica’s father calling them. He sounded angry. Maybe even a little scared.

“We’re here!” Erica sat up, struggling in the snow, helping Leah, and both girls couldn’t help stopping to look at their snow angels, the imprint of their bodies surrounded by heavenly wings.

“Rob! We’re here!” Leah called. She could hear him but not see him, and then he was there, appearing around the corner, clutching his coat around him, still wearing pajama bottoms-and no shoes at all.

“Daddy, get inside before you freeze to death!” Erica protested, waving him on as the girls approached.

“I could say the same thing.” Rob frowned, looking between them, back and forth. “What in the world are you two doing out here at five in the morning?”

“Making snow angels.” Erica shrugged, smiling, looking sheepish.

“You two.” He shook his head, that angry look in his eyes melting when he glanced at Leah, shivering and wet. “Don’t ever leave like that without telling me! I thought-”

He didn’t say anything else, but he pulled Leah into his arms. She felt his breath, hot on her neck, felt the warmth of the quivering kiss he pressed there. Then Rob snaked an arm around Erica’s neck, pulling her into their embrace, kissing her forehead.

“Come on, it’s freezing!” He steered them both back toward the warehouse, where they shook off their coats and pulled off boots and left everything dripping to dry in the hallway. Rob went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, and Leah settled on the couch under a blanket, still shivering in her nightgown.

Erica snuck away to her room to change out of her dungarees and sweatshirt, and appeared in the living room again clad in a nightgown before her father came back.

“So where were you?” Leah whispered as Erica snuggled under the blanket with her.

“I wanted to see the snow.” Erica didn’t look at her. Instead, she stared at the Christmas tree. “Remember how we used to wait for the bubble lights to start?”

“Yes.” Leah smiled, letting her change the subject. “You used to swear they were magic.”

“I wish I still believed in magic.”

“Me too.” Leah sighed, glancing up as Rob came into the living room carrying three mugs, one in each hand and another squeezed between. He put them on the coffee table, yawning and rubbing his eyes, blinking at the two of them on the couch. He had put his pajamas on for Erica’s benefit, Leah knew, because he’d only been wearing boxers when they fell asleep in his loft bed after making love last night.

She smiled at the memory, picking up her mug and taking a sip of coffee. The doctor in the hospital, Dr. Peters, the same one who had burst into the room minutes after Leah had given birth to Grace all on her own, had told her to wait “at least six weeks” before resuming any “sexual activity.” He’d added, “If I were you, I’d just keep your damned legs closed altogether and stay out of trouble.”

But once she was home with Rob, there was no way she could resist him. Besides, physically she was healed. It was just her heart that was broken.

“Mmm caffeine!” Erica cupped her coffee mug in both hands. “Are we ready to open gifts?”

“I thought we might get to sleep in on Christmas morning,” Rob looked pointedly at his daughter. “I didn’t expect to be up at five a.m.”

“It’s six,” Erica countered. “It’s present time, Santa!”

“Ho ho ho.” Rob lifted his mug and took a gulp of hot coffee. “I suppose you want to be helper-elf and hand out gifts?”

Erica popped up, rushing the Christmas tree like a linebacker and skidding across the hardwood floor in her socks, nearly overshooting it before grabbing their stockings and bringing them back to the sofa. The boxes under the tree were all beautifully wrapped-they’d been arriving that way for weeks from Hudson’s. They not only gift-wrapped purchases, they also delivered them.

Rob settled between the girls on the sofa as they each investigated the contents of their Christmas stockings. Rob had played Santa and filled the girls’ stockings, and Leah and Erica had pooled their albeit limited resources to fill his with things like film for his medium format camera and a new tie and pulled taffy, because it was his favorite. All of them had a big, fat orange at the bottom, and Erica started peeling hers so she could eat it right away.

Leah left hers at the bottom, looking at the array of things Rob had put into her stocking. New winter gloves. A slim, studded pocketbook for dress-up occasions. A bag of black licorice-one of her favorites. A little plastic globe of Boblo Island that rained silver glitter instead of snow. She smiled at him when she pulled that out, remembering how he had stood on the Boblo Boat deck and asked her to marry him.

That was before…

Leah shook the little globe, watching the silver cloud envelope the model amusement park inside.

“Did you get an orange?” Rob asked, nudging Leah with his slippered foot. He had run outside without them, but they were on now, old blue raggedy ones. Leah and Erica had bought him a brand new pair. They were in the pile of gifts somewhere.

“Of course.” Leah reached into her stocking, pulling it out and putting on the coffee table with the rest of her things.

“I think there’s something else in there.” Rob looked at Leah’s stocking-he had purchased it for her just a week ago, because her stocking, the one she’d had since she was little, was at her mother’s. It was the house she’d grown up in, but she didn’t think of it as home anymore, Leah realized. This was home, the warehouse with its wide open spaces and drafts, where she slept high up in the loft with Rob every night. In the weeks since she’d been back, this had become home.

“Daddy, the orange is always the last thing,” Erica reminded him, popping a wedge of hers into her mouth. “That’s tradition.”

“You might want to look again,” Rob insisted.

Erica frowned turning her red and green stocking upside down and shaking it. “Nope. Nothing in there.”

“Not you, Erica.” He laughed, watching as Leah reached into her red stocking-it had her name embroidered at the top, just like Erica’s did-feeling around in the toe.

“What…?” She looked at him sitting beside her on the couch, feeling the shape of the velvet box under her fingers, eyes growing wide.

“What is it?” Erica inquired from her perch on the arm of the wing-backed chair on the other side of the coffee table. She’d moved so she could spread out her loot.

“Leah…” Rob moved from the sofa, onto one knee on the hardwood floor, and she looked at him in his raggedy slippers and mis-buttoned pajama top, his hair still damp from his trek through the snow to find his missing charges, and thought she had never loved him more than in that moment.

“Oh, Rob…” She felt tears stinging her eyes and couldn’t stop them as she brought the blue velvet box out of her Christmas stocking with shaking hands.

“Listen, I know…” He took a deep breath, and then took her hands in his, closing them around the velvet box. “Things have been hard. And I know it’s soon, too soon after…”

She shook her head, thinking of Grace, knowing he was thinking of her too. At least she’d gotten to see her, hold her. Rob had never even seen his daughter’s face.

“But I don’t want to lose you, Leah. I don’t want to be without you, ever again. I woke up this morning and found you gone, and I thought… it was like my heart had just walked out the door by itself.”

Leah held back a sob, knowing that feeling so well she lived it every minute. She had lived it for months at the maternity home, missing him with every breath she took like having razor blades in her lungs, and now she had him back, but her baby was gone. She closed her eyes, remembering her wish, feeling tears fall.

“I know you wanted a miracle,” he whispered. “On this day of all days, I wanted to give you one. I wanted to bring her home for you today.”

Leah nodded, opening her eyes, seeing him through prisms, and tried to speak, but nothing came out.

“I promise you, Leah. I promise I will stop at nothing to find Grace and bring her home.”

Rob fumbled with the box, opening it, and Leah saw the Tiffany’s logo on the white satin top, and the platinum band with the diamond solitaire framed in velvet sitting in the bottom.

“Will you marry me?” he asked, meeting her eyes, his so serious, like he thought she might say no. Leah shook her head, unable to speak, tears choking her throat. “So when our little girl comes home, she’ll have her family waiting for her?”

Leah sobbed, throwing her arms around his neck, whispering her assent. “Yes, yes!”

Rob held her close, kissing her deeply before presenting the ring to her, this time out of its box, sliding it onto her trembling ring finger. She looked at it in the dawning early morning light now streaming in through the skylight. It fit perfectly.

“I told him your ring size,” Erica said through a mouth full of Bit O’Honey she’d gotten in her stocking.

“You knew?” Leah blinked at her.

“He bought the ring months ago.” Erica revealed this secret with glee, seeing her father’s face flush.

“I knew you’d come back to me.” He met Leah’s eyes and she saw how his glistened in the light. “Just like I know we’ll get Grace back.”

Leah let him sweep her into his arms, standing and twirling her around in front of the Christmas tree, pulling her close so he could kiss her properly, if a little reticently, in front of Erica.

“I hope so,” she murmured against his chest as he held her, stroking her hair, and she met Erica’s eyes, remembering their crazy, spontaneous walk through the snow, their impromptu snow-angels, their wish on the morning star. They weren’t little girls anymore. They didn’t believe in magic. There was no Santa Claus. There were no Christmas miracles.

“Congratulations.” Erica came over, still chewing her candy, and put an arm around Leah’s neck, giving her a long hug. Rob watched them, smiling. “Now we get to plan a wedding!”

Rob groaned. “Can’t we elope?”

“Are you kidding?” Both girls looked at him, aghast, and then they looked at each other and burst out laughing. Maybe there were no fairy godmothers or magic wands, but they had each other, and for the first time in weeks, Leah felt almost like her old self again.

Chapter Two

Erica would never have met Clay if Father Michael hadn’t volunteered her for the part of Virgin Mary in the Christmas Eve Nativity Scene. It was all Father Michael’s idea, a live-action nativity to replace the wooden carved figures that usually adorned the sanctuary. She only agreed because there were no lines, like a play. She just had to stand there holding a baby and put it in the manger and look serene. Considering the roles she’d played for the church in the past few months-although those had been much darker, and far more secret-she knew she could do this one with her eyes closed.

Besides, it was Father Michael who was asking, with those big blue eyes and that sweetly appearing smile, and how was she supposed to resist that? Father Michael said he wanted a young couple to play Mary and Joseph, and so one of the boys from St. Casimir had been brought in. Erica didn’t know Clayton Marshall Webber III from Adam, but they’d spent three weeks wearing scratchy wool costumes, chewing gum and having bubble-blowing contests-Clay carried Beech Nut Spearmint wherever he went-while Father Michael directed the wise men and argued with Father Patrick, who was completely against the whole shenanigans.

Father Patrick won the argument about the livestock-two lambs, a donkey, and a goat were sent back to the Eastern Market where they’d come from-but Father Michael had gotten his way with the concept of a “live” nativity, including Mary, Joseph, three wise men, and an angel. The angel was just Alice Kernighan dressed up in white robes, wearing a halo and standing on a pedestal behind them.

And of course, a baby Jesus.

“Whose baby is it?” Erica had asked, looking down at the sleeping newborn as Father Michael handed it over.

“Foster child,” he’d explained, tucking the swaddling blankets in around the baby’s face. “She’s just on loan.”

“She?” Erica had smirked, raising her eyebrows at him. “Jesus is a girl?”

“Don’t tell anyone.” Father Michael winked. “I picked this one because she’s so quiet. She has to sleep through the service.”

“Hmm.” Erica had looked at the sleeping infant. It was a cute baby with lots of dark hair, and Clay glanced over her shoulder at it.

“Hey, maybe Jesus was a girl,” Clay had speculated as Father Michael left them to go talk to Father Patrick about the last minute details of the Christmas Eve service. “Don’t they always show him with long hair? And those robes… could have been hiding anything under there.”

Erica had laughed in spite of herself and the baby in her arms had stirred but didn’t wake. In fact, she stayed quiet through the whole thing-quieter than Clay, who kept whispering all sorts of horribly sacrilegious things into Erica’s ear to make her laugh. She tried to just smile serenely and not meet his eyes, or she was bound to crack up. His last joke almost did her in-What’s the difference between Jesus and Picasso? Only takes one nail to hang a Picasso-but thankfully it was time for her to put the baby in the manger, and she could hide her stifled giggles as she bent over and tucked the baby in.

Really, it was Father Michael’s fault she ended up sneaking out of the warehouse after her father and Leah had gone to bed, on Christmas Eve no less. She never would have taken Clay up on his offer if it hadn’t been for the way Father Michael frowned whenever she laughed at one of Clay’s jokes, and found a reason to separate them whenever Clay got too close. Once, Clay had been teaching her to Lindy Hop, and although Erica was about as graceful as a turtle in a tutu, he’d managed to get her to do the basics before Father Michael discovered they were tripping the light fantastic while he was chasing a goat down the hallway and called rehearsal off for the day.

She blamed Father Michael-and, as always, her incessant curiosity. Yes, she’d been trying to make him jealous, flirting with Clay. But she was also intrigued when Clay asked her to meet him, saying he had something interesting to show her.

It was Father Michael’s fault she agreed to meet Clay around the block from her house at two in the morning, slipping into his 1955 Chevy Sedan and messing with the radio while he drove them through the streets of Detroit, getting on the freeway and then off again, taking them for a long, uneventful drive into the country. And it was Father Michael she was still thinking about when Clay parked on a back road and turned to kiss her.

He smelled like Beech Nut spearmint and Aqua Velva, a heady combination, but he took his gum out before he kissed her, pressing it with his thumb against the dashboard when he leaned in to touch his lips to hers. It was a pleasant sensation and Erica let him gather her up, enjoying all his hard angles against her soft curves.

His tongue found its way into her mouth and she let that happen too, letting things take their natural course, the heat of their bodies, the fast pant of their breath steaming up the windows of his Chevy. Erica even dared to put her hand on his leg, sliding it up his jean-clad thigh until she found his erection, smiling when she heard his sharp intake of breath.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” she whispered, rubbing her hand up and down, liking how it made her feel-powerful, in control. He was putty in her hands.

“Yowza!” Clay’s eyes widened in the dimness, looking at her with confusion and a little trepidation. Had he thought she was a good girl? That made Erica want to laugh. Good girls didn’t sneak out and meet boys in the middle of the night. “Easy there, Tiger. Come on, follow me.”

He opened the driver’s side door, even coming around to her side like a gentleman. The gesture was so sweet it made Erica feel like crying, and she climbed out of the car, hugging her coat around her. It hadn’t been snowing after midnight mass, but it was snowing now, coming down in big, fat flakes, settling in their hair and melting on their cheeks.

“Come on.” He climbed up onto the big hood of the Sedan, holding his hand out and helping her up. She sat beside him, looking puzzled. It was darker out here, away from the city. She could barely discern the shape of fields, the dim glow of windows in far away houses like rectangles painted on the night.

“Look up.” He pointed skyward, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head.

“At what?” Erica did the same, leaning back on the hood. The sky was a clear field of velvet, displaying so many stars it made her gasp in surprise.

“Amazing isn’t it?”

“So many!” Stars in the city never looked so close.

“When it snows, there’s no moisture in the air, so the sky is clear. No clouds.”

Erica glanced over at him. “How did you know that?”

“I paid attention in science class.” Clay pointed up and Erica looked again, seeing something streak across the sky.

“What was that?” She half-sat, squinting at the spot where she’d seen the stream of light, wondering if she was seeing things. “Is that a UFO? Or… oh my God! Are we being attacked?”

“Relax.” Clay laughed, pulling her back down. This time she settled close to him, putting her head on his chest. “It’s a meteor shower. The Ursids. See? That’s Ursa Minor right there.”

“Where?” Erica shook her head.

“See the big dipper?” He pointed and she followed the line of his finger.

The big dipper was easy enough to find. “Yes.”

“Okay, follow that over… that’s Polaris, the north star. Ursa minor is right between. That’s where tonight’s show takes place.”

“There’s another one!” Erica exclaimed, pointing. She cocked her head at him, meeting his eyes in the dimness. “You must have really liked science class.”

“Nah.” He squeezed his arm around her shoulder. “My dad’s an astronomer. He said the Ursids would be most active on Christmas and Christmas Eve.”

“Wow.” Erica settled back into her comfortable position, head resting on his chest. She could hear his heart beating, even through his coat. “Why isn’t he watching it with you?”

“He’s in Washington.” Clay shrugged. “When President Eisenhower asks you to head up a committee, my father asks, ‘How high?’”

“But on Christmas?” Erica made a face. “Who are you spending Christmas with?”

“My mother.”

She smiled. “Does your mother know where you are right now?”

“She doesn’t even know where she is after two nightcaps and a happy pill.” Clay snorted laughter. “Merry Christmas and ho ho ho.”

“Look, there’s another one!” Erica pointed.

“Do you think there’s life out there?” Clay asked, sounding thoughtful.

“Where?”

“You know, other planets.”

Erica considered. “I don’t know.”

“You think we’ll ever get there?”

“Outer space?” she laughed. “Like in flying saucers?”

“Well, the Russians launched Sputnik,” he reminded her.

Erica shivered. “Would you want to go?”

“Anywhere but here,” Clay replied. She felt his hand stroking her hair, which was growing damp from the snow. It was starting to fall heavier, sticking to their clothes. She saw a snowflake caught on the edge of Clay’s eyelashes and he blinked it away, looking at her.

“I don’t know,” Erica murmured, sliding her leg up over his. “Here isn’t so bad.”

He didn’t bridge the gap, she did, pressing her lips to his, reveling in the warmth of their mouths, the steam of their breath rising in the cold night air. She felt him responding, hands beginning to roam, seeking her softness, reaching under her unbuttoned coat.

“Come on, I’m getting cold,” Erica murmured, sliding off the hood of the car. “Let’s go get warm.”

“What are you doing?” Clay watched as she went around to the driver’s side, opening the back door.

She winked. “There’s more room in the backseat.”

He gaped at her as she shrugged off her coat, wearing her dungarees and a white sweatshirt and boots, tossing it onto the seat.

“You coming?” Erica cocked her hip, hands on them, and then she crawled into the backseat of the Chevy. For a moment, she thought he was frozen to the car, like a hood ornament, and then he hopped off, the snow crunching under his boots as he came around the car door.

Erica had already pulled off her boots, leaving them on the floor with her damp coat. Clay hesitated only a moment, a bemused look on his face as if he’d just been told something incredible-like he’d just won a thousand dollar prize-before diving into the backseat with her, shutting the door behind him. She giggled at his enthusiasm, wrapping her arms around his neck, feathering kisses over his snow-wet face.

“It’s really coming down out there,” she murmured over his shoulder, glancing out the window at the white flakes, like a thousand flying moths, as she unbuttoned his coat. “What if we get stuck out here in the snow?”

“That would be a scandal.” He grinned, shrugging off his coat. “But I can’t think of a better way to spend Christmas.”

His coat joined Erica’s on the floor, and was soon followed by her sweatshirt and dungarees, along with his jeans and shirt, and they rolled around in their underwear, sweaty bodies sticking to the seat, only little bits of fabric left between them and paradise. Clay groaned at every instance of their disrobing, closing his eyes and dropping his head for a moment, like he was saying a little prayer, although Erica didn’t know if it was a prayer for forgiveness or a prayer of thanks.

“You’ve never done this before, have you?” Erica whispered as she took his hand in hers, sliding it past the elastic of her panties to the promise land. Clay groaned again, burying his face against her breasts.

“Done what?” he croaked, cupping her mound, snatching her bra strap between his teeth and pulling, shaking it like a dog, with a low growl in his throat.

“Oh this is going to be fun.” Erica guided his hand, parting her sex with his fingers, using them to pleasure herself. Neither of them spoke, their breath matching her motion, faster and faster. She watched his face, the confusion and the wonder there. He was enthralled, in total awe of her audacity.

“Are you… what are you…?”

“Shhhhh.” She quieted him with a quick kiss, wanting it, working for it, knowing that once she gave him the full green light, it would be over in seconds, so she had to get hers now, right now, like this. Erica curled his fingers around her sex, forcing them inside of her, and Clay had found her rhythm, rocking his hand between her legs under the stretch of her white cotton panties.

Erica cried out when she came, pelvis arched up, legs butterflied around Clay’s hips, quivering in the steamy heat of the backseat with the final pulsing release of it. He groaned again, fingers still buried in her, as she floated back down to earth.

“Was that… did you…?”

“Yes.” She wiggled out of her panties, adding them to the growing mass of clothes on the floor. “Now it’s your turn.”

“Whoa. Wait… I… really?” he squeaked, blinking in surprise when Erica rolled him onto his back, reaching around to unhook her bra. His reluctance disappeared the moment he saw her sitting on him topless, lust overtaking his hesitation, hands reaching for her breasts, cupping them in wonder.

“Let’s see what we have here…” Erica slid his boxers down, allowing him to spring free, satisfyingly hard. “Mmm. Nice.”

“Erica…” Clay bit his lip when she began to stroke him, his face pained. “I didn’t bring you here for… I mean…”

“I know. It’s okay. I want to.” She shifted in her straddle, sliding him between her labia. They were swollen from her orgasm, her juices flowing, more than ready for him. “Did you think, when you invited me to meet you at two in the morning, that I was going to be a good girl?”

“But you’re… I really like you, Erica.”

“I like you too.” She was guiding him, nice and easy. “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“Wow.” Clay’s hands gripped her breasts as she began to slide down on him. “Wow. Oh wowwwwww. You’re something else!”

She pressed a finger to his lips, settling into the saddle of his hips, feeling him fully inside of her. “Shhh. No more talking.”

Erica rocked her pelvis back and forth, up and back, watching his expression change from astonishment to pleasure, from fascination to lust. It was his first time, but it was far from hers, so she took complete control, enjoying her power, feeding on it. It was intoxicating, and Erica was fearless, unashamed, using her body to force him to the brink.

She knew she was bad, she knew it, and she enjoyed it. The flirting they’d been doing for the past few weeks had culminated in this moment, but for her, it was more than that. She’d been holding back her feelings for Father Michael so long, she couldn’t help the floodgates when the dam burst. Poor Clay had just been standing in the way and was in danger of drowning. It wasn’t this poor boy’s fault that she was imagining a certain handsome priest, but Clay didn’t look like he minded. He probably still wouldn’t have minded if she’d told him the truth, but she wasn’t going to do that.

“Oh. God. Ohhh! God!” Clay’s hands crushed her breasts together, hips bucking her up so hard she nearly hit the roof of the car.

Erica leaned in to whisper in his ear, “Go ahead. You can come inside of me. I want you to.”

He shuddered, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying himself completely inside of her, his final cry of release making her smile in triumph as she felt the tell-tale surge of white hot liquid deep in her belly. She kissed his sweaty cheek, slowly shifting her weight, feeling him slide out of her, both of them crying out at the sensation.

“Oh God.” Clay threw an arm over his eyes as Erica began to dress, feeling around for her underwear. “What if you get pregnant? Oh no. Oh God. This isn’t happening.”

“I can’t get pregnant,” she assured him, putting on her bra.

He peeked out at her, watching as she pulled her sweatshirt over her head. “You’re a girl, aren’t you? Girls can get pregnant. Trust me, I paid attention in science class, remember?”

“I can’t get pregnant.” Erica tossed his boxers to him, starting to wiggle into her dungarees. “Really, it’s true. I’m not making it up. See this?”

She twisted her hips toward him, zipper still down, and showed him the scar on her belly.

“What is that?”

“I had an operation.” She yanked up her pants, zipping and buttoning them. “I can’t have babies. Ever.”

“Oh. Wow.” Clay sat, pulling on his boxers, looking over at her. He clearly didn’t know what to say. Not that she could blame him. “Oh wow. Erica, I’m so sorry.”

“No sense crying over spilled milk.” She rubbed her hand over the steam on the window, peering outside. “You think the light show is over?”

“Probably.” Clay was dressing, pulling on his jeans, slipping on his t-shirt. “Sorry we missed it?”

“A little.” Erica drew a face on the glass, a round face, two eyes and a sardonic squiggly smile.

Clay scooted closer, putting his arms around her waist. “I’m not.”

“What time is it?”

He sighed, looking at his watch. “Time to take you home. You’re sure no one will notice you snuck out?”

“I told you, my father is oblivious.” Erica grabbed her boots, starting to pull them on. She didn’t want to think about her father-and Leah. She had thought having her best friend back would make things right again, but since Leah had come home from Magdalene House, she had been withdrawn and moody and prone to fits of either anger or tears over the littlest things.

Erica couldn’t really blame her. Even though Leah had gone away to a maternity home to have her baby-most girls who found themselves with a bun in the oven ended up at places like Magdalene House-she’d changed her mind once Grace had been born. Even back when Leah had actually believed her mother’s lie-that Robert Nolan was Leah’s biological father-Leah had decided to run off to New York and start a new life with her baby in tow.

Leah had sworn up and down that she’d been tricked into signing the adoption papers by the social worker, and while Erica’s father had hired a private investigator to find her and had talked to several lawyers, apparently Leah’s signature on the document made things legally tricky. Erica didn’t really know all the details-she just knew she and Father Michael had almost caught the adoption worker taking off in the car that had carried baby Grace away from the hospital where Leah had given birth to her.

If they’d just gotten to her a few minutes sooner!

Erica felt guilty about that. She felt guilty about a lot of things, including not figuring out the mystery of Leah’s disappearance sooner-how had she not connected the dots?

It made sense now, in hindsight of course. The only thing that would have made Leah disappear like that, without a trace or even a word of goodbye, was something as scandalous as an unwed pregnancy. She would have been kicked out of their strict Catholic college the instant she began showing, and Leah’s mother, Patty, wouldn’t have been able to hold her head up in the grocery store once tongues started wagging about “the Wendt girl” who “got herself in trouble.” Funny how it was always “got herself in trouble,” as if no boy was involved in the whole mess.

Of course, in this case, there was no boy. There was a man, and that man was Erica’s father, Robert Nolan.

He’s not your father.

The revelation that Robert Nolan wasn’t Leah’s father, like Patty Wendt falsely claimed, had come along with the shocking news that Erica wasn’t his daughter either. She’d been adopted, because Robert’s first wife, Susan, hadn’t been able to have children either. Erica shivered, even in the steamy heat of Clay’s backseat, touching her belly at the site of her scar, the same one her mother had.

Erica shoved that train of thought away, derailing it completely by turning to Clay and kissing him deeply, cutting off his words. She hadn’t been listening to him anyway. He gasped in surprise-she rather liked shocking him-but soon caught on to her mood, his hands less reticent now, roaming those places he’d formerly touched so hesitantly.

“What were you saying?” she whispered into his ear, reaching down to cup the growing bulge in his jeans, wondering if they had enough time for one more. It would likely take him longer a second time, and be more fun for her, but it was getting late.

“Ummm…” Clay shook his head to clear it, blinking at her. “I said… it sounds like your father and my mother would get along fabulously.”

She laughed. “We should introduce them.”

“Guess you’re ready to go?” He looked disappointed as she plucked her coat from the floor, shaking it off.

“It’s late.” She kissed him on the cheek, nudging him with her hip. “Have to get home to bed before Santa comes.”

Clay drove home slowly in the falling snow, taking twice as long to get her back home than it had taken them to get out into the country. Erica turned up the radio and sang along as Elvis begged her to be his teddy bear, the lingering scent of sex filling the enclosed vehicle.

“I have an idea,” Erica said as Clay pulled up into the alleyway behind the warehouse she called home. “How about you come to my house tomorrow… well, today. For Christmas dinner.”

She’d hatched her evil plan during the drive home, looking at the way a sort of sly, proud smile kept playing on Clay’s lips every time he glanced her way. Father Michael was supposed to come to Christmas dinner, and having Clay there would suit her purposes nicely. Besides, she really did like Clay. That part hadn’t been a lie.

“What time?” He put the car in park, letting the engine idle. “My mother wants to go to brunch at eleven, after we do gifts.”

“Perfect!” Erica smiled. “We won’t eat until five.”

“Are you sure your family will be okay with it?”

“Let me worry about that. You just come.”

He leaned over and kissed her, his lips soft and warm, and Erica slid her arms around his neck, kissing him back.

“Wow,” he breathed as they parted, looking into her eyes. “And here I thought I was going to show you something tonight.”

“You did.”

“But…” He cleared his throat. “I really didn’t expect… I mean…”

She pressed her lips to his ear, whispering, “Good girls don’t sneak out to meet boys in the middle of the night.”

He laughed. “So you’re a bad girl?”

“When I want to be.” She wiggled her eyebrows and he laughed again, sliding his hands down to her hips, pulling her closer.

“Do you think you might want to be again… soon?”

“Hang around and find out.” Erica smiled, sliding across the seat and opening the passenger side door.

He leaned over and called out, “I intend to!”

“Goodnight, Clay.”

“Night. See you in…” He glanced down at his watch. “About twelve hours…”

She shut the passenger side door, trudging through the snow-there was almost a foot on the ground already-glancing back to see Clay pulling out into the street. He waved to her and she waved back, smiling to herself.

She hadn’t really felt that Christmas spirit yet this year, not when they’d gone shopping for the Christmas tree, not stringing it with lights, not shopping for gifts, not even participating in midnight mass as the immaculate virgin-an irony that wasn’t lost on her. Something had been missing, even with Leah home, and it wasn’t just her best friend’s sorrow about her missing baby.

Erica was lonely. She’d fallen head over heels for a man she couldn’t have-and in spite of the nearly palpable attraction between them, Father Michael had made it clear nothing could ever happen-and she’d been spending all her time, in spite of that, thinking about him and wanting him and wishing it could be different. It left her exhausted and lonely, like constantly being in a crowded room and not recognizing a soul.

For the first time in a long time, she felt connected, really alive. After the surprise meteor shower and the spontaneous fireworks in Clay’s backseat, a white Christmas felt like a gift, and she twirled around, laughing and sticking out her tongue like they used to when they were little, trying to catch snowflakes.

Chapter Three

After the disaster that was Christmas dinner, Leah just wanted to go to bed and sleep forever. She might have done just that-taken a handful of the sleeping pills the doctor had prescribed for her, and gone to sleep. Forever. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d considered it. But there was Rob, with that sad, helpless look in his eyes, stroking her hair, whispering how much he loved her, that it was going to be okay, and she wanted to believe him, even if she couldn’t, quite.

So for Rob, she hung on. She clung to him, desperate for contact, wanting him to erase her memory, to take her back to the time before, and he did his very best. Erica was gone with that new boy from St. Casimir, Clayton something, he whispered as he climbed into bed beside her. Father Patrick and Father Michael had left, and even Solie, who stayed to clean up after dinner, had gone home

They were alone-except for the ghost, who was always there, even when she wasn’t looking, waiting just beyond her senses, waiting to move through her like a knife through her chest.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, for the hundredth time, the millionth maybe, and he shook his head, kissing her quiet. She’d missed his kisses, his hands, the press of his thigh between hers. She didn’t understand how it happened, the whole falling-in-love thing, but she couldn’t deny it, even now, after his sweet, heartfelt proposal-had it just been that morning? It seemed eons ago-knowing she was his, and he, hers. She didn’t know the hows and whys, and she didn’t trust her head, where all the crazy-talk was happening.

The only thing she trusted, had always trusted, was her body. She’d been a dancer her whole life, and Leah experienced everything through her body first. Perhaps that’s why she had been so taken in by Rob, by her own body’s suddenly awakened response to what she and Erica had found under Mr. Nolan’s bed. This very loft bed, with the big mahogany desk underneath, and the hidden door Erica had discovered behind the tapestry. Leah could reach out and touch that tapestry right now-it stretched from floor to ceiling, a striking oriental pattern hiding secrets she never could have imagined.

The secret that had changed everything.

Leah was tired of secrets, tired of lies, tired of pretending so the neighbors and the church wouldn’t be offended by her impropriety. She had been sent away a pariah as an unwed mother, deemed too immoral and wicked to be seen in public, but her only crime had been falling in love. Yet they had dinner with the clergy while ten feet away, behind a locked door, was a collection of obscene material so extensive it would probably land them in jail if it was discovered-and the irony of all ironies was that the church officials knew about it. Not only knew about it but were somehow profiting from it. Leah was almost certain of it.

The weight of the hypocrisy threatened to bury her alive. And this man, the man she’d fallen for in spite of everything, was right in the middle of it, and although the lies and secrets were killing her, she was too afraid to uncover his secrets and expose him to the world. The truth was, she was too afraid of losing him. She’d lost so much already-not only her daughter, but the memory of a father who never existed, the mother who had betrayed her. Leah had nothing, no one, but Rob. And he loved her, wanted to marry her, had asked her to trust him.

And she did.

“Rob, please…” She met his kiss, her body responding instantly to him, as it always had. She’d been lost the moment he touched her the first time, was lost still in the shift of his hips and the way he whispered her name like a caress as he kissed his way down her throat. She wanted to be lost with him, to float away, never to be found. There was no man in the world who could make her feel the way he did, and she knew, even if he were to die tomorrow, she would never find a man who could complete her the way he did. She would walk around with a Robert Nolan shaped hole in her that no one could fill.

And she knew what it felt like to be without him. Knew what it felt like to believe she’d never see him again. It made this moment even more heady and blissful than it would have been, and she gave herself to him without reserve, like she had from the beginning, when his images, his talent, his beautiful, amazingly creative mind had awakened a fire in her that still burned for him, an eternal flame.

“Make love to me,” she whispered, arching up toward him. “Make me forget everything but this.”

And he did, his fingers working swiftly on the buttons of her blouse, the hooks on her bra. Her skirt unzipped in the back and he rolled her over to get it, making her moan into the pillow when his teeth sank into her bottom, gently nibbling her behind. Her garters and stockings came off too, and then she was nude on his bed-their bed-on her back again, looking up at him, his heated gaze moving over her body in the slant of light from the skylight above.

“I’m still fat from Grace,” Leah murmured, running her hands over her belly, no longer taut and smooth. Her hips swelled outward now, the indentation of her waist a deeper curve.

“You’re beautiful.” Rob peeled off his shirt, leaning in to kiss her belly, lick her navel, making her shiver in response. She pulled him to her, reaching for his belt and unbuckling him. He moaned when she slipped her hand into his boxers, finding him satisfyingly hard.

“I want you,” she whispered, squeezing his hips between her thighs, rocking up toward his erection, his trousers and boxers still in the way. “Please, Rob. Please.”

“Yes, sweetheart,” he agreed, acknowledging her desperate longing, but he took his time anyway, kissing her nipples, running his tongue around her areolas, darker than they used to be before she’d given birth. She had been embarrassed by them, but Rob seemed fascinated with the changes in her body from her darker nipples to her fuller hips to the stubble growing in between her legs-they had insisted on shaving her while she was in labor with Grace.

The first time they’d made love after she came home from Magdalene House, she had cried through it. Not because she was sad, although she was. No one had touched her there since Grace had passed from her womb into the world, and just the shock of being entered by him was enough to bring up that sadness. But they had cried together, faces buried in each other’s throats, had made love and cried for the time they’d lost, the child they’d created together who was still missing, and they’d cried because they had found each other again, were together like this, loving each other.

Now they were hungry, greedy, and Leah begged him to do it, please, put it in me, I want you, I need you, now, now, and Rob let her tug and twist and pull at him while he bathed her nipples with his tongue and she tried to guide him in. He only gave up to her need when she grabbed his hair, making a fist, and pulled his head up to hers, shoving her tongue deep into his mouth.

“Yes!” Leah cried out in triumph as Rob shifted his hips and slid inside of her, burying himself deep and staying there, holding his breath as he held himself above her.

“Okay?” he murmured, just like he had the first time after she’d come home, checking to make sure she wasn’t in any pain. She tried to explain to him that she was healed-the stitches had dissolved, the bleeding long ago stopped-but he had hesitated, insisting on making sure.

“Yes, yes,” she whispered impatiently. Rob began to move inside of her, slow and easy-far too easy for Leah’s liking. She whimpered and clawed at him, shifting her hips up to meet his easy thrusts.

“Rob!” she gasped. “Please!”

He knew what she wanted, but he was holding back intentionally. She hit him on the shoulder, giving a frustrated sigh, and he chuckled.

“Tell me,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear. “Tell me, Leah. Tell me what you want.”

“You know what I want!” she cried.

“I want you to tell me.” He teased her, shifting his hips just slightly. “I want to hear you say the words.”

She groaned, grabbing the back of his head again, his hair easy to clench in her fist, growling into his ear, “Do it! Fuck me!”

Rob moaned at the sound of the words from her mouth and he kissed her, plunging deep. Leah sighed in relief, wrapping her long, dancer’s legs around his hips, her heels digging into his back, driving him in deeper.

“Do it to me!” She begged him, feeling each thrust deep in her belly as he drove her across the sheets on the bed. “Yes! Fuck me! Oh like that! Yes, yes, yes!”

She felt him begin to slow and knew he was close, too close. Reaching her hand down between their bellies, she began to rub her sex, faster and faster. Rob paused to watch her, his eyes growing dark with lust as he watched her pleasure herself.

“Come for me,” he whispered, his gaze moving up to her face, their eyes locking. “Now, sweetheart. Now. Come right now.”

“Now!” Leah gasped, taking herself there, her muscles clamping around him again and again as she climaxed, head thrown back, fingers making fast, furious circles at the top of her throbbing cleft.

“Oh! Now!” Rob roared, pulling back and thrusting one time, just once, the rhythmic, telltale pulse of his orgasm chasing hers as he exploded inside of her.

Leah didn’t let him go. She kept him right there, still inside of her, cradling him against her breasts-they were fuller now too-and pulling the sheet over their sweaty bodies.

“What an awful day,” Leah said with a sigh, watching the snow fall through the skylight.

Rob chuckled. “Merry Christmas, huh?”

“Well, it started out well,” Leah mused, looking at the ring on her finger. She kissed the top of his head. “And it ended well. It was the middle part that was awful.”

He raised his head to look at her. “I have some news that might cheer you up.”

“What?”

“There’s good news and bad news,” he said cautiously.

She made a face. “What’s the good news?”

“I found a lawyer who says he can get baby Grace back.”

“Oh Rob!” She threw her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. Then she pulled back, frowning. “Wait, what’s the bad news?”

“The bad news…” He cleared his throat. “Well, the bad news is…it’s Donald Highbrow.”

Leah blinked at him, confused, and then she finally recognized the name. “Donald Highbrow? The lawyer my mother works for?”

“He’s the best, Leah,” Rob explained. “He specializes in adoption law. And there aren’t many lawyers who do.”

“Oh I don’t care.” She kissed him again, too thrilled at the thought of getting her baby back. Her arms ached, they literally ached, to hold her. And poor Rob-he’d never gotten the chance to hold her at all. Every day that went by was a day they could never get back.

“I love you, Leah,” he whispered, nuzzling his face in her hair, breathing in the scent of her. “I would do anything to make you happy.”

“You do,” she whispered back. “You do.”

When Leah was a little girl, she couldn’t pronounce the name of the man her mother worked for, so she called him Mr. Eyebrows-instead of Mr. Highbrow-and the nickname had stuck in her head ever since. She couldn’t help thinking it, even if she didn’t call him that, when the lawyer shook hands with Rob across the table before they all sat down.

Seeing her mother sitting at her desk, answering the phone, had been a shock to Leah’s system, but Rob had assured her, if anyone could get Grace back, it was Donald Highbrow, so she was willing to risk the awkward silence, sitting in the dark paneled waiting room, listening to the clack of her mother’s typewriter, occasionally interrupted by the phone.

When her mother announced, “He’ll see you now,” Leah and Rob stood together, holding hands, and Leah dared her mother with her eyes to say something, but she didn’t. Patty Wendt just waved them into another dark paneled room with a conference table in the middle surrounded by big leather upholstered chairs. Clearly, after the fiasco on Christmas, her mother had received the message loud and clear-Leah was nowhere near ready to “kiss and make up.”

Especially since she fully believed her mother had something to do with Grace’s kidnapping, even if she couldn’t prove it. Leah insisted on calling it a kidnapping, although everyone from her own mother to Erica to the doctor who had written her a prescription for sleeping pills had tried to dissuade her, even giving her helpful, alternative phrases like “forced-adoption” and “disappearance” and her favorite and her mother’s-”the mixup.”

“Leah, you’re looking well.” Donald smiled as reached into the inside pocket of his suit coat, pulling out a Bic ballpoint pen and slapping a yellow legal pad onto the desk.

Leah shrugged, not knowing what to say to that, considering the last time she’d seen him, she had been placed in four-point restraints and had so many sedatives and various other drugs in her system, she saw three of him walking into the hospital room, with three of her mother bringing up the rear.

“As I told you, we’ve fully cooperated with law enforcement, but they haven’t been much help,” Rob began, looking at Leah and squeezing her hand in reassurance.

Donald snorted, scribbling on his notepad. “I’m not surprised.”

“Neither am I,” Rob agreed with a sigh. “That’s why I hired a private investigator immediately, but so far, he’s been unable to turn up anything.”

“Nothing at all?”

Rob shook his head sadly. “It’s like she disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Well, that’s unlikely.” Donald wrote something else down, frowning. “But if Leah’s recount of the story is accurate, and she really was coerced or forced into signing the adoption papers-”

“She tricked me!”

“Yes, well, if that’s the case, the social worker will have gone out of her way to put Grace somewhere inaccessible.”

“Far away?”

“Probably,” Donald agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t get her back. It just means that private investigators aren’t going to be much help. We’re going to have to do this legally.”

Rob nodded. “That’s why we’re here.”

“Leah, I know it’s painful, but I want you to tell me again what happened. Everything you can remember about the day Grace was… the day she was-”

“Kidnapped.” Leah reached for a glass and the water pitcher sitting in the middle of the table, pouring and then sipping, giving herself time and the courage to go back to that day. It had only been a little over two weeks-two weeks! — but it felt like a lifetime.

Then Leah began to speak, slowly at first, then faster as the memories flooded in. She told him the facts-the social worker, a woman all the girls at Magdalene House had nicknamed “the ghoul,” had come in for her final visit that morning at the hospital. Leah had decided to keep her baby. She’d told the ghoul this in no uncertain terms, and Leah had naively believed the social worker had accepted this decision. Leah’s mother was due to come pick them up-Leah’s plan was to get on a bus to New York with her baby and start a new life.

That plan had come crashing down around her head, simply because she had been too naive to believe the social worker would do something so underhanded, so utterly heinous.

Leah told him the social worker had presented her with hospital discharge papers and asked her to sign them. She had been distracted, getting Grace ready to go, waiting for her mother to arrive, and she’d signed them without thinking after the ghoul told her what they were.

And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Leah remembered it only vaguely, even now. The sudden loss of her baby, the way Joan Goulden had lifted her right from her bassinette and walked out with her, the mass of doctors and nurses who had descended on Leah like a swarm of locusts straight out of the Bible, like they’d all just been waiting for that very moment. It was a well-orchestrated dance, all the moves pre-choreographed, steps those doctors and nurses had taken a hundred, a thousand times, restraining Leah and preventing her from running after the woman who had stolen her baby.

She related the story as matter-of-factly as she could, like Joe Friday said on Dragnet, revealing just the facts, ma’am, watching the lawyer writing everything down on the yellow legal pad, filling up one page and flipping to the next as she talked. Leah answered his questions when he had them, feeling her breath caught in her chest, shallow and light, her heart beating as fast as a bird’s.

She told him what happened, but it was the things she didn’t tell him that tore her apart. How sweet Grace’s little rosebud mouth had been when she made sucking motions in her sleep. How thick her dark hair had been, already curling around the tiny shell of her ear. How the baby’s hand had grasped her mother’s finger, those dark eyes tinted blue as they looked up into Leah’s face. How, the first instant she had looked into her baby’s face, she had fallen in love instantly, more completely and without any reserve, than she ever had or would again in her life.

Those things weren’t important, not to Donald Highbrow, even though, for Leah, they were the only things that mattered.

“You’re certain that Mrs. Goulden told you they were hospital discharge papers?”

“Yes.” Leah insisted. “She intentionally tricked me.”

“Were there any witnesses to that fact?”

“I don’t know.” Leah cocked her head, trying to remember. “There were no nurses in the room, but it wasn’t a private room. There were other girls with their babies. Someone might have overheard us.”

He nodded, taking more notes. “You were discharged that day, correct?”

“Yes. My mother arrived to take us home but… Grace was gone. And I went home with Rob.”

“But I understand you were readmitted to the hospital two days later?”

“She was…” Rob interjected, squeezing Leah’s hand again. “She had a little breakdown. We called our family doctor in, and after he made a house call, he felt it best to admit her overnight, so he could sedate her more fully… “

“Is that bad?” Leah swallowed shameful tears. “I didn’t mean to. I just… kind of… lost it…”

“I understand.” Donald Highbrow gave her a long, sympathetic look. “It wasn’t your fault. But I need to be honest with you, Leah. You have to understand, if we end up in court, they will use that against you.”

“I was hysterical with grief!” she protested,

“They will twist everything you said or did to fit their purpose,” he explained slowly. “You will be presented as an unwed mother, and that will be bad enough. Most courts would see you as unfit for that reason alone.”

“She won’t be an unwed mother for long,” Rob snapped. Leah saw his jaw working and knew he was angry-really angry.

Donald smiled sadly. “I can’t change the way the world works or how the judge will see things. If we end up in court, they will do everything in their power to show you as unfit, Leah, even if your circumstances have changed. I’ve gone through enough of these cases to know their tactics.”

“But I’m not unfit!” Leah choked, blinking back the tears that threatened.

“I know that,” the lawyer reassured her. “But even your overnight stay in the hospital could be used as proof that you’re mentally unstable.”

Leah covered her face with her hands, defeated. “Oh my god.”

Donald wasn’t done dealing out the facts. “They’ll want to force you to submit to a psychiatric exam with one of their doctors. He, of course, will diagnose you as sexually deviant because you got pregnant out of wedlock in the first place, and hence, you may be judged unfit to be a mother.”

“What the hell?” Rob exploded. Leah looked over at him, incredulous. “It’s like the Salem witch trials. If she drowns, she’s not a witch, but if she floats, she’s a witch, and we get to burn her!”

“Very much so, I’m afraid.” Donald nodded slowly. “If you are, indeed, married by the time we reach a courtroom, they will likely swap the sexual deviancy argument.”

Rob sat back. “Well that’s a relief.”

“I didn’t say they’d drop it. I said they’d swap it.” Donald tapped his pen on the yellow legal pad. “They will, instead, label Leah as neurotic. They will point to all of those natural reactions of grief-crying jags, bouts of anger and depression, irritability, low self-esteem, anxiety, even chronic headaches and stomachaches-as signs of neurosis that prove her unfit to be a mother.”

“Is there any hope at all?” Leah whispered, feeling the sick ball in her stomach tightening with every word out of the lawyer’s mouth.

“Of course there is!” Donald insisted, giving her a reassuring smile. He really was a handsome man, sharp in his suit, his salt and pepper hair neatly cut and combed. He had always given off a sense of confidence that Leah had deeply felt. When he talked, people really listened and trusted what he had to say. It was probably what made him such a good lawyer.

Donald reached over and patted Leah’s hand. “I just want you to be prepared for the worst. We are gearing up for war here, and we want as much ammunition as possible on our side. That’s why I need to know everything, absolutely everything that might be used against you. I can’t create a good defense if I don’t have the whole picture.”

Leah met Rob’s eyes and she knew he saw the panic in hers. What if they found out? About the secret room under the loft? The pictures? The Mary Magdalenes? Rob pressed his lips together and gave a small shake of his head, but it wasn’t reassurance enough for Leah.

“Is there anything I should know?” Donald asked, looking between them.

“We’re living together,” Leah admitted, looking back at the lawyer. “In sin. Technically.”

Donald nodded. “I would get married as quickly as possible. Elope. Go to the Justice of the Peace if you have to, just so you have a marriage license on file with the state. Appearances are important now, more than ever.”

Leah nodded, remembering that this was the man who had arranged to fake her mother’s marriage license.

Donald wrote something else down, underlining it. Twice. “Is there anything untoward in your pasts I need to know about? Any history of mental illness in your families? Any criminal history?”

Leah and Rob looked at each other. She knew what he was thinking. How could they risk telling him?

Rob shook his head. “No, not that I’m aware of. I’m an upstanding citizen. We go to church. I donate generously.”

“Your age difference is going to be problematic,” Donald said, looking directly at Rob. “No judge is going to like the fact that you impregnated a girl half your age, even if you did end up married to her.”

“I understand that.” Rob’s jaw was working again. “But it’s your job to make them understand that we’re good people, that we love each other and we want to keep our baby.”

“Yes, that it is.” Donald flipped his notepad over the desk. “And trust me, I will do my job.”

“That’s why I hired you.” Rob held out his hand and Donald shook it.

“Not yet. There’s still a matter of my retainer.” Donald laughed and nodded toward the door. “You can pay it on your way out.”

“So there really is hope?” Leah asked. “I really might get her back?”

“I’m a cautious optimist,” Donald explained, leaning back in his chair, his fingers tented under his chin. “In these cases, I find social workers and doctors take advantage of naive young girls like yourself who know nothing about the law or their rights under it. They’re told all sorts of lies, like they’ll have to pay the hospital bill before they can take their baby-which isn’t true, of course. Or they’re told their babies are already promised to families.”

Leah gasped. “That’s exactly what she told me!”

“Of course it is.” Donald grimaced. “She wanted your baby. Every baby adopted means she’s doing her job, and of course, it means there is a large donation made from a happy adoptive couple to the church.”

Rob frowned. “Is it really so nefarious?”

“Oh, no.” Donald waved the thought away. “I think these social workers really believe they’re doing what’s best for the baby. I mean, if you hadn’t come riding in on your white horse to rescue her, Leah would probably be on the streets of New York right now, doing God only knows what, with a newborn. What kind of life is that for a child?”

Leah glared at him. “A better one than without her own mother…”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Donald countered. “I believe you have rights as a mother, and the law does too. And I will defend them. I bet Mrs. Goulden didn’t tell you that you have six months from the time of your baby’s birth to change your mind, even if you did sign the adoption papers.”

“No!” Leah sat up, eyes wide, her heart soaring.“Is that true?”

“Yes, it is,” the lawyer assured her. “I’m going to file a motion in court on Monday morning using that argument to attempt to force the social worker to relinquish your baby.”

“Oh, Rob!” Leah turned to him, seeing the light in his eyes, and she threw her arms around his neck. “I’m so happy!”

“Well don’t count all the chickens before they hatch.” The lawyer sighed, looking between the two of them. “I’ve filed motions like this before and have had social workers stall, giving the judge reason after reason that baby can’t yet be relinquished. They try to stall past the six month mark, because they know they law.”

Leah sat back in her chair. “Oh…”

The lawyer leaned forward, elbows on the table, looking directly at her. “Leah, this may be a long, hard fight. I want you to be prepared for that. We always prepare for the worst but hope for the best, right? What we want to do is create a case so solid they feel overwhelmed by the evidence against them and simply give up the fight before it comes to blows. Do you understand?”

She nodded. “I’m not an unfit mother, Mr. Highbrow.”

“I know you’re not, Leah,” he said softly, glancing toward the door. “Speaking of motherhood… you should know that your own mother misses you very much. I’ve known her a long time, and I can tell you that she truly only wants what’s best for you.”

Leah felt her spine stiffen at the mention of her mother, but the way he spoke about her, the look on his face, his demeanor-it all contained an element of truth she couldn’t deny. She could feel it, his words seeping in past her defenses, melting the ice around her heart.

Could it be true?

Rob stood, taking Leah’s hand, and when he stopped at the front desk to write a check-a retainer so large, it made Leah feel faint, watching him write all those zeros-she found herself face to face again with her mother. Rob gave her the check, turning to say goodbye to the lawyer, who was talking about motions and future depositions and subpoenas, but Leah didn’t pay attention.

She watched the way her mother filed the check, turning away to dab her eyes with a tissue she hid on the other side of her typewriter.

“Mom?”

Leah’s mother looked up, almost reluctantly, like Leah might be ready to hit her with something, and the thought made Leah instantly sad and regretful.

“Erica and I are going wedding dress shopping at Hudson’s tomorrow around noon. Do you want to come?”

Leah’s mother opened her mouth to speak, closed it again, and bit her lip. She glanced over at the lawyer and he smiled, some sort of communication passing between them, and he nodded encouragingly. Leah waited, already regretting it, but she couldn’t take the invitation back now. Maybe it would give them a chance to talk, clear the air. Maybe that would be possible.

“I would love to,” her mother said, her voice almost a whisper. “Tomorrow at noon?”

Leah nodded, letting Rob take her hand. “Erica and I will meet you there.”

On their way out, down the hall, as she and Rob were embracing at the elevator and he was whispering to her how brave she was, how beautiful, how much he loved her, Leah thought she heard her mother burst into tears, but she told herself as they got into the elevator that such a thing was impossible. It had to be her imagination. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen or heard her mother cry.

Chapter Four

After a morning of opening gifts around the tree and eating the cinnamon rolls Solie had made the day before and left them for breakfast, Erica did what she did every Christmas-she took all her new stuff to her room and lined it up on her bed. There was something immensely satisfying about seeing Christmas gifts laid out this way.

Normally, she would call Leah’s house to ask what she got and they would compare notes and talk about what they were going to wear for the Nolan family dinner. Her father had kept up the tradition after Erica’s mother died, inviting Leah and her mother, as well as Father Patrick and Father Michael. Sometimes they would bring guests too, a stray nun or perhaps a generous church benefactor. Erica never knew who was going to show up, but Solie would arrive around two in the afternoon to start putting dinner together. Half of it was already prepped in their refrigerator.

Erica looked at her lineup of presents, finding it far less satisfying in the moment than she had on former Christmases. For some reason, her new clothes, records, jewelry and perfume didn’t make her anywhere near as happy as she’d been in the past. She should have been on the phone with Leah, but instead her best friend had gone up to the loft with her future husband, something Erica couldn’t have imagined happening in her wildest dreams, effectively shutting her out. Things weren’t the same, even with Leah back, and she knew they’d never be the same again, in spite of the way everyone kept pretending they were. It made her sad.

Then she remembered the piece of paper shoved into the pocket of her winter coat.

Erica went down the hall and dug it out-it was a flyer for the midnight mass at Mary Magdalene’s church advertising the “live nativity scene.” There was a picture of the scene on the front. Father Michael had commissioned Robert Nolan to take it for him, and it was a lovely photo of Erica dressed as the Virgin Mary holding a baby Jesus-only this was really just a doll wrapped in a blanket, its face turned away from the camera so you couldn’t tell. Father Michael didn’t introduce a real baby to the mix until the big night.

The Virgin Mary’s face was turned up to Joseph, played by Clayton Marshall Webber III, who was handsome even in his simple robes and goofy sandals. She’d never noticed the way he was looking at her before, like he worshipped the ground she walked on. He was clearly a good actor. It made for the perfect photo of the scene they were portraying, but after the night she’d spent with Clay, she wondered how much of it was really acting. She turned the flyer over and found the number he’d scribbled there.

He had asked for her number, but Erica had hemmed and hawed. The truth was, she didn’t want him calling her house and having Leah answer. She didn’t want to explain his presence in her life aside from Father Michael’s play. And then she’d gone and snuck out to meet him and then invited him to Christmas dinner, of all things. So much for her original plan.

Erica headed back down the hallway, slipping though the living room, glancing up at the loft where her father-and now Leah-slept. It was quiet. She went down the hall toward the kitchen, stopping at the telephone table and staring at the phone. Erica had never called a boy in her life, except for Bobby, and they’d been going out forever by that time. And even then, she didn’t do it often. Only when she had to. Good girls didn’t call boys. They didn’t ask boys out. They didn’t ask them over for dinner. They certainly didn’t sneak out in the middle of the night to meet them and they definitely didn’t have sex with them. Ever. Let alone on the first date.

She picked up the receiver and began to dial the extension. Her heart thudded in her chest and she told herself she was being silly. But she knew, if his mother answered, she was going to just hang up the phone and run back to her bedroom. It rang and rang, and she wondered if they got up late on Christmas. Was she interrupting their gift opening? She knew she shouldn’t be calling him at all, let alone on Christmas Day. Besides, what was she doing? Clay was nice enough, handsome, clean-cut, and he made her laugh with his sarcastic, sacrilegious sense of humor, but in spite of her actions the night before, she wasn’t in any danger of falling head over heels for him.

Her heart belonged to someone else. He just happened to be someone she could never, ever be with.

Erica was about to replace the receiver back in the cradle when she heard a breathless voice on the other end of the line say, “Hello?”

“Oh…um… hi. Clay?”

“Erica?” His voice warmed immediately. He sounded far more pleased than she liked and she blushed, glad he couldn’t see her as she twisted the phone cord around her finger.

“Yes. Hi.”

“Well hi! I was in the shower. I thought you’d be my dad calling from Washington, so I ran out to get it.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She blushed a deeper shade of red, picturing him dripping in the hallway wearing just a towel. “I didn’t mean to disappoint you.”

“I’m definitely not disappointed, trust me.” His voice was even warmer now. It made her feel as if she was standing next to a hot stove. “I’m looking forward to dinner. I get two Christmas dinners. I have to be the luckiest man alive.”

“About that…” Erica closed her eyes, twisting the cord around and around.

“Yeah?” He sounded cautious, disappointed already, and she couldn’t do it. She knew it was the right thing to do, to cut ties now, to tell him he was a nice boy, but she just couldn’t lead him on anymore, but he sounded so crushed at the thought of being disinvited to dinner, she couldn’t bear to disinvite him from her life altogether.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay with goose.”

“Goose?”

“Yes, we’re having goose. My father’s a traditionalist. He likes to do Christmas Dickens-style.”

“Oh! Sure.” The buoyancy in his voice returned. “I’d eat moose if I had to, just to sit next to you at the table.”

She laughed. “No moose, thank goodness. Don’t mention it, you’d give my father ideas.”

There was a brief, awkward silence. Erica heard something in the background, the sound of young children laughing, squealing.

“Do you need me to let you go?”

“No.” Clay sighed, sounding annoyed. “Hang on.”

She heard him scolding someone, and then he was back, and the line was quieter. “This is better. I’m in the hall closet. Sorry about the rug rats.”

“The what?”

“Foster kids,” Clay explained. “My parents only had me, and my mother has started fostering kids in the past few years to fill the empty hole in her life she’s anticipating when I fly off to college.”

Erica laughed. “How many of them? It sounds like a zoo.”

“Just two. They’re five and eight. Oh, and there’s a new baby now too. But it’s sleeping.”

“Three?” Erica blinked. “That’s a lot of kids!”

“She only does it for a little while,” Clay explained. “Until they get adopted. It’s little babies most of the time. She gets to cuddle them and then gives them away. And she doesn’t take care of them really. Connie does.”

“Who’s Connie?”

Clay hesitated and then mumbled the word, like he didn’t want her to hear. “My nanny.”

“Your nanny?” Erica exclaimed, grinning. “You still have a nanny?”

“She used to be my nanny,” he protested. “Now she… she just does what my mother tells her. Takes care of the house, the shopping, the cleaning. The dogs. The cats. The foster kids.”

“Dogs, cats and kids? How big of a hole is she expecting when you leave for college?”

“Oh, just, you know, Grand Canyon size,” Clay replied with a snort. “She says she’s doing her Christian duty. I say she’s getting her baby-fix.”

“I thought you said she works? For the church?”

“My mother? Work?” Clayton barked laughter. “She volunteers. Keeps their records. Gertrude Louise Webber nee Phillips would not stoop to working for a living. She inherited her money. It keeps her supported in the manner to which she’s become accustomed, so she doesn’t have to complain about my father’s low-paying teaching posts.”

“He’s the astronaut, right?”

“Astronomer,” Clay corrected with an indulgent laugh. “He’s on the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. It’s a government job and a pretty big deal, what with Sputnik and the space race and all. They’re going to put a man on the moon before the Russians.”

“No way!” Erica exclaimed. “That’s science fiction talk.”

“It’s not really. Anyway, he flies to Washington because my mother doesn’t want to leave here-she grew up in the house we live in-and he tries to convince her to move every time he comes back, and it goes round and round.”

“Does he approve of the rug rats?”

Clay barked another laugh. “He doesn’t get a say. Besides, he’s gone so much, what does it matter? Let’s change the subject. What did Santa bring you for Christmas?”

“Clothes. Some jewelry. Lots of new records. What did you get?”

“Same. Well, no jewelry.” He laughed. “But clothes and records. My father got me a telescope. Another one. He still thinks I’m going to follow in his footsteps some day.”

“Don’t you want to be an astronaut?” she teased.

“Astronomer. And hell no. But my mother got me a typewriter, so it kind of balanced out.”

“A typewriter!” Erica exclaimed. “I’m jealous.”

“You don’t have one? Aren’t you editor of your school paper?”

She rolled her eyes. “Mary Magdalene’s little rag isn’t much of a paper. Mostly recipes and cleaning tips and advertising dances and church functions.”

“Yeah, well, I think my mother was sick of all the time I spend at St. Casimir’s using their typewriters to write.”

“What do you write?”

“Oh everything.” He sounded rather proud. “I’m in charge of St. Casimir’s school paper, but that’s the least of it. I’ve got two other top-secret projects I’m working on.”

“Top secret?” Erica perked up, her curious kitty nose already twitching at the scent of a mystery. “That sounds interesting.”

“It is. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday,” he teased. “Hey, I forgot to ask… about last night… er, well, I guess it was really this morning…”

“Yes?”

Clay cleared his throat and asked, “Are you… you know… okay?”

“Yes.” She smiled. “I’m fine.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing you,” he said. She could hear banging and the sound of little kids’ voices.

“Me too,” Erica said, saying the words perfunctorily but finding out they were true. “Sounds like you’ve been found out.”

“Yeah, can I let you go? Sorry…”

“Sure. See you later.”

They said goodbye and hung up and Erica stood staring at the phone, thinking about the reason she’d accepted Clay’s invitation in the first place, and how things had snowballed from there. Her only intention had been to make Father Michael jealous, and she was sure she would accomplish that when Clay showed up for Christmas dinner, but now that she’d actually invited him, she regretted it. Not because she didn’t want to see him, but because she didn’t know which one she looked forward to seeing more-Clay or Father Michael.

That was a problem.

Father Michael and Father Patrick arrived first. Erica was still in her room getting ready when she heard his voice down the hallway and she felt her knees get weak at the sound of his laugh. Solie had opened the door to let them in but her father was close by, greeting them and asking what they wanted to drink. Erica stood looking at herself in the mirror over her dresser, wearing a brand new designer dress, her hair set in soft blond waves, curling prettily around her ears and pink cheeks. She didn’t even have to apply rouge, she was already flushed with excitement. She flattened the collar on her dress, the combination of black silk and pink roses and white lace making her fair complexion stand out like cream, waiting for them to congregate in the living room, waiting to hear her father drop a record on the new stereo he’d bought them for Christmas. She waited to make an entrance, waited for Father Michael to have time to think about her, wonder where she was, maybe even ask.

She clicked down the hallway in her stilettos on the hardwood floor, reminding herself to breathe, to smile and act casual when she saw him, because no one knew, no one could ever know. just how much in love with him she really was.

Her timing was perfect. Father Michael was holding a highball glass in his hand, saying something to Erica’s father-the three men were standing next to the bar-and his glass immediately stopped its motion toward his mouth when he saw her coming into the room. Erica met his eyes and swallowed, feeling his gaze sweeping her, drinking in her nearly perfected feminine beauty, far more heady than whatever was in his glass from the look on his face. She had elicited the reaction she wanted, and instead of buoying her up, it sank her like the Titanic, a slow, inevitable death. She saw the look in his eyes, the longing and pain in them, and felt instantly sorry for being the cause. What was she thinking?

“There’s my girl.” Erica’s father held out a hand and she went to him, glancing at Leah, who was sitting on the sofa with a highball glass of her own. She looked quiet and sad, her usual demeanor since she’d come home.

Erica said her hellos but was glad when her father asked her to go to the kitchen and inquire about Solie’s hors d'oeuvres. She found Solie standing over a roasted goose, using a baster to glaze its already golden skin before putting it back into the oven. It made the whole place smell darkly delicious.

“Daddy was wondering about the hors d'oeuvre?” Erica said, sneaking two olives from the relish tray and eating them before Solie could turn back around.

“Goodness, I’m busier than a one-armed paper-hanger!” Solie nodded toward a tray on the table. “Can you give me a hand and fill those tomatoes?”

Erica sat, beginning to fill the hollowed-out cherry tomatoes with a mixture of green onion, cream cheese and garlic. It smelled so good her stomach rumbled in protest.

“Is everyone here?” Solie asked, sitting beside Erica with another spoon, the job moving much faster with both of them working on it.

“Father Patrick and Father Michael are here.” Erica shrugged. “I don’t know who else Daddy invited. I have a friend coming.”

“Do you now?” Solie raised an eyebrow at her.

“Just a friend.” Erica popped one of the cherries into her mouth, avoiding the slap of Solie’s protesting hand with a deft grace acquired from years of practice. She’d been sneaking food off Solie’s trays since she could walk. “Can I take these out now?”

“You go ahead. Make sure Miss Leah gets some of those stuffed celeries. Those are her favorites.”

“Okay.” Erica balanced one tray on one hand before sliding the second off the table with her other.

“She’s doing better, Miss Leah is?” Solie inquired, a worried look in her eyes.

“Hard to say.” Erica sighed. “She doesn’t talk much.”

She took the hors d'oeuvres out and put them on the coffee table. Everyone was seated on the living room sofa and chairs, her father next to Leah on the sofa, arm around her shoulder. Father Patrick had taken the wing-back chair, which left the space next to Father Michael on the loveseat the only one available. Erica sat beside him, crossing her legs and watching them all eat stuffed cherry tomatoes and celery and make small talk, while her heart was beating so hard it threatened to burst out of her chest. It wasn’t fair that broken hearts were allowed to still beat for the things they so loved and wanted.

“You look lovely, Erica.”

She glanced up at Father Michael’s soft words, spoken just to her, for her ears only. Her father and Father Patrick were discussing Eisenhower quite loudly and Leah-she was still off in her own little world.

“Thank you.”

“I miss our Mayflower mornings.”

They had met for coffee every morning at the Mayflower cafe for months, but then, after Leah had come home, after things had progressed between Erica and Father Michael to the point where neither of them could deny how they felt anymore, he had just stopped coming. No warning, no nothing.

She couldn’t forget the tender press of his lips against hers, the way her heart leapt at his touch. The heart just didn’t lie, and her heart had beat for him since. The Mayflower had been their little refuge, and when he’d finally stopped coming, she had lost something much worse than her broken heart could bear. She’d lost the only man she had ever truly loved.

“Me too,” Erica admitted. “I wish…”

But of course he knew what she wished. She knew he wished it too.

“I have something for you.” He cleared his throat, taking a sip of his drink. “A small Christmas gift. I meant to give it to you last night, after midnight mass…”

Erica remembered the way he’d looked at her, how he’d frowned when he saw Clay bending down to whisper something into her ear to make her laugh, how her already broken heart seemed to shatter again to bits. Just when she thought it couldn’t break anymore, it happened again, as if her heart could continue to split into the tiniest pieces, the smallest atoms. He’d motioned for her, but she’d ignored him, turning to Clay instead, pretending not to see, not to notice. She was punishing him, punishing them both, but what else could she do? She wanted him, he wanted her, but they couldn’t be together. What more did he want from her?

“I thought maybe we might have coffee at the Mayflower on Monday. Just this once?”

Erica hesitated, biting her lip. She knew she shouldn’t.

He leaned in, whispering, “Besides, I have some information for you, Nancy Drew.”

She couldn’t help the smile that spread over her face. Whenever they had put their heads together to solve a mystery, whether it was finding missing Leah’s whereabouts or unraveling the secrets of the Mary Magdalenes, Father Michael had made jokes, calling her Nancy Drew and saying he was just one of the Hardy Boys.

“Okay.” She told herself she shouldn’t do it, shouldn’t give in, it was only prolonging the torture for both of them. But she couldn’t resist, she couldn’t say no, in spite of her better judgment. Besides, she never could resist a secret.

That’s when the doorbell rang and Erica’s stomach dropped, knowing it was Clay, and she didn’t think she could bear the hurt look in Father’s Michael’s eyes when he saw who Erica had invited to Christmas dinner. Solie came bustling out of the kitchen at the sound of the doorbell, a sound that echoed off the high ceiling in the warehouse, but Erica stood, shooing her back toward the kitchen.

“I’ll get it, Solie. You take care of the goose.”

Erica went reluctantly down the hall like a man taking the walk on death row toward his own demise. She took a deep breath and put on a smile as she opened the door, but that disappeared the instant she saw who it was.

“Hello Erica.” Leah’s mother stepped past her into the warehouse, already shrugging off her coat, shaking stray snowflakes onto the floor. It was still snowing outside. “How have you been?”

“Hi Mrs. Wendt.” Erica blinked at her, thinking maybe she was dreaming or delusional. She heard her father’s voice, his steps down the hallway, and turned to him for rescue as he approached.

“Hello Patty.” He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek she offered toward him. “Merry Christmas. So glad you could come.”

“You invited her?” Erica blurted before she could even think. They both gave her a look that made her feel like crawling into a hole. Instead, she shut the door against the cold, leaning back against it.

“Merry Christmas to you too, Erica,” Patty Wendt said sarcastically.

“Does Leah know?” Erica whispered, glancing down the hall toward the living room where her best friend sat, quiet, probably still mildly sedated-the doctor had sent her home with some heavy prescription medication-and likely unsuspecting. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all.

“She will in a minute. I’m sure Leah will be happy to see her mother. It is Christmas, after all.” Erica’s father put an arm around Patty’s shoulders, giving Erica her coat to hang up before guiding Leah’s mother toward the living room.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Erica whispered under her breath, watching them with a sinking feeling in her gut. She hung up Mrs. Wendt’s coat, anything to draw out her walk down the hallway to the living room where disaster was just waiting to happen.

But when she surreptitiously peeked around the corner, she found everyone sitting, Mrs. Wendt next to Father Michael, holding her own drink and chatting away. Erica practically tiptoed into the living room, edging around the furniture until she was standing next to Leah’s mother on the loveseat. Leah was still sitting quietly next to Erica’s dad, sipping her drink. There was no expression on her face-no anger, no surprise, no enthusiasm. Nothing. It was like she was there, but not.

Erica watched in disbelief as Leah accepted a gift from her mother. She even opened it-a new watch-and apologized for not having anything for her in return. Erica didn’t understand it. Leah had been adamant about not wanting to have anything to do with her mother after Grace had been taken. Leah seemed to believe-and Erica had no idea if it was true or not-that Mrs. Wendt had somehow plotted, planned or orchestrated the kidnapping with the social worker. Leah’s mother denied it, of course, and there was a time when Erica would have believed her, but Erica also never would have thought Mrs. Wendt would secretly sequester her daughter in a maternity home for unwed mothers and refuse to tell anyone where she was either, and she’d done that, so…

Erica didn’t move when the doorbell rang again, and this time it was Solie who answered. The surprise of Clayton Marshall Webber III in the mix of dinner guests didn’t faze anyone by then. Although she saw Father Michael scowl at the way Clay stood so close to Erica, close enough he could whisper things to make her laugh, and Clay managed to snag the seat next to Erica before Father Michael could.

They all sat down to dinner and Father Michael said the prayer, which was beautiful enough to make Erica’s throat develop a lump she had to swallow down, and she thought, as food got passed and the goose got eaten, along with Solie’s mashed potatoes and sweet potato pie, that this strange, surreal Christmas dinner might actually pass without incident, something she never would have expected when she answered the door and found Leah’s mother on their doorstep.

But that was before Father Patrick and Clay got into an argument about desegregation.

“Are you telling me you don’t believe institutions like schools and churches should be desegregated? What about Brown vs. the Board of Education? It’s the law!” Clay leaned his elbows on the table, looking across it at Father Patrick.

The old priest shook his head. “The letter of the law and the practical implementation of that law are two different things. We have all sorts of laws on the books, son, but we enforce some more than others.”

“I think there’s room in God’s house for everyone,” Father Michael interjected.

Clay sat back in his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. “If we don’t desegregate our schools, our restaurants-yes, even our churches-we’re going to have race riots again like we had back in the ’40’s. Mark my words.”

Father Patrick chuckled. “How many black Catholics do you know, son?”

“Solie, wouldn’t you like to go to midnight mass with the Nolans every year?” Clay turned to the black woman to his left who clearing the main dishes to make room for dessert and Solie froze, blinking at him in surprise. “I mean, you make this beautiful dinner for them on Christmas, and I’m sure Mr. Nolan pays you a decent wage. But you can’t shop for food in the same stores. Your children can’t go to school with his. You can’t even go to church with them.”

“I like my little church,” Solie said with a laugh. “We have a lovely choir.”

Father Patrick smiled in triumph, wiping his lips with his napkin as Solie went back to the kitchen. “You see? Even blacks don’t want what the letter of the law tells us to do. Desegregation is just not enforceable.”

Clay wouldn’t drop it. “There are plenty of blacks who do want it. And I bet even Solie would change her mind if her wage didn’t depend on what she says.”

“Now wait a minute…” Robert Nolan tossed his napkin on his plate as Solie walked by. “If you’re implying-”

“They segregated the babies in the nursery.” Leah spoke up for the first time during dinner. Her voice was small, but they all heard her and stopped. “It was kind of sad to see all the little black babies on one side and all the white babies on the other. There was a window between them.”

“It’s not sad, it’s necessary,” Leah’s mother interjected. “Who knows what sorts of diseases those babies might pass on?”

Erica winced, feeling Clay stiffen beside her, and she met Leah’s incredulous stare, seeing the anger coming to a boil just under the surface. This wasn’t going to end well.

“What I mean is, they’re different.” Leah’s mother realized her mistake, trying to defend her original assertion. “They have different immune systems.”

“So white babies might catch something from the little black babies, Mrs. Wendt?” Clay asked. “I just want to be clear about what you’re saying. The white babies have inferior immune systems?”

“No…” Leah’s mother flushed, looking flustered, searching the table for someone to rescue her.

Father Patrick made the attempt. “I know what you mean, Patty.”

“I wish I was a black girl.” Once again, Leah stopped the rest of the conversation, looking across the table at her mother, who gaped at her in shock. “Do you know why? Can you guess?”

No one said anything. They didn’t even move. They were all looking at Leah.

“Because all the black girls, they got to keep their babies. It’s true! But all the white girls, they had to give theirs away. Why is that, I wonder?”

“Leah…” Rob put a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh I’m sorry, we’re all supposed to pretend, aren’t we?” Leah snapped, glaring across the table at her mother. “We’re all supposed to pretend that I wasn’t sent away, that I didn’t have a baby. That my baby wasn’t stolen from me and given to some rich couple who could afford to give a very generous donation to the church!”

“Leah, stop.” Patty Wendt tossed her napkin on her plate. “No one wants to hear this.”

“You want me to stop? Why should I stop? Why? You don’t want everyone to know the shame I’ve brought on you? Please, Mother. What was my crime?” Leah stood, tears filling her eyes. “I fell in love. I got pregnant. I had a baby. In the end, the only difference between me and you was a wedding ring and a marriage license. And yours were fake anyway, weren’t they?”

“Leah!” Patty sat back in her chair like she’d been punched in the stomach.

“I’m going to be married, Mother. Does that finally make you happy? I have a ring.” She waved it under her mother’s nose across the table. “Does that make it better? I’m going to be married in the church like a good Catholic girl. And my marriage license will be real.”

“Leah.” Rob stood, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Enough.”

Father Patrick stood too, pointing a gnarled finger at her. “Not in my church, you’re not!”

“What?” Rob turned to look at the old priest, incredulous. “What are you saying?”

“Your child was born out of wedlock,” Father Patrick reminded her-reminded them all. “I have a right and a duty to guard the sacrament of marriage. You could never get married in the church. You have sinned in the eyes of God. And even if you do find this child, she can never be baptized in the faith.”

Leah’s mother took a drink of her wine, looking over at her daughter. “It doesn’t matter, really. You’re young, you’re getting married. You’ll have plenty more children.”

Erica grabbed Clay’s hand under the table, squeezing hard. How could she say something like that? She saw the pain in Leah’s eyes.

Father Michael stood, putting his hand on the old man’s arm, trying to make peace, like always. “We can make exceptions…”

“We can.” Father Patrick glared at Leah. “But we will not.”

“You hypocrite!” Leah lunged across the table at the clergyman, but Rob grabbed her in time to save what was left of the goose in the middle of the table and to keep her from gouging out the old man’s eyes. “Half the babies that are born at Magdalene House are your responsibility! You-!”

“I think you’d better go, Father,” Rob interrupted her and Leah struggled against the restraint of his arms, hissing at him like a cat, but he didn’t let her go.

“I’m sorry.” Father Michael took the older priest’s elbow, guiding him out of the dining room without another word.

“I think you’d better go with him, Mother!” Leah snapped, eyes blazing.

“Fine.” Patty Wendt stood, following the clergyman, glancing over her shoulder and calling back, “You really need to help her start accepting the way things are, Rob. You can’t coddle her forever.”

Leah screamed at that. It wasn’t intelligible, it was just a scream, so loud and blood-curdling that Erica felt frozen in her chair.

“Yeah. I should go too.” Clay stood, looking at Erica as he edged his way around the table. Leah was still screaming, crying now, turning in Rob’s arms, clawing at him. Erica begged Clay with her eyes, but he didn’t understand. He just gave a little wave. “Thanks for dinner, Nolans.”

Erica jumped up. “I’m going with you!”

“No you’re not,” her father countered, not letting go of Leah. Solie appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishrag and looking at them all like they were crazy. Erica thought she was probably correct in her assessment.

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore.” Erica sneered at him, catching up with Clay and following him down the hall. She ignored her father calling after her, insisting she come back. She ignored the sound of her best friend’s screams. They were like the howls of a dying animal.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” Erica whispered in the hallway as she and Clay pulled on their coats. “Well you’ve met my crazy family.”

Clay grabbed her hand as they walked out the door. “That’s okay, you haven’t met mine yet.”

“It can’t be as bad as that,” Erica shivered as they stood on the sidewalk in the snow. She saw Father Michael helping Father Patrick into the car, saw the hurt on his face, the concern in his eyes, and turned away from it.

Clay was there, holding her hand and smiling a big, goofy smile.

“Sure you want to sign up for this?” Erica jerked her head toward the warehouse. “They’re all a couple bananas short of a bunch.”

“Girl, I’m already bananas for you.” He took her into his arms and kissed her right there on the street. And she let him.

Chapter Five

Leah wouldn’t let Rob come with her to pick a wedding dress, insisting on tradition, even though they wouldn’t be married in the church after all. She should have expected something like it from Father Patrick, but somehow it still came as a shock to be ostracized from the church. She’d discovered so much about the hypocrisy of the church in the past year, so many shameful, scandalous secrets, she knew it should be she who rejected them, not the other way around, but somehow the seeds of faith that had been planted when she was young had wound themselves through her life and had taken root. She could no longer throw over her belief in God and the Catholic Church than she could have cut out her own heart.

Hudson’s bridal section took up the entire, magical sixth floor of the twenty-something story building. She and Erica used to sneak up there when they were little and play hide and seek in the sea of white satin dresses on the rack while their mothers lunched on the thirteenth floor. They thought the girls were playing in the toys section of the store. Both girls had cut out pictures of wedding dresses from magazines, putting them into the hope chests at the foot of their beds. They had compared notes on cuts, color (white, of course, but bridesmaid dresses could be any color) and style for years, changing their minds a hundred times over, dreaming of prince charming all the while.

She couldn’t believe she was entering Hudson’s bridal department as a bride, and she never could have fathomed she would be marrying her best friend’s father, a man she’d called “Mr. Nolan,” most of her life and had always thought of as sort of her replacement father. Things had changed so drastically in the past year, her life now was unrecognizable to the one she’d lived until falling in love with Rob. Things felt flipped, upside down even. Here she was shopping for a wedding dress, but she’d already given birth to her future husband’s child, had already been transformed from the young girl she’d been into a woman and a mother.

So when the elevator operator stopped it at the sixth, calling out, “Bridal shop!” it was with some trepidation that she stepped off. The entire floor smelled like floral perfume from the sachets hanging amidst the rows of dresses, the carpet a thick, bridal white, the mass of dresses, literally hundreds of them to choose from, an overwhelming sea of virginal satin and lace. It took a girl’s breath away in an instant and made Leah’s pulse race. If Pavlov had studied the shopping habits of females, he would have discovered that bridal shops had the same effect on the feminine population as potential nourishment did on canines.

“Can I help you?” One of the saleswomen came around the other side of the counter where she had been flipping through a magazine. She was a blonde, her long hair falling in careful waves over her shoulders, wearing a smart, cream-colored pinstriped suit coat and matching skirt, the blouse underneath decorated with pink ruffles. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Oh, yes.” Leah glanced around, glimpsing another young bride in the back standing on a pedestal in a white dress and veil, surrounded by girls ohhhing and ahhhhhing over her choice. “Leah Wendt. Er, Nolan. Leah Nolan.”

Leah blinked at the name change. They had registered for gifts at Hudson’s too, under the Nolan name, but she’d never put her first name and Rob’s last name together out loud before.

“Oh good. You’re a little early.” The saleswoman went back behind the counter and Leah followed, watching her flip open a big book, her pink lacquered nail tracing its way down loopy, scrawled handwritten entries to Leah’s name. She looked older than Leah, but not by that much. Five or six years maybe.

“Is your bridal party coming?” the saleswoman asked, glancing behind Leah as if a gaggle of girls might appear out of thin air.

“Yes. Well, my maid of honor. And… my mother. That’s it.”

Leah had never been one to collect a bunch of friends, and considering her current circumstances, she was no longer in contact with the girls she might have asked from Mary Magdalene’s, either her former high school or their two-year preparatory college.

The only girls she would have asked were now scattered to the wind. She felt closer to the girls she’d met at the maternity home, all of them hidden away at Magdalene House, who she’d only known for six short months, than she did to any of the girls she’d gone to school with.

There was little Lizzie, with the face of a china doll, whose baby had been shockingly fathered by her own father. Slow Jean, poor dim-witted Jean, who had shadowed Lizzie like an adoring puppy dog, who had missed her friend so much when Lizzie had to leave Magdalene House, she’d thrown herself down a flight of stairs in an attempt to miscarry. And Frannie, whose belly had grown so big because she was carrying twins, whose babies had been separated and given to two different adoptive couples to maximize the donation to the church from the parents. And then there was Marty. Leah missed her most of all. Spunky redheaded Marty, who had first introduced her to the Mary Magdalenes, the secret society Erica had somehow gotten herself involved with.

Leah still hadn’t told Erica she knew about the Mary Magdalenes, about the sex rituals and the literal Madonna/whore complex being played out by the Catholic priests and nuns who participated. Marty had explained how they split the girls into two categories, Marys and Magdalenes-Madonnas and whores-and while they had sex with all of them, only the Magdalenes bore Eve’s burden of sin, becoming pregnant with the seed of man, while the Marys remained pure, perpetual virgins, although Leah was still unclear on how they managed that last feat.

It was so shocking and horrific when you heard it expressed in black and white, it seemed too impossible to be true, and Leah probably wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, hadn’t witnessed her best friend’s nude body painted and strapped to a giant cross, if she hadn’t walked the secret tunnels under the church to its center where the Mary girls were on the virginal white side and the Magdalenes on the sinful red, and everywhere there was the smell of sex hanging in the air, the one thing that served to join them both.

Marty had tried to explain it, Leah remembered, how they became slowly indoctrinated-brainwashed was more like it, Leah thought-becoming connected as sisters, unwilling to tell their shocking, outlandish secret to the world, not only out of fear of retaliation from the church, but out of fear of compromising their sisters as well. And of course, there was incentive to stay. The virginal Marys were special and “taken care of” for the rest of their lives by the church. They and their families would want for nothing. The Magdalenes received a one-time payment of ten thousand dollars when they gave up their baby for adoption.

And of course, that worked out well for the maternity homes like Leah had been forced into. There were hundreds, if not thousands of places like Magdalene House all over the world, where Magdalene babies were born and then adopted out to infertile but rich Catholic couples who were willing to give a large donation to the church in exchange for a healthy newborn.

Marty had managed to cut ties with the Magdalenes. She’d found a way out, giving up the money she would have received from the church, initiating a secret correspondence and eventually going halfway across the world to enter into an arranged marriage in order to keep her baby.

Leah didn’t know where Marty was, didn’t have a forwarding address. She didn’t know where any of them were. They were the girls she would have asked to stand up in her wedding. They would have understood the bittersweet moment, marrying the man she loved while her baby was still out there, somewhere. They knew her more deeply than anyone, and she had never even known their real names.

All of the girls at Magdalene House had adopted fake names, and when their babies were adopted, they disappeared into the world, back to their homes, moving like shadows through their former lives, changed forever, immeasurably, but no one knew it, except those girls who had gone through it with them, whose names they never knew.

“Leah!”

She turned toward the sound of her name, hoping Erica had arrived, but it was Leah’s mother instead, stepping smiling off the elevator. Leah felt the knot in her stomach cinch a little tighter, and she instantly regretted her decision to let her mother take part in this process. She should have hardened her heart-she’d been taught by the best, after all-but it had been Donald Highbrow who had elicited Leah’s sympathy, who had softened her to this woman who had given birth to her.

“Your mother?” the saleswoman surmised and Leah nodded, although she knew it was an easy guess. They looked so much alike, they were often mistaken for sisters.

“Hi Mom.”

“Sorry, I got caught up at coat check on the mezzanine talking to Gertie Webber from the Ladies Auxiliary.” Leah’s mother smiled, holding her white-gloved hand out to the saleswoman, and they shook hands and shared a look Leah understood and resented. The grown-ups were here, so they could start now.

“Patty Wendt,” Leah’s mother introduced herself, pulling her gloves off one finger at a time.

“Irene Showalter.”

“Showalter. Any relation to Ruby Showalter?”

Irene nodded. “My mother.”

“I thought I saw a resemblance. I went to school with Ruby Showalter. How is she?”

“She’s passed on, ma’am,” Irene informed her.

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Leah’s mother patted the girl on the shoulder. “How awful to lose your mother so young.”

“Yes. Thank you.” Irene glanced toward the elevator. “Are you expecting anyone else?”

“My maid of honor.”

Leah’s mother smiled. “She’s obviously running a little late.”

“Well I can start showing you some dresses,” Irene said. “Do you have an idea of what you’re looking for?”

Only a lifetime of them, Leah thought, staring at the rows of white satin.

“Something with a high collar, lots of lace, a full veil,” Patty said, glancing at her daughter. “You do want a full veil don’t you, Leah?”

Leah blinked at her. “Umm…”

But they were already off and running, Irene leading them into the back where there were even more dresses, showing her mother a Scarlett O’Hara affair with so much tiered lace it looked as if the dress could stand up by itself.

“Eighty yards of lace.” Irene whispered this revelation as if it would shock them.

“How about this one?” Leah pulled one of the dresses out on its hanger, surprised by how heavy it was-a gorgeous white satin concoction, sleeveless with a sweetheart bodice.

“Oh Leah, sleeveless?” Patty Wendt made a face. “Besides, you can’t be thinking of white?”

Leah blinked at her in disbelief. “Well, Mother, you’re one to talk.”

“I just meant…” Patty sank down onto one of the cushioned benches.

“Why don’t I let you two look around for a while?” Irene said, taking a step back. “I think I hear the phone ringing…”

“I’m sorry, Leah,” her mother apologized. “I didn’t mean… I just…”

“Mother, this is my wedding. Don’t make me regret asking you to come here today.”

“I know that. I’m sorry. You’re right,” she said, holding up her hands, palms out in supplication. “I just thought, you know, since you’ve already given birth, you might want something a little more reserved in off-white or cream? They have some lovely bridal yellows now…”

Leah shoved the dress back in the mix, snagging the hanger on the rod. “I’m wearing white, and you’re not going to shame me out of it.”

“Oh Leah, I wasn’t trying to shame you.”

“Yes you were.” Leah flipped through the dresses on hangers, not really seeing anything except white. White, white and more white. A color that she wasn’t allowed to wear anymore apparently. She was too tainted. Damaged goods.

“I’m really sorry,” her mother insisted, pleading. “Can we start over?”

Leah looked at her, crossing her arms over her chest. “I don’t know. I was kind of hoping we could, but it isn’t starting out that way, is it?”

Her mother sighed. “I really am sorry.”

“Sorry is nice, but it doesn’t change anything.”

Patty Wendt threw up her hands in disgust. “What would you like from me?”

“Honesty.”

“I thought I was being honest.”

“Right.” Leah scoffed. “You’re only honest when you can use it on someone else as an excuse to be cruel. How about trying some honesty about yourself on for size?”

Leah’s mother glanced around, smoothing her skirt, picking imaginary lint off the black material. “What do you want to know?”

“Who is my father?” Leah just plunged ahead, not caring who overheard, whether it was Irene the salesgirl or the other bride and her bevy of bridesmaids.

“I don’t know.” Leah’s mother said this with no hesitation, lifting her chin and looking at her daughter.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Leah scowled. “For years I thought my father was a sailor named Victor Wendt who died in some accident out at sea. But it turns out that was a lie. You were never even married.”

Leah’s mother nodded, her weary eyes closing, resting her forehead against her hand. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Leah, but you have to understand, a girl in my position couldn’t be unmarried with a baby. It would have been far too scandalous. I couldn’t have held my head up anywhere in town.”

“And then you lied again and told me Robert Nolan was my father,” Leah reminded her.

“Leah, you have to understand, I really believed…” Her mother lifted her head, pleading at her with her eyes. “I didn’t know he wasn’t. I truly didn’t know.”

“Well, considering blood tests have completely ruled him out as my father, I guess you have some explaining to do. How many other men could it be, Mother?”

Patty winced, looking as if Leah had stabbed her in the gut with something small but painful, like an ice pick or a knitting needle.

Leah stabbed her again. “I know you didn’t have an opportunity to have a wedding, but it sounds like you couldn’t even have an off-white wedding. Perhaps red is more your color?”

Her mother made a small, wounded sound, actually flinching as if she’d been struck. “You have a tongue sharper than your grandmother’s.”

Leah laughed. “Funny, here I thought I learned from the best.”

“Leah, stop.”

“So tell me. How many men were there, Mother?” Leah didn’t bother to keep her voice down. She knew the girls around the corner were listening. Irene Showalter was certainly listening. Leah didn’t care. Let them all hear the truth. “Rob isn’t my father, we know that much. So let’s narrow it down. Should we make a list? Let me find a pen…”

Leah made the pretense, snapping her pocketbook open.

“Hundreds,” Patty hissed, her eyes flashing with anger.

“What?”

“There were hundreds,” her mother whispered through clenched teeth. “I have no idea who your father is. I will never know, and neither will you.”

“What?” Leah’s knees felt weak, so weak she had to move beside her mother to sit on the bench. They both sat there, side by side, staring at the floor. “What are you saying?”

She looked at her mother, seeing how she clutched her pocketbook, knuckles starting to turn white. Her face was flushed with color and her eyes looked wet.

“Mother?” Leah prompted, her voice soft now.

“I promised myself I would never tell you,” Patty whispered to the wall of dresses to her right, shaking her head slowly from side to side. “I promised myself I would never let you get involved, not like Susan, not like I did.”

“What are you talking about?” Leah puzzled. It was as if her mother was speaking a different language, some sort of strange code.

“Susan was so caught up, and I got caught up right along with her,” Leah’s mother said, half-smiling at her daughter. “I never had much of a backbone. I followed her around the same way you follow Erica. Such bright lights. Like moths to flame, we are.”

Leah blinked, considering her mother’s words. She had learned far too much about her mother’s relationship with Susan, Erica’s mother and Rob’s first wife, than she had ever wanted to know. She knew they had been together-all three of them, Patty, Susan and Rob-and that was, of course, the reason Leah’s mother had once believed he had fathered her child.

But the blood test had proven that wasn’t possible.

She knew her mother and Susan had maintained their friendship through the years. They’d been close. Her mother had been devastated to lose her friend to lung cancer at such a young age. Leah tried to imagine how she would feel, if it was Erica, and that made her heart ache.

Her mother was right, after all. Erica was spunky and intrepid, just like her mother, and Leah often found herself following her friend to places she knew she shouldn’t go. Had her mother done the same with Susan? Clearly, she had. And how could Leah play judge and jury when Leah had done the same thing with Erica?

“I thought she was enamored with the promise of the money at first, but I didn’t understand how involved she already was, how her own mother had planned it from the start,” Patty went on, still talking in that strange language Leah couldn’t quite decipher. She was speaking English but the words didn’t make any sense. “And in the end, she was so much in love with him and she couldn’t see any other way.”

“What are you talking about?”

Patty took her daughter’s hands, trying to get her message across. “He was handsome then, Leah! So handsome! But it was more than that. It’s hard to explain. He wasn’t just charming-he was… he was…magnetic!” Patty’s eyes were shining, a faraway look on her face. Then she focused back on her daughter, squeezing her hands. “You know, I watch you girls react to that young Elvis Presley, and that’s how we were with him. He was like a living god…”

“Who?” Leah asked. “Rob?”

“No.” Patty laughed. “Father Patrick.”

“Father… Patrick.” Leah sank against the cushioned seat back, staring off into space, whispering the words. “Father Patrick… is my father?”

“He could be.” Patty looked down at her hands and her voice shook. “So could one of a hundred other priests.”

“Oh no. Mother, no.” Leah groaned, putting her head in her hands, feeling a wave of nausea pass over her. “Not… the Magdalenes?”

Patty gasped. “You know?”

“Erica…” Leah whispered, dumbly nodding her head.

“Erica?” Leah’s mother furrowed her brow, looking puzzled. “But Rob made an arrangement. Father Patrick swore he would never initiate Erica.”

“Well, he lied. Are you surprised?”

Mother and daughter stared at each other, letting their newfound knowledge sink in. The shop was quiet. Even the gaggle of girls around the corner had gone silent, or maybe they had simply left.

“You didn’t give me up,” Leah said, realizing all at once what this meant.

“I couldn’t,” her mother choked. “I took one look at you and…I fell in love.”

“Really?” Leah felt a lump growing in her throat. “Are you sure you loved me, and not just the idea of having a baby? Someone who was all yours, someone you could make all the decisions for, so you could get it right the second time around?”

“No, Leah.” Her mother turned toward her, their knees touching. “Please don’t think that, not for a minute. I sacrificed everything for you, don’t you understand? I could have walked away with ten thousand dollars if I’d given you up! I defied everyone and everything by keeping you.”

“Huh.” Leah considered this. “Maybe that’s why you did it.”

“No! The easy thing was giving you up. I chose the hard thing. I became a widow so I could raise you without the scandal of having you out of wedlock. And I did that for you. I made up a father because you deserved one. I did that for you. I worked every day to make a living for us, when I could have walked away with the money and gone anywhere. And I did that for you.”

Leah considered this too. “I think you did it for you.”

“Oh God, Leah, I don’t know what you want from me. No matter what I say, it doesn’t matter. You’ll always believe the worst.”

“Can you blame me?” Leah croaked, feeling that dam in her throat about to burst.

“No.” Leah’s mother went to touch her daughter’s cheek, but Leah pulled away, not wanting her to see how hurt she was.

“Why did you stay here?” Leah asked, thinking of her friend, Marty, who had left the Magdalenes, had taken her baby halfway across the world to escape. “Why would you stay in this town?”

“Nothing is that simple.” Leah’s mother sighed. “Donald offered me a job in his law office. He even paid to train me. And then your grandmother died and left me the house. I couldn’t afford much on my salary. And you were a growing girl, and there was tuition to pay.”

“Did you stay at Magdalene House?”

Her mother lowered her head in assent. “Yes.”

“But you didn’t give me up?”

“No, I… I ran away.”

“You ran away?” Leah frowned. “How? Where did you go?”

“I saved my money and on one of our trips to town, I snuck away and took the bus back to Detroit.”

Leah remembered those trips to town, how all the girls had worn fake wedding rings, pretending they were married, but of course everyone knew. They were naughty, wicked girls. Pariahs to be avoided at the very least, targets to be taunted if anyone was so inclined.

“So Robert and Susan helped you?” Leah asked, knowing the answer. They had not only helped her then, but they had continued to help her, paying for Leah’s dance lessons, taking the growing girls school shopping for their expensive uniform clothes every year. There were trips to California and Florida and New England that the Nolans had included them in, like family, all because they shared a secret.

“Yes,” her mother said. “I gave birth to you at home. I wouldn’t go to the hospital. I was too afraid they would find me and take you. After you born, Robert took me to see Donald Highbrow. You know the rest.”

“Was Joan Goulden working at Magdalene House when you were there?” Leah remembered sitting across a desk from the woman they called “the ghoul” because she wore so much makeup it was impossible to tell her age. She could have been forty or eighty for all they knew. She was just “the ghoul” to them, a caricature of a person, with about as much personality and heart.

Leah’s mother nodded, looking at the carpet. “She was younger then, just starting out.”

“Does she know?” Leah wondered out loud. “Does she know about the Mary Magdalenes?”

“Of course she knows,” Leah’s mother replied, staring at her daughter with a look that was both patronizing and incredulous at the same time. “They all know. The doctors, the nurses, the nuns, the priests. Even with the incentive bonuses the Magdalenes get for giving up their babies, the church more than doubles that in adoption donations. And the agency Goulden works for gets a cut, of course. I think the social workers even get adoption bonuses for every successful adoption they facilitate.”

That fact horrified Leah so much she had a hard time forming words. “Did you know… did you know she was going to trick me? Did you and… Joan…”

It was hard to say her name, hard not to think of her as anything but “the ghoul,” hard to imagine she was a human being with feelings. The lawyer had said he believed the social workers were doing good. No, he said he believed they believed it. There was a difference. The social workers truly believed they were doing the right thing. Joan Goulden was a person, a woman who probably had a family of her own. How had she spent the adoption bonus she’d received for Grace, Leah wondered? A new pair of earrings? A summer vacation?

“Did you and Joan plan to take Grace away from me?” Leah whispered her worst fear, saying it out loud to her mother for the first time.

“No!” Patty Wendt looked truly horrified. “Leah, no! Never! I just didn’t want you to go through what I went through, that’s all. We always want to protect our children from the hard things, and being a mother on your own isn’t easy. Besides, remember, I really believed that Rob was your father…”

“You knew he might not have been.”

“I just didn’t…” Her mother closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. “I didn’t want to think about that. I think I convinced myself, over the years, that he was your father. We were all such good friends, and the Nolans were always so generous. Before Susan died, I thought it might be because she was afraid I would tell him… but I never did. I never would have. And when she finally told him, she was dying…”

“So he didn’t know?” Leah had wondered if Rob knew about the Mary Magdalenes all along. How in the world had he gotten involved? She couldn’t imagine Rob agreeing to Erica’s participation in the Mary Magdalenes, not in a million years. But she also never would have imagined that he had a secret room under his loft bed that contained what amounted to a mountain of obscene, illegal images-both still and moving-either.

“No!” Patty snorted. “He didn’t know anything until Susan got cancer. That’s when she told him everything.”

“She told him about Father Patrick?” Leah wondered aloud. “About being in love with him?”

Her mother smiled thinly. “There are some secrets a woman keeps for a lifetime.”

“How long has this been going on?” Leah got up, pacing back and forth in front of the dresses, wheels turning.

“The Mary Magdalenes? I honestly don’t know,” her mother admitted. “A long time.”

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Leah flipped through the dresses, one by one. “Why didn’t you expose them? Stop it?”

“Oh Leah, I wish it was that simple.” Patty joined her daughter by the rack of dresses, her voice low. “The church… it’s so powerful. You have no idea. Father Patrick has the ear of every bishop and cardinal in the state. He’s had an audience with the Pope!”

“But he’s still doing it.” Leah grabbed one of the dresses off the rack, shaking it at her mother, brandishing it like a weapon. “And you knew it.”

Patty shrank away, blinking back tears. “What else could I do? I was a woman, alone! I was just glad to get out. And I got to keep you, didn’t I?”

Leah looked down at the dress in her hands. “I don’t know if that’s much consolation…”

“Oh Leah, no.” Her mother grabbed hold of her daughter’s hands, still gripping the hanger.“Think of little Grace, how much you love her, how much you want to give her. Think of how much you would sacrifice for her.”

Leah lowered her head, feeling the tears she’d been holding back start to fall. Thinking about Grace inevitably brought them to the surface. “I would do anything.”

“I know.” Her mother whispered, cupping Leah’s face in her hands. She hadn’t done that since she was a little girl. Leah lifted her eyes, meeting her mother’s gaze. “I know because I love you like that, Leah. Please believe me. I didn’t do it for me. I did it for you.”

“Oh Leah, you have to try that on!” Erica interrupted them both before Leah could respond, coming around the corner and seeing Leah still holding a dress in her hands, knuckles white, fingers tight around the hanger.

“That is one of our lovelier gowns,” Irene agreed, peeking around the corner and joining them when it looked as if the coast was clear. “It was modeled after Grace Kelly’s-twenty-five yards of peau de soie, twenty-five yards of silk taffeta, three-hundred yards of Valenciennes lace and countless seed pearls.”

“It suits you perfectly,” Leah’s mother said, touching her daughter’s cheek. Leah glanced down at the dress. She had hardly even looked at it. “Innocent and beautiful, just like you.”

“Well go try it on!” Erica urged.

Irene took Leah into one of the fitting rooms, leaving her alone with the gown but telling her to call for her when she got it mostly on, as there were dozens of buttons to be done up the back. Leah undressed slowly, hands shaking slightly, still trying to absorb what her mother had revealed. She had asked for honesty, had demanded it in fact, but the news she’d received had been more shocking than anything she could have imagined. It was true after all-you should be careful what you wished for.

Leah left her clothes on the padded bench, standing in front of the full-length mirror in her bra, panties, garters and stockings, still wearing her heels. The wedding dress was voluminous, the layers of fabric shockingly heavy as she slipped her arms through the long, full-length lace sleeves, white satin falling all around her hips. The neck was high as her mother had suggested, but it was sheer lace, showing the pale cream of Leah’s throat and the upper part of her chest.

“You can come in now,” Leah called and Irene opened the door, smiling as she stepped into the dressing room.

“Oh, lovely,” Irene murmured, looking at Leah’s reflection in the mirror. Irene produced a tool to do up the buttons in back and they were fastened in no time.

Leah stared at herself in the mirror, her long, dark hair falling in carefully set waves over her shoulders, down the back of the dress. She would probably have it put up for the wedding, depending on the type of veil she chose.

“Do you have a veil for this dress?” she asked, smoothing the fabric over her middle. She was two sizes larger than she’d been before Grace, and her body was still resuming its original shape, although she was beginning to wonder if it would make it all the way back. She needed to start dancing again.

“It’s divine. Stay here.” Irene disappeared again and Leah touched the lace at her throat, marveling at the gorgeous handiwork. What would Rob be thinking when she walked down the aisle in this dress, she wondered? How long it would be before he could get me out of it. She giggled at the thought, cheeks flushing. She’d thought a great deal about her wedding when she was young, but never her honeymoon. Now she was looking forward to both.

“Here we are!” The veil was a delicate, Juliet cap affair that Irene clipped into place, fluffing the veil over Leah’s face, arranging. “Oh my goodness, what a beautiful bride you make!”

Leah blushed at the compliment, following Irene out of the dressing room and down the hallway. She heard Erica’s gasp before she saw her wide eyes and the bemused smile starting on her face. When Leah looked over at her mother, she saw with wonder and a little bit of awe, that she had tears in her eyes.

She stepped toward the three-way mirror, the train of material following her, looking at herself in amazement. She’d been transformed from an ordinary girl to a goddess with one simple costume change. Irene urged her up on the pedestal so she could arrange the train and veil behind her. Erica crowded next to Leah, looking at their reflection side by side in the mirror, her eyes damp too.

“I feel like a fairy princess,” Leah whispered, taking Erica’s hand in hers and squeezing.

“You look like one,” her mother assured her, stepping into view on Leah’s other side, going up on tiptoe to brush her daughter’s cheek with a soft kiss. Leah couldn’t remember the last time her mother had kissed her.

Leah met her mother’s eyes in the mirror, not as a daughter looking at her mother, but as a woman meeting the eyes of another woman. They had far more common ground than Leah ever had wanted to admit as a teenager, but she saw it and understood it now in one glance. Patty Wendt was a woman and a mother. How could Leah fault her for hardening her heart in a world that treated her like a piece of property, that used and defiled her, that abused and demeaned her at every turn?

Leah lived in that world too. Nothing had changed. But her mother had loved her and had tried to protect her from it all along, just like Leah loved Grace and she knew she would do everything in her power to protect her daughter from the same mistakes she’d made. Funny how the universe repeated patterns ad infinitum, generation after generation, until someone finally turned around and started walking in the other direction.

She felt her mother’s hand slip into hers and Leah squeezed it, smiling. She would never know who her real father was. She didn’t have a father to walk her down the aisle and give her away. But she had her mother, and she knew, finally, that her mother really did love her.

“Mom, Erica’s going to be my maid of honor.” Leah smiled at her friend, feeling tears pricking her eyes. “But I was wondering if you would walk me down the aisle and give me away?”

“Oh Leah…” Patty Wendt’s face crumbled, tears slipping down her cheeks. “I never wanted to give you away.”

Leah smiled. “Is that a no?”

“No, sweetheart.” Leah’s mother opened her pocketbook, looking for a tissue. “Of course I will. It’s just… you’ll always be my little girl.”

“What church are you getting married at?” Irene asked, smiling and fluffing up her veil.

Leah sighed, shaking her head.

“We’ll figure something out,” Leah’s mother said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “To hell with Father Patrick.”

Erica and Leah looked at each other in the mirror, eyes wide and mouths open. Then they both burst out laughing, and Patty looked between them, a smile forming at the corners of her mouth. That turned into a snicker, and then laughter. The three of them couldn’t stop, even though the other bride and her party were staring at them and whispering. It just made them laugh harder, forcing Patty Wendt to dab at her eyes again, using the tissue to wipe away tears of laughter from her eyes this time.

Chapter Six

Curiosity killed the cat. That’s what kept going through Erica’s mind as Clay drove down the back roads of the ironically named Paradise Alley, the black ghetto between the Detroit river in the south and Grand Boulevard to the north, at a crawling five miles an hour with the lights of his Sedan off, the passenger side window cranked all the way down, making Erica shiver in the frigid December air, what was left of a pile of rolled up newspapers between them at one in the morning.

“Do you always deliver them like this?” Erica whispered as if the people sleeping in the houses and tenements could hear them.

“Have to.” Clay slowed to a near stop, grabbing a paper and leaning across her, tossing it with the velocity and aim a major league baseball player would have been impressed by, hitting the front porch stoop square on. “They’re called ‘underground’ papers for a reason. I could be arrested for writing most of this stuff, let alone distributing them.”

“Wouldn’t your parents just throw a fit?”

“Oh hell yes.”

“Is it worth it?” Erica picked up one of the papers, sliding the rubber band off the end and opening it up. It was too dark to read much, but when she held it up in the dashboard light, she saw the headline read, Detroit Plans for ‘Negro Removal.’

“Sit back.” Clay slowed again, grabbing a rolled paper and tossing it. This one missed the stoop and ended up in the bushes next to the porch.

“You missed.”

“You were distracting me in that blouse. Button it up, would you? At least until we’re done?”

Erica grinned, looking down at the cleavage showing and reached for her buttons, slowly unbuttoning one more so that her bra was showing, looking straight at him the whole while. Clay groaned.

“What’s this about ‘Negro Removal?’”

“Urban renewal project plans to tear down all of Black Bottom and Paradise Alley. They’ve already razed a bunch of housing near the river. They call it ‘eradicating blight.’ Yeah, they’re eradicating blight all right-they’re getting rid of the negros in one fell swoop.”

Erica frowned, squinting at the article in the darkness. “But the news said it was a good thing. Something about increasing tax revenue, improving living conditions. You have to admit, some of these houses are pretty shabby. Aren’t they planning on building nice, new high-rises for them?”

“For them?” Clay snorted. “Is that how you think of Solie? She’s one of them?”

“Well… no… I…” Erica floundered, flustered, flushing red in the thankful dimness. Solie was like part of her family, had been for years. She was the closest thing she had to a mother since her own mother had died. But she was ashamed to think that she didn’t know much about Solie’s life outside of the Nolans. Erica knew she had children, a husband who worked at a factory. But that was about it.

“Can you be that naive?” Clay grabbed another paper, leaning over her to toss it angrily out of the window. “They gave the people living down by the river thirty-days notice to vacate their homes. Then they tore them down to the ground. But they don’t have plans to build on the land at all! That empty area they call Cobo Field now? It’s just sitting there. ‘Urban development’ is just code for ‘Negro Removal.’ They’re trying to get rid of their ‘negro problem’ without creating any solution at all.”

“Well… I don’t understand why the news isn’t covering this…”

“They are.” Clay slowed again, tossed another paper. “They’re spinning it all into nice little bits and bites for the whites to swallow so they can feel better about driving down Hastings street after dark. They’re using federal urban renewal dollars to eliminate the only housing blacks are allowed to live in, and they’re doing nothing to build any more. In fact, they’re going to build a freeway instead.”

“Where will everyone go?”

“Good question. I wasn’t kidding when I said that we’re not far from the race riots we saw back in forty-three.”

“Clay, you were, like, fourteen…” Erica didn’t remember the incident very well. Her mother had been sick at the time and they’d been well insulated in their big house on the river. It had all started out on Belle Isle in a traffic jam, and rumors flew about a white woman being raped, and a black mother and child being thrown off the bridge, neither of which were true but which spurred the biggest race riots Detroit had seen.

“I was at Belle Isle that day.” He threw the last paper, hitting not just the stoop this time, but the door beyond it. “We were in a traffic jam on the Belle Isle Bridge. It was hot and everyone was irritable. There was a little black kid in the car next to ours. He was just goofing around, you know, like kids do, making faces at the other cars?”

Erica felt her heart drop to her middle when Clay whipped the car around the corner, pulling it to the curb and looking over at her in the darkness. He turned toward her, his breathing shallow and sharp as he told her his story.

“Four guys got out of their car behind us. White kids, probably just old enough to drive. They grabbed that little boy out of the car and beat him up right there in front of his mother.”

“Oh my god.”

“And no one did anything. His mother screamed and called for help and got a fat lip herself trying to get those boys to stop. And no one did anything.”

“Oh Clay…” Erica reached out, putting her hand over his. “I’m so sorry…”

“I didn’t do anything either.” He swallowed, the clicking sound in his throat huge in the darkness. “I asked my dad-he was driving, and my mom was sitting in the passenger seat, we’d just gone to Belle Isle for the day because I’d begged them to take me-I asked him, ‘Shouldn’t we do something? Dad, shouldn’t we?’”

Clay’s voice cracked and Erica felt tears stinging her eyes, imagining it.

“And he told me, ‘Son, you don’t step into trouble like that if it isn’t yours. Just look away.’”

“What did you do?”

Clay put the car into gear, pulling away from the curb and popping on his headlights. “I looked away. Like you said, I was just fourteen. What was I supposed to do?”

“Did anything happen to you? How did you get home?”

Clay stopped at a red light and Erica glanced up, seeing a crowd of colored people crossing the street. She sank down in her seat without even thinking about it and Clay looked over at her and laughed.

“You’ve lived in this city your whole life. What are you afraid of?”

Erica straightened in her seat, crossing her arms and frowning at him. “Nothing. I was just… getting more comfortable.”

“Sure.” Clay chuckled, giving the car a hard shot of gas as he pulled away when the light turned green. “You ever been to the Blue Haven?”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll show you.” Clay pulled around the corner and parked the car in a dimly lit lot. The music emanating from the back of the building made the ground tremble beneath Erica’s feet. The street was cobblestone and she followed behind Clay as they went around to the front.

“Welcome to Black Bottom,” Clay whispered into her ear as he reached for the door handle of the Blue Haven. The neon sign above the entrance told her that much. A blackboard out front had Sonnyboy Williamson Appearing All Week written in chalk. “The cops won’t even come down here.”

“Okay, now I’m scared.” She grabbed for his hand as he opened the door, the music blasting them both.

“Don’t be. I’m here.” He grinned and pulled her in. “Everyone knows everyone on Hastings Street.”

“Do they know you?”

“Yeah, they know me.” Clay waved to the woman tending bar. She dropped him a slow wink and raised her painted-on eyebrows at Erica trailing behind him in the smoke-filled haze of the darkened bar. There was a band playing up front and lots of crammed in tables filled with patrons slapping their knees and rocking along. They were the only white people in the place.

Clay pulled out a chair for her at a two-person table near the wall and she quickly sat in it, hoping she might blend right into it. Clay looked like he was enjoying himself, more at her expense than anything else.

“This whole street was jumping in the heyday,” he said over the music. “It’s dying now. They’re killing it with a freeway.”

“Getcha?” The waitress appeared with a pad and a pen and a skirt so short it made Erica blush.

“Two beers. Schlitz.” Clay pulled out his wallet, handing over two dollars. The waitress eyeballed Erica, looking like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. She just took Clay’s money and came back with two glasses from the tap, putting them on the table.

Erica wasn’t quite old enough to drink, and she was pretty sure Clay wasn’t either, but they sat at the table and drank beer and talked and no one came over and bothered them or told them to leave.

“We can go in their stores and clubs. But they’re not allowed in ours. Why is that, do you think?” Clay wondered out loud. He leaned forward in his chair toward her and she could smell the beer on his breath. “You know the KKK is alive and well in Detroit, don’t you? Some of our city council members still wear white after Labor Day.”

“Shhh!” Erica glanced around. “You can’t say that in here!”

“Do you think black people don’t know about the KKK?”

“Clay! Hush!”

“Got a sweet home Tennessee born girl like me here to sing the blues and steal your heart,” said the man at the mic. “Please welcome Miss Aretha Franklin.”

The young girl that stepped up onto the stage barely reached the microphone. She had big, dark wet eyes and her hair was wrapped around her head like a small, black beehive.

“She’s not even old enough to be in here,” Erica whispered.

“You’re right.” Clay squinted at the stage as the music started. “That’s the little girl who sings at the New Bethel Church. She’s the pastor’s daughter. I don’t think she’s quite fourteen. What’s she doing here at one in the morning?”

She might have looked small, but when the girl opened her mouth and began to sing the whole place went up in a stunned cheer. How could such a powerful voice be coming from that little bit of a girl? Erica met Clay’s eyes, both of them staring, open mouthed and too stunned to speak.

It was an old gospel song, with Sonnyboy’s soulful blues harp wailing behind, but he couldn’t compete with the girl’s voice. Just when they thought she couldn’t take them any higher, or push her voice any lower, just when they thought she was done toying with them like a cat with its paw on a mouse’s tail, she would come back even harder and knock the whole place on its behind.

She only did three songs, and Erica leaned over to say, “It’s past her bedtime!” to Clay, who laughed, still clapping and whistling in the wake of the young girl’s performance. Sonnyboy picked it up again, knocking his music out of the park. Erica had never listened to much blues, although she recognized the sound. Her father’s gallery had done a whole show on the roots of rock n roll, tracing it back to the Delta blues.

Erica slid her chair closer to Clay’s, feeling her thigh brush his. “This music is hot.”

He nodded, glancing at her, noticing that her blouse was still unbuttoned, dangerously low. She saw him looking and fanned herself with her napkin.

“It makes me want to take my clothes off.”

His eyes lit up and he grinned. “Let’s go do that.”

They left their beers half full on the table and rushed out the door, both of them in desperate hurry to get to the car. Clay unlocked her side and Erica didn’t give him a chance to go around to his.

“Where do you think you’re going?” She grabbed his collar, reaching through and pulling up the lock on the back door of the passenger’s side.

He shook his head and protested as she slammed the passenger door closed and opened the back door, but he let her push him in and crawl in behind him.

“We really should park somewhere else,” he said before she kissed him full on the mouth, throwing her arms around his neck and letting him take her full weight.

“What’s the matter? I thought you liked living dangerously.”

“Is that a challenge?” Clay took his gum out of his mouth and pressed it to the glass with his thumb. “If we get arrested, I’m telling them this was all your idea.”

“You’re such a gentleman.” Erica laughed. “Now shut up and kiss me.”

It didn’t matter, in the end, where they were parked, because the windows were steamed up completely by the time they had stripped down to their underwear, kissing with thrusting tongues, limbs entwined, bodies slippery with sweat already in anticipation. The whole car smelled like sex and Erica loved it, wrapping herself around Clay, feeling him hard between her thighs, the bulge in his boxers rubbing against the crotch of her panties, creating the most delicious friction.

“You like that?” Clay watched her face, seemingly delighted by what he found there.

“You know what I’d like better?”

“Hm,” Clay mused. “Another beer? The Tigers to win the World Series? The end of the Cold War?”

She shook her head, grinning. “Something far more miraculous.”

“Well now you have to tell me.”

“Let me show you.” Erica slithered down onto the floor, settling herself amidst their discarded clothes, centering herself between his thighs.

She slid his boxers down, letting him spring free, and Clay watched her with growing interest as she took him in her hand, stroking him lightly, nice and easy, liking the way he moved his hips in response, eyes half-closed, mouth slightly open.

When she put her mouth on it, Clay nearly jumped out of his skin, thrusting up involuntarily, making her gag.

“Holy hell!” he gasped. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! You just surprised me!”

Erica cleared her throat, blinking her watery eyes. “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

She kissed around the head, soft kisses, little licks, teasing, blowing, rubbing it against her cheeks, her lips, and then, slowly, taking him back into her mouth again. This time he was ready for it, and the low, incredulous groan that her slick mouth and tongue elicited from him was immensely satisfying. Erica settled in, leaning on his thighs and sucking him deeper, taking more and more, until she had him almost all the way to the back of her throat.

“Oh my God!” Clay moaned, his hand moving in her hair, sliding down and finding her breast, nipple prominently hard through her bra, and that just made him moan louder. “Erica! Oh that’s so good. Am I dead? I think I died. I think I’m in heaven. Ohhh my God! What are you doing down there? Jesus Christ!”

Erica lifted her head, smiling. “Nice girls don’t do this either.”

“Did I ever say I liked nice girls?” Clay asked, panting. “I don’t recall I ever said that.”

She took him back into her mouth, working mouth and tongue and hand together, faster now, looking up at his face, the way he licked his lips, feeling his thighs tightening under her arms.

“Oh, Erica, you better stop doing that before… before… oh wait, stop… before I… stop before… oohhhhhh don’t stop! Don’t stop!”

And that was it, just like that. Clay thrust up, clearly no longer concerned about her gag reflex, and bathed her tongue with white hot lava. Erica swallowed the first blast without a second thought, working for the next, feeling it erupt up from the base of him where her hand was tightly wrapped and still stroking, milking him completely.

“Oh wow.” He blinked as she kneeled up and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing his collarbone, feeling his body beginning to relax. “That was… wow. Definitely wow.”

She giggled at his reaction, nuzzling his ear. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Absolutely,” Clay agreed. “It is most definitely your turn now… your turn for what?”

Erica situated herself on the seat beside him, putting her feet over his lap, her knees tented over his pelvis, lifting her bottom so she could slide down her panties. Clay watched this development with growing interest, picking up the panties she tossed onto the seat and bringing them to his nose.

“Do you like it?” she asked, smiling at the way he closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

“Yeah,” he croaked, opening his eyes and looking down at her knees in his lap, following the seam of her closed legs to the dark blond triangle between them.

“Ever come home from school, and your mom’s baking something so yummy, like your very favorite thing. Like brownies or chocolate cake?” Erica asked.

He snorted. “My mother doesn’t bake.”

“Okay your nanny then.”

“Sure. Brownies. Love brownies. Good stuff.”

“Have you ever been able to smell it, like, before you even got to your house. You’re walking down your street, and you can smell something… mmmm. So good. And your mouth starts to water. Now you’re thinking about brownies. Warm, yummy, gooey, chocolaty brownies…”

“Now I’m hungry,” Clay said, licking his lips. “Did you ever think about a career in advertising?”

Erica laughed. “Now you’re smelling brownies and thinking about brownies and you can’t wait to get a brownie in your mouth.”

“Uh-huh. Damn, I’m salivating.” Clay wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“And you run up onto your front porch and open the door, and the smell of brownies envelopes you, it’s like your whole house is made of brownies, it smells so good, and you run to the kitchen and there on the kitchen table, there you find it…”

“Please don’t tell me it’s an empty plate.”

“No.” She smiled. “Brownies. All you can eat. A whole pile of them, still warm.”

“Mmmmm.”

“So you go over and pick up a brownie… now what do you do?”

“Oh this is an interactive story?” Clay cleared his throat. “Ummm… I gobble down that brownie in two seconds flat, in fact, I just eat the whole damned batch, gulp, in one glorious sitting.”

“Noooo!” Erica kicked her bare feet on the seat, rolling from side to side in protest. “Wrong answer!”

“Damn. No $64,000? No brownies?”

“You have to take your time,” Erica emphasized. “You’ve been thinking about that brownie, smelling it, looking at it, and now you finally have it in your hand and you want to taste it… but you want to savor it. You want to really, thoroughly enjoy it. So lick a little bit of the frosting. Nibble. Go slow. Savor it.”

“Wait a minute, you aren’t talking about brownies are you.” Clay tickled her knees, making Erica laugh and squirm. “This is a metaphor isn’t it?”

“You’re very quick.”

“My bananas are all in a complete bunch, I tell you.”

“That’s what it’s like,” she said, taking his hand and placing it over her mound. “To put your mouth down here.”

Clay groaned when she parted her swollen lips using his fingers, her hands guiding him.

“See… soft, warm, gooey…” She grinned. “But I have to tell you about the secret spot. When you finally get to that spot, it’s less like savoring that brownie and more like licking a Tootsie Pop. You just lick, lick, lick until you finally get to the middle.”

“I’m confused,” Clay murmured, his fingers starting to move on their own, exploring the pink labyrinth of her sex. “Am I nibbling or chewing? Or licking? Oh wow, it’s so hot in there…”

Erica slipped his fingers inside, moving them in and out. “Like that. Mmm hmm. Good. Now, how coordinated are you? Can you walk and chew gum at the same time.”

“Uh I think so… do I have to try it? And are we switching candy and dessert items here? From brownies to Tootsie Pops to gum… I’m still confused.”

“Feel this?” Erica used his finger to brush over that little sensitive bud of flesh at the top of her cleft. “That’s the spot. That’s the center of the Tootsie Pop. That’s where you stay and lick and lick and ohhhh yes… if that was your tongue… oh God…”

“Okay, to hell with the dress rehearsal,” Clay said. “Let’s do this thing.”

Erica happily opened her legs for his eager mouth, and Clay spent a long time kissing her thighs, her mound, parting her with his fingers first, then his tongue, teasing, nudging that spot with his nose, his tongue delving lower.

“Wow, you take direction well.” Erica complimented him as he finally, oh sweet Jesus in heaven, finally flickered his tongue back and forth over that magic little button.

“Yes, I’m sure I’ll have a long, successful career in the armed forces, taking orders from my superiors. Or maybe I’ll be a Tootsie Pop licker. That’s a job, isn’t it? Someone has to do it…”

“Stop talking.” Erica moaned, undoing her bra and flinging it off so she could play with her own nipples. “Lick.”

He had teased her so long and so well, she was more than ready for her climax, and Clay did just as he was told, lick, lick, lick, his fingers moving in and out, the wet squelching sound filling the car as Erica thrust her hips up toward his delightfully torturous tongue.

“Ohhhh Clay!” Erica cried. “Now! Ohhh Clay now, now, lick it! Now!”

She shuddered, her orgasm lifting her pelvis off the seat with a thick, wet sound, her bottom peeling away from the vinyl, and Clay made a low noise in his throat as she quivered in his hands, under his lightning fast tongue.

“Wowwwwww.” He lifted his head, wiping the back of his mouth with his hand, and asked, “Can we do that again?”

Erica giggled as he climbed on top of her and she pulled his head down so she could kiss him full on the mouth, her tongue thrusting, tasting herself.

“Mmmm.” She met his eyes in the dimness. “I taste good.”

“That is very wicked and incredibly arousing. Why is that?”

“Oh goodness, feels like you’re nice and ready again. What are we going to do about that?”

“Go make brownies?”

“Okay.” Erica reached for her clothes and Clay sat up, stunned until she burst out laughing. “Your face! Oh that was precious!”

“Ha.Ha.” Clay grabbed her and pinned her down on the seat, holding her wrists above her head while he tickled her ribs and under her arms, making her howl with laughter.

“Bad girl,” he chastised, kissing the tip of her nose. “That’s what bad girls get.”

Erica pouted. “I thought bad girls got spankings.”

Clay’s eyes brightened. “You asked for it…”

“No, no!” Erica protested, twisting from side to side under him so he couldn’t reach her bottom. “But wait… do that again, what you were doing before…”

He frowned. “What?”

Erica put her wrists above her head. “Hold my hands up here. By my wrists. Yes, like that.”

“Now what?”

“Now put it me.”

Clay eagerly complied. Erica sighed happily, feeling him slide inside of her, taking the weight of him, the heat of him, so hot inside she felt like the core of the earth pulling him toward her center.

“Oh Erica,” he whispered. “Oh God that feels so good. I can’t stand it. I can’t…”

“Hold me down,” she whispered, urging him with her voice, her hips, “Hold me down and take me. Yes, like that. Do whatever you want to me, Clay. I’m totally yours. Do whatever you want.”

“Oh God!” he exclaimed, hand tightening around her wrists, hips thrusting deep, deeper, deepest, Erica taking all of him at the end, feeling his final release not just between her thighs, where he was spilling his seed like a white river of molten liquid, but in the way he squeezed her wrists in his hands, with the same rhythmic pulse, keeping her locked in his little prison of pleasure.

“Mmm.” Erica kissed his cheek as he started to come back into his body. “That was a very good lesson. I learned how to throw newspapers and you…”

Clay lifted his head and looked down at her. “And you have newsprint all over you.”

Erica glanced down to see his handprints on her thighs, her waist, even her breasts. The ink from the papers had rubbed off on his hands and then rubbed off on her skin.

“Something to remember you by.” She giggled. “Now you’d better take me home. I have to meet my best friend at Hudson’s tomorrow to pick out a wedding dress, so I need my beauty sleep.”

“No you don’t.” He kissed her nose and shook his head. “You couldn’t get any more beautiful. If you did, my head would explode.”

“Well we can’t have that. I hate cleaning up messes.”

“That explains the swallowing.”

Erica laughed and punched him in the arm.

Chapter Seven

“Erica?” Leah hesitated in front of Erica’s bedroom, calling softly. She rapped on the door-such a foreign gesture. Before things had gotten so complicated, Leah would have just walked into her room and climbed in bed with her best friend. But they weren’t just best friends anymore. Leah was about to marry Erica’s father, and whether they liked it or not, whether they talked about it or not, that changed everything. Erica’s mood changed like the wind lately. One moment they were the best of friends, the next you’d have thought Leah was responsible for all of the failings of the Western world

“Go away!” came the muffled reply.

Leah sighed, knocking again. “Erica, can I talk to you?”

Rob could sleep through a nuclear blast, but since Grace was born, Leah had slept lightly and she’d heard Erica leaving the warehouse late at night, coming back in the wee hours of the morning. Leah knew the pattern well-she’d done it herself when she was sneaking out to meet Rob. Erica clearly had a new love interest, and it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that it was Clayton Marshall Webber III.

“It’s almost noon. Are you going to sleep all day?”

Leah heard Erica’s gasp and a moment later the door flew open and Erica stood there in a pink satin robe, holding the ends together with one hand, her hair a tousled mess, eyes bloodshot. Without makeup to cover it, Leah could see the dark circles under them.

“What time did you say?”

“Noon,” Leah repeated, watching Erica bolt to her dresser, rifling through her clothes.

“Shit!” Erica stepped into a pair of panties, pulling them up. “I’m late!”

“For what?” Leah sat on Erica’s bed like she used to, looking around the familiar room, everything frilly and pink. “I thought we could go to lunch at Hudson’s. I wanted to buy you jewelry to wear for the wedding. As my bridal gift.”

“Can’t today.” Erica hooked her bra, pulling a white sweatshirt over her head, making more of a mess of her blond hair. “Have you found a place to have this shindig yet?”

Leah sighed, shaking her head. “I hate to go to the Justice of the Peace. I don’t know how in the world I’m going to plan this wedding on such short notice. I may have to give up the idea, I don’t know. How are we going to find a reception hall on this sort of a notice? It will have to be the fastest wedding planned. You’d think I was pregnant or something!”

Erica snorted. “And what about invitations?”

“Well as soon as we know when and where!” Leah rolled her eyes. “Rob said he’d have a courier hand deliver them if he had to, in order to save time. Tomorrow we’re going for the blood test and to apply for the license.”

“Blood test,” Erica muttered. “Right.”

Leah frowned, hesitating before asking, “Erica, where have you been sneaking off to at night?”

Her friend paused as she reached for her dungarees. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, you can tell me. We’re best friends, remember?” Leah reminded her, watching Erica pull on her pants. “Is it that boy Clay, the one you invited to Christmas dinner?”

“If you must know… yes.” Erica scowled, grabbing a hairbrush off her dresser. “But don’t tell him.”

Leah flushed, shaking her head. “I won’t.”

“I know better.” Erica scoffed. “Now that you’re getting married, you’ll tell each other everything.”

“Why are you so mad at me?” Leah wondered out loud. “Is it because I’m marrying your father? Because I thought we were over that…”

“Over it?” Erica snorted, yanking the hairbrush through a tangle. “Yeah I’m over it. Besides, he’s not my father. And you are most definitely not my mother.”

“What?”

Erica opened a jar of cold cream on her dresser. “My mother wasn’t even my mother, so as far as I’m concerned, none of you can tell me what to do.”

Leah sat up straight, frowning at her friend’s reflection in the mirror as she spread white stuff over her face. “What are you talking about?”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Look, I know you’re living in your own little world right now, and everyone’s walking on eggshells trying to protect you, but God, Leah, you aren’t the only person in the world. You’re not even the only person in this house.”

Leah’s heart felt like it was beating in her throat. “What do you mean Rob’s not your father?”

“You know the blood test which proved he wasn’t your father?” Erica asked, using tissues to wipe away the white cream on her cheeks.

Leah nodded. She had been so grateful to Father Michael for volunteering to do some digging while she was still at Magdalene House and see if he could prove, one way or the other, if Robert Nolan was her biological father, as Leah’s mother had initially claimed. The test had mercifully come back conclusively ruling him out as her biological father.

“Yeah, well… you and I have the same blood type.” Erica rubbed foundation on her face from her compact with a sponge, covering the dark circles as best she could. “That blood test ruled him out as my father too.”

Leah gaped at her. “How… what…?”

“I’m adopted,” Erica explained patiently, dusting her face with powder. “They adopted me when I was a baby. From Magdalene House. How’s that for a kick in the pants?”

“Wow.” Leah blinked in disbelief. They had talked a little since Leah had come home-Leah had told Erica about living at Magdalene House, the girls she’d met there, her experience of pregnancy and birth, but Erica had been moot about what she’d done and what had happened while Leah was gone. Leah knew something had happened, because she had seen Erica taking part in the Mary Magdalene ritual, but she didn’t know how to approach her about it. How could she tell Erica she’d seen her that night?

Finally, she just blurted it out. “I’m a Magdalene baby, Erica.”

Erica stopped applying her lipstick, only the top one painted. “What?”

“My mother told me. Finally, she told me the truth.” Leah swallowed, meeting Erica’s eyes in the mirror. “She and your mother… they were in the Mary Magdalenes together.”

“I know.” Erica looked thoughtful, painting her bottom lip. “But I didn’t know you were… I should have realized…”

Leah made a face. “It’s not great news, but it’s better than thinking Rob was my father.”

Erica smacked her lips together, turning to face her friend. “Just how much did your mom tell you?”

“Not much.” Leah shrugged, taking a deep breath before taking the plunge. “But I already knew most of it, Erica. I was there… I saw you… I saw your Dad-er… Rob. I saw you both.”

Erica blinked in surprise. “I saw you too.”

“You did?” Leah gasped, wide-eyed. She held out her hand and Erica took it, coming to sit beside her on the bed. “How did it happen? How did you get involved?”

“It’s a long story. It started when I found my mother’s journals, from before I was born… well, adopted. You aren’t going to believe this.” Erica laughed, shaking her head. “But my mother was in love with Father Patrick.”

Leah nodded. “That’s what my mother said.”

“She told you?” Erica raised her finely arched eyebrows. “Anyway, you know me and secrets. I have to poke my nose in everything.”

Leah laughed. “Curious kitty cat.”

“It was all so mysterious and scandalous, and I just kept on, wanting to find out more. I kept thinking I was going to infiltrate this secret society and expose them and what a big story that would be…” Erica laughed at the way Leah was looking at her. “I know, I know, curiosity killed the cat. And before I knew it, I was drugged up and strapped to a cross…”

“They drug you?”

Erica wrinkled her nose. “That’s not all they do.”

“I noticed.” Leah couldn’t get the images out of her mind, the Marys in white being pleasured on one half of the room, the Magdalenes in red being gagged and bound, sometimes whipped, on the other.

“How in the world did you get involved?” Erica wondered out loud.

“There was a girl at Magdalene House,” Leah explained. “I told you about her. The redhead who reminded me of you. She was one of the Magdalenes. She told me about because she wanted me to come with her for that ritual. I guess they were paying girls to be, like, waitresses…?”

“Oh the attendants. The girls in blue?”

“Yes,” Leah agreed. “I mean, it paid a fortune. Fifty dollars! I thought I could use that money to run away from Magdalene House with my baby. Besides, I didn’t really quite believe her, not at first. I just thought… I don’t know what I thought. But I didn’t expect to walk into that…”

“Who would?” Erica chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. “Anyway, once I found out that Daddy… Rob… was involved, well… what could I do? If I told anyone, he’d get in trouble too. Besides, they make it pretty clear, once you’re in, it’s a lifetime sort of commitment. If you tell… there are consequences.”

“Father Patrick told you that?”

Erica gave a little shudder, reaching for one of her Keds. “He scares me, Leah.”

“He scares me too.” Leah remembered the way he’d been at their dinner table, so smug and patronizing, telling her she was a sinner in the eyes of God, that her baby was a bastard, unclean, and would remain unbaptized. After everything she’d seen, knowing now what she did about what Father Patrick had done, not only to Erica, but to Erica’s mother as well, his holier-than-thou attitude astounded and offended her.

But of course he thought he was above them, above it all. Untouchable. Leah had been around nuns and priests her whole life, and she’d learned her lessons well. It was hard not to think of them all as infallible, even invincible. She remembered her mother’s words-he was like a living god-and shivered. They took young, impressionable girls and brainwashed them into their ritualized sect, drugged them, abused them, and used their years of Catholic indoctrination about the infallibility and irreproachability of the church to keep them from revealing the secret.

It made Leah burn with anger. “It all scares me, Erica. I’m afraid for you. It’s like some well-oiled machine. The Mary Magdalenes have sex with the priests and the girls who are unlucky enough to get pregnant end up at places like Magdalene House, forced to give up their babies. And the church profits from it all. I don’t care how much hush money they give them, it’s not enough. It could never be enough. My mother said they make double that on the babies they adopt out. They’re profiting from this everywhere you turn. Even the girls who aren’t Magdalene’s-I told you about that sweet woman, Jean, the one who was mentally retarded? Her family just left her there, and they put her to work in the laundry. And they get away with it. Either they brainwash everyone into not talking about it, or if that doesn’t work, they scare them silly. Besides, who would believe it, even if you did say something? It would be your word against… what, a thousand clergy?”

Erica’s smile was grim as she came up from tying her shoe. “I know.”

“Those poor Magdalene girls,” Leah murmured. “My friend, Marty, she ran away to Australia so she could keep her baby. She agreed to an arranged marriage and went halfway across the world just to get away.”

Erica hopped off the bed, lifting up the pink bed skirt, looking for her other Ked. She pulled it out, triumphant, but then she sneezed, rubbing her eyes. “Yeah, well, at least the Magdalenes can have more babies.”

Leah gasped, feeling tears sting her eyes. “What a cruel think to say, Erica. You can’t just replace one baby with another. It doesn’t work like that. People keep telling me, ‘You’ll get married and have another…’ Even my own mother said that. A baby isn’t like a pair of shoes or a toothbrush.”

Erica stood, pulling her blouse up, exposing her belly, yanking her dungarees low with her other hand. “See that?”

“Your appendix scar?”

“They took out more than my appendix.”

“What do you mean?” Leah looked over at her as Erica sat, pulling on her other tennis shoe.

“They sterilized me.” Erica bent to tie her shoe, her voice muffled. “They sterilize all the Marys.”

Leah blinked, too stunned to speak. The Marys don’t get pregnant. That’s what Marty had told her. Or had she said can’t get pregnant?

“Oh Erica…” Leah put a hand on Erica’s shoulder but her friend shook it off. “I had no idea…”

“Spilled milk and all that.” Erica shrugged. “Turns out, my mother-Susan-she had the same scar. She was adopted by her mother, who also a Mary and had the same scar. All from Magdalene House.”

“Oh my God.” Leah put her head in her hands. “How could they?”

“Anyway, I’m late.” Erica got up, heading toward the door.

“Wait, Erica,” Leah called. Her friend turned, annoyed. “My mother said that your father-that Rob had made some sort of deal with Father Patrick, to keep you out of it…”

Erica raised her eyebrows. “How ironic.”

“Do you think…” Leah didn’t even want to think it, let alone say it, but she had to. “All those pictures we found. Those movies. Do you think that was the trade-off he made?”

“I don’t know what Dear Daddy is into, or how far into it he is,” Erica snapped. “You know him better than I do. What does he say?”

“I haven’t asked him,” Leah admitted.

“Well, you’re going to marry him,” Erica reminded her. “Maybe you should do that before you take a walk down the aisle with the man?”

“I’m not sure I want to know,” Leah breathed.

Erica laughed. “Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

Then she was gone, down the hall and out the front door.

Leah went out to the living room and turned on the television, sitting on the sofa, but not really watching the episode of Tic Tac Dough. She was too lost in thought, too buried in never ending questions that seemed to have no answers. Tic Tac Dough gave way to soap operas-Search For Tomorrow, followed by Guiding Light-but the drama unfolding on screen was nothing compared to the drama unfolding in her own life.

Finally, she got up, stomach rumbling-Solie had packed the refrigerator full of Christmas leftovers-and she glimpsed something on Rob’s desk under the loft. She walked over, seeing it was an envelope addressed to Sergeant Robert Nolan. The return address was simply U.S. Army. Leah knew her future husband had been a sergeant in the army during WWII, but she and Erica had been young then and she didn’t remember much.

She picked up the envelope, turning it over. It was still sealed. She put it back on the desk where she’d found it, realizing that even though she’d basically known the man she was about to marry for almost her entire life, there was a great deal she didn’t know about him. Donald Highbrow had mentioned their age difference, and while Leah didn’t really feel it most of the time, the reality that Rob had lived a lifetime of experience before she had even learned to walk hit home when she thought about him going off to join the army. What if there was another war? Oh God, she couldn’t think about losing him, not again.

When they got Grace back-and they would get her back, Leah held on doggedly to that hope-Rob would be the father of a newborn again. It wasn’t something they’d discussed. It had just happened. They were going to be an instant family. And it hit her, after Erica’s news-Grace was Rob’s first and only biological child. And when Grace graduated high school in 1975, Leah would be thirty-seven, and Rob-he would be sixty.

Did the age difference really matter? Her heart told her it didn’t, but the math was a little frightening. Leah had always felt like an old soul, far more serious and grown-up inside than her peers. She’d never been susceptible to peer pressure, unless you counted the way Leah always tagged along after Erica with her mischievous streak. It was Erica who had led her astray, showing her the wicked collection of photographs under her father’s bed.

Leah stared at the tapestry covering the door, remembering the first time they’d snuck into the secret room, Leah following Erica like Alice down the rabbit hole. There was no turning back then and there was no turning back now. She didn’t want to. She loved Rob, she knew she would love him until the day she died, which she hoped and prayed would be on the same day, because she couldn’t bear the thought of being without him.

She remembered how shocked she had been at their discovery, how intrigued, how titillating the photographs, how exciting the reels of film. Leah opened the top drawer of Rob’s desk, finding the key, the one on the leather fob, and she went to the tapestry, pulling it aside. There was a padlock and a bolt, and she slipped the key into the lock, turning-but it didn’t budge. Frowning, Leah tried it again, but no. It wouldn’t unlock. Was it the wrong key?

She checked the drawer again, finding lots of other keys inside, but none attached to a leather fob. Had Rob changed the lock? He must have. But why? Leah put the key back, continuing her journey to the kitchen, her rumbling stomach insisting. She found a plate of stuffed celery wrapped in plastic with a note written in Solie’s fat, child-like handwriting, “Miss Lee.” Smiling, Leah took the plate, poured herself a glass of milk from the pitcher, and settled back on the sofa in front of the soap operas to eat it.

By the time Rob came in and kissed her awake, Twenty-One was blaring on the television and Leah had slept away the whole afternoon.

“I missed you,” he murmured, his breath redolent with alcohol, and she smiled and stretched, yawning and sliding her arms around his neck, pulling him down onto the couch with her. He laughed, stretching out beside her on the sofa, still wearing his shoes, wet from the snow.

“What’s for dinner?” he inquired. “I’ve been shooting city council photographs all day, and the only thing they had was bourbon and Good n Plentys out of the vending machine.”

“Leftovers?” she suggested. “Solie didn’t come today. She called with a cough and I told her to stay home.”

Rob nuzzled her neck, his hand lightly cupping her breast through her blouse. “How about I take my beautiful future bride out for a nice, big juicy steak dinner?”

“You sound more interested in the steak than me.”

“Only momentarily.” He grinned. “One need satisfied at a time.”

“I’ll have to get ready.”

He groaned. “I’ll starve.”

“Five minutes. Just let me change and freshen up.” She pushed at him and he rolled off the couch, standing and holding out his hand.

“Oh all right.” Rob tossed his suit jacket over a chair and wandered off toward the kitchen. “I’ll raid the fridge while I wait.”

Leah went over to the closet under the loft. Many of her clothes were still at her mother’s, but Rob had cleared room for some of her things in his walk-in closet and she flipped through her dresses, finding a nice casual, cream-colored one with a pencil-thin skirt.

“Don’t spoil your appetite!” she called, stripping down to her underwear and slipping on a garter belt. Then she pulled the dress over her head.

“Not possible.” His mouth was full, his words intelligible, but barely. “Oh, you meant for food?”

She smiled, zipping her dress and choosing a light blue cardigan to cover her shoulders. Sitting on the edge of the desk, she slid one stocking on, slipping it up to her thigh and fastening it to the garter, front and back.

“Rob, can I ask you something?” she called.

“Mmmmph?”

Leah did the other stocking, fastening it to the front, the back giving her more trouble. “Did you change the lock on the darkroom door? The one under the loft?”

Rob went quiet. Leah frowned, still trying to get her stocking hooked to the garter, when he came around the corner, seeing her with her dress hiked up, stockings showing.

“Why?” he asked.

Leah finally got her stocking fastened, smoothing down her dress. “Because I tried the key and it didn’t work.”

He frowned. “Why were you trying to get in there?”

“I don’t know.” She slid up onto the desk, so she was sitting, holding a hand out to him. “I guess I was thinking about what the lawyer said. About having anything incriminating in our past?”

“I suppose you’re right.” He sighed, taking her offered hand, situating himself between her thighs, leaning into the desk to put his arms around her. “If anyone found out, it would be very incriminating.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “So can we get rid of it?”

“No.” He grimaced.

“Why?”

Rob nuzzled her neck. “I promise you, no one is going to find out about it.”

“But what if they did?” Leah asked, pulling back to look at him. “You know, your daughter has been sneaking out in the middle of the night to see that Webber boy.”

“What?”

“Rob, think for just a minute, what Erica’s been through,” Leah said. “She finds out she’s adopted-that you aren’t her father, and Susan wasn’t her mother-and not only that, she learns that one of the conditions of her adoption was that she be sterilized.”

“I didn’t know about that!” he insisted, his eyes flashing.

“I’m not blaming you,” she soothed, touching his cheek. “I’m not accusing anyone. I just want you to think about it from her point of view. She’s confused, she’s hurt. Not only that, but she let herself get involved with that damned baby-selling sex ring Father Patrick is running and she ended up being ritually gang-raped by, oh I don’t know, how many priests?”

Rob winced, turning his head away. “Jesus, Leah.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “I really don’t want to think about that.”

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt,” Leah replied, repeating Erica’s words to her.

“Look, Father Patrick and I have an understanding-”

“You had an understanding before, but Erica ended up being initiated into the Mary Magdalenes anyway.”

“I know! I know!” Rob threw up his hands, stepping away. “I just didn’t anticipate her pursuing it on her own.”

“But that’s what I’m saying,” Leah pleaded, sliding off the desk and facing him, looking up to meet his eyes. “We have to anticipate what could happen. Donald said this could be a long and drawn out fight, right? Well Erica is out running around with boys, and she’s absolutely fearless because she knows she can’t get pregnant. It’s only a matter of time before tongues start wagging.”

Rob went to the closet, yanking off his tie and tossing it onto the closet floor. “I’ll talk to her.”

“It won’t help.” Leah went to him, touching his arm. “She’s rebelling, and who could blame her? She’s angry and she has a right to be, although I think that anger is being misplaced onto you…”

“Then you talk to her.”

“I tried.” Leah shrugged, turning up her hands. “She’s mad at me for loving you. But listen to me. What if she decides to defy you? Get back at you? She’s already pulling the ‘you’re not my real father, you can’t tell me what to do’ bit out of her bag of tricks. What’s next? She calls the police and tells them about your hidden darkroom?”

Rob paled, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. “What do you want me to do?”

“We have to get rid of it,” she insisted. “All of it. And you have to stop. Are you still… involved?”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“You can’t do it anymore,” she cried. “It’s going to jeopardize everything!”

“If I stop, it will jeopardize everything.” Rob dug into his pocket, pulling out his key ring. He walked over to the tapestry, pulling it aside and unlocking the bolt. He motioned for her to follow, the door closing behind her from the weight of the tapestry alone. He flicked the switch, the fluorescents buzzing to life overhead.

Leah’s sense memory came to life at the smell of the darkroom chemicals. There were photographs of nude women hanging on the clothesline over the developing table. Full breasted women with roomy hips who spread their legs and let Robert Nolan photograph their most private parts, the looks on their faces orgasmic or teasing or seductive, but every one of them arousing.

“Come on.” He went around the developing table, finding the hidden latch in the wall and opening the door to the other room. Leah remembered the night she had first discovered it, how she had snuck in so quietly and had found Rob on the twin bed, a reel of film running on the projector, his erection in his hand as he watched the couple on the screen have sex.

Leah had watched too, touching herself-she couldn’t help it. Later, she would lose her virginity on that bed, lost in the bewildering, wondrous pleasure of her first time. Did we make Grace on that bed, she wondered? Or was it the time in the movie theater bathroom? Or one of the many times they’d made love in the backseat of his Cadillac.

“I met Susan in the summer of 1937.” Rob turned on the small lamp beside the bed and went over to the cabinet where Leah and Erica had found all those reels of film. “I was a young photographer, just out of college, and she was the most stunning beauty I had ever seen.”

Leah cringed at that, but she took it in stride. She’d known Susan Nolan, had come to think of her as a kind of surrogate mother over the years, because she spent so much time with the Nolans, and she had been a very beautiful woman.

“I asked if I could photograph her, and she agreed.” Rob squatted down, looking through the boxes at the bottom. “Here we go.”

He came over to the bed where Leah was standing, sitting down and patting the bed beside him. “Sit. I’ve got a lot to tell you.”

She sank down, watching him open the box and pull out an envelope. It was sealed and unmarked. Just the sight of it made her feel weak. She remembered asking her mother for honesty and then regretting it. Careful what you wish for.

“When you said that, about Erica being fearless, it made me think of these. I took them on our third date. I thought of them as dates, but I don’t think Susan did. Not at first. But she was like that. Absolutely fearless. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know why.” Rob slid his finger along the envelope, breaking the seal and sliding the photographs out between them on the bed.

Leah squinted, picking up the first one in the set, holding it up to the light. She recognized the two of them instantly, although they were much younger than Leah ever remembered them. Patty Wendt was stretched out on a bed, head thrown over the side, her long dark hair hanging down almost to the floor. Rob’s camera had caught her moment of orgasm perfectly, her legs open, and Susan Nolan’s face between them, only her eyes showing, a sly, mischievous gleam in them.

“I saw some of these before,” Leah told him, picking up the photographs, not sure she wanted to see, but unable to stop herself. “I knew you’d all been together once. That’s why my mother thought that you were my father. I ran home that day, I don’t know if I was packing to leave, or packing to come live with you, I just knew I had to do something. I snuck in the house, and I heard you both, Rob. I heard my mother telling you that day in the kitchen, that I was your daughter, and after seeing these… why wouldn’t I believe it?”

“I didn’t know about the Mary Magdalenes when I took those.” Rob watched Leah’s face as she flipped through them, all explicit scenes of Patty and Susan, touching, kissing, embracing, spreading their thighs and rubbing their mounds together. Leah couldn’t look away, remembering what she and Erica had done, things so similar to this. Of course, Rob didn’t know about that, and he never would. It had been an experimentation Leah doubted they would repeat, spurred only by the titillating images and arousing films they’d discovered in this hidden darkroom.

“I didn’t know anything, I just knew that Susan was fearless and beautiful and that her best friend, Patty, loved and wanted her almost as much as I did.” Rob sighed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Many of the girls they call ‘The Marys’ end up entering the convent. They’re sterilized, so they can never be mothers, and back then, there were even less options in the world for them than there are now. Without marriage and a man, who could they become?”

“Nuns?” Leah asked, incredulous.

“Yes.” He nodded. “Some of them, like Susan, defied convention. She was twenty-three when she married me, and an old maid by most standards. But until then, she’d never met a man who would tolerate her relationship with Patty.”

“Her… relationship?” Leah blinked at him, setting the pictures down between them.

“They were lovers.” Rob took a deep breath before continuing. “They remained lovers until the day Susan died.”

“But you were married?”

“Yes.” He smiled. “We were.”

“But my mother loved you, Rob. She said so. She told me, if it was the only way she could be with you, then she was willing to make that bargain…”

“No. She loved Susan, not me. She only tolerated me. Still does.” He gave a little, bitter laugh. “I was the one who made the bargain. I looked the other way. I loved Susan and she loved me. She just also happened to love Patty too. And Susan made it very clear, if I wanted her, I would have to accept her relationship with Patty.”

Leah tried to wrap her head around this new information, her brain spinning with it. She actually had to put her head in her hands to make it stop. Her mother had been in love with Susan Nolan?

Was it possible? Could it be true?

She lifted her head, looking at her future husband, trying to make sense of it.

“It happens, Leah. Some women… they just have a stronger affinity for their own gender than they do for the opposite sex. The world we live in calls this sexual deviancy. They label all of this-” Rob waved his arm around the room, at the photographs, the movie reels, all depicting some sort of sex act that society, the church or the government would consider deviant. “Offensive. Sinful. Criminal. But do you know what I see?”

She shook her head, not trusting her voice.

“Beauty.” He smiled, looking down at the pictures fanned out on the bed between them. “Truth and beauty. That’s all I see when I look at these.”

“Susan told you about this,” Leah nodded toward the photographs. “Her relationship with my mother…” She still was trying to process the fact. Saying it out loud made it more real somehow. It was slowly starting to make some kind of strange, surreal sense. “But they didn’t tell you about the Mary Magdalenes?”

“No.” Rob looked away, shaking his head, and she saw his jaw working again like it did whenever he got mad. “Not until the end. Not until she had to.”

“My mother said you made some kind of deal with Father Patrick, about keeping Erica out of it?”

Rob had a faraway look in his eyes. “Susan made me promise that I’d raise her to be a Mary. But once she was gone, well… at least Patty and I saw eye to eye on one thing. It was the only thing Patty and Susan ever fought about. Me and Patty didn’t want either of you involved in the Mary Magdalenes. Of course, Father Patrick had other ideas.”

Leah touched his cheek, feeling his jaw working, teeth grinding. He looked at her, his face softening, reaching over to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“I would have done anything to keep you girls safe and out of this mess.” He shook his head, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “I failed you both. I’m so sorry.”

“I don’t understand why didn’t you just take Erica and disappear?” Leah wondered out loud. “I mean, you could have gone anywhere. Somewhere Father Patrick couldn’t find you.”

“I couldn’t do that to your mother.” He swallowed, taking Leah’s hand in his, looking at the ring on her finger. “I couldn’t take her daughter away from her. She’d already given up so much. It would have been like putting the final nail into her coffin.”

He looked up, expectant, searching her face, and Leah didn’t understand at first what he was looking for. She replayed his words in her head, searching for a clue, and when she found it, her jaw dropped, the information hitting her like a lightning bolt, straightening her spine, the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

“Her daughter…” Leah repeated the two words that had jolted her like an electrical current.

“Erica is your sister, Leah.” Rob took a deep breath, letting it out in a long, slow sigh. “Patty gave birth to twins. She kept you. Susan and I adopted Erica.”

“We look nothing alike…” Her voice shook, and she looked down at her hand, still resting in the cradle of Rob’s. It didn’t feel like hers anymore. She couldn’t feel her body at all, in fact. She was floating somewhere above it, hovering, the only barrier keeping her on earth the ceiling above their heads. “My birthday is in February, Rob. Erica’s is in January.”

“Fraternal twins don’t look identical. And you were the smaller baby. That happens with twins sometimes. One gets a little more nutrition than the other in the womb.” Rob stroked her hand, turning it over and lifting her palm to his mouth, planting a soft kiss there. “So we just fudged things a little on the birth certificates.”

“But how?” She felt like crying, but her eyes were dry as a bone. Her mouth too. She could barely get words out, like her tongue was trapped in spider webs.

“Donald Highbrow,” Rob replied. “His father’s firm served as the executor of Susan’s will and trust. He helped us with the birth certificates. And Patty’s marriage license of course.”

She looked at him, incredulous. His revelation had gone off like a nuclear bomb in her head. Leah had been reduced to dust in its wake. There was nothing left of her.

“After Susan died, we talked about telling you.”

Rob’s words were far, far away. Like an echo.

“We talked about getting married, making a little family unit, and I considered it, for your sake and Erica’s. She may not always know how to show it, but Patty really does love you both in her own way. I think my wife was the only person she ever let her guard down with completely.”

“I probably would have married your mother after Susan died if I hadn’t gotten involved in… this.” He nodded toward the cabinet filled with film reels. “But once I found out about the Mary Magdalenes, about what Father Patrick had done to my wife, to your mother, and then to my daughter…”

“What, Rob?” Leah croaked, her anger surfacing like molten lava from a volcano. “What did you do? Nothing! You did nothing! Absolutely fucking nothing!”

Rob caught her wrists as Leah flew at him, avoiding her intended blows, twisting her around while at the same time pulling her close, enfolding her so she couldn’t do anything but struggle against the circle of his arms. She couldn’t even bite him-he had turned her to the wall-although she tried, her teeth bared like a wounded animal at a perceived threat, snapping at the air.

“You have every right to be angry.” Rob’s voice was calm, soothing, a fact that made Leah struggle even more in his arms. “And when I’m done telling you what I have to tell you, I promise, you can do whatever you like. You can hit me. You can walk out that door and never come back. I will write you a blank check. You can go anywhere in the world.”

“Let me go!” she cried, but it was impossible to break the hold he had on her. She was folded up like a pretzel in them.

“When I’m done.”

“There’s more?” She looked over her shoulder at him, incredulous, like a child whose parents had informed them that no, the doctor wasn’t going to hurt you, while they stood there and watched the needle being prepped. It was always for your own good, wasn’t it, Leah thought. They always said it was for your own good.

“The only think I will not allow you to do is throw away five years of my life. I’m so close to putting that bastard away for the rest of his life, I can almost taste it. Father Patrick is going to pay for what he’s done. I’m going to make sure of that, or die trying.”

She relaxed in his arms, feeling his body trembling with emotion, tense with fury.

“Tell me the rest.” She whispered the words, her throat hot and raw. “Just tell me.”

“Father Patrick came to me,” he began. “He came to throw me a bone, like I was some milksop pantywaist groveling at his feet. He mistook me for one of his bootlicking parasites.”

Leah felt Rob’s heart beating hard, his chest against her back.

“That degenerate pervert had the audacity to come into my own home and brand me a cuckold. Here I thought my wife had been faithful to me, aside from her liaisons with Patty. And those, well… those were filling a need I couldn’t. But in the end, I discovered my wife had been unfaithful to me not one time but a hundred. And she’d been in love with another man all along.”

Leah made a soft, wounded sound, feeling his pain. “Father Patrick?”

“She’d told him everything.”

She wiggled in his arms, his grip like a vise. “Owww, Rob, it hurts.”

He let her go instantly and she turned to face him.

“Susan had betrayed all of us. The way her will was structured, Erica was her sole heir, and Father Patrick the trustee. I was her father in name only. All Susan’s money was tied up in the church.”

He pressed his lips together, looking at the wall.

“But you make so much as a photographer!” Leah exclaimed. “You’d already photographed Eisenhower and Marilyn Monroe! Couldn’t you have made a living on that? You could have taken me and… my mother…”

The realization that her mother was also Erica’s stopped her words, her train of thought. It was still too much of a shock to her system.

“I didn’t stay for the money.” Rob smiled grimly. “I stayed for the revenge. I wanted to put that sick motherfucker away for the rest of his life. That’s why I stayed.”

“How?”

“He thought he had me dead to rights. After he gleefully informed me that he had ritually fucked my wife for the entire duration of our marriage, he then told me he not only held my purse strings, but he intended to ritually rape my daughter too.”

“Oh my God.”

“He then told me he had already laid the groundwork for this by having her sterilized at the tender age of seven.” Rob rubbed his eyes again with his palms, as if he still couldn’t quite believe the images his mind was showing him. “And if I didn’t agree to this, he would remove Erica from care, cut me off from Susan’s trust fund, and he would show the world this.”

Rob reached into the box, producing a yellowed newspaper clipping, handing it to her. Leah took it with trepidation, unfolding it and staring at the photograph.

“That’s you?”

Leah could barely breathe. She had been young during WWII, but she was old enough to remember the oppressive feeling of the era, as if the entire world were being strangled by one madman, his boot on the throat of the very notion of freedom. She remembered kids at school calling each other “Nazis” and getting in trouble for even saying such things. And she was looking at a picture of her husband in full Nazi uniform, hand raised in Hitler’s salute, standing amidst a full line of similarly attired and at-attention soldiers.

“My parents were German immigrants to this country.” Rob took the article from her trembling hands. “They came over in 1899. They were in their early twenties, newly married. They settled in with the Poles and other German immigrants in Detroit and my father opened a meat market. They thought they couldn’t have children until I came along in 1915. My mother was almost forty. They were both gone, Dad of a heart attack and Mom from complications of pneumonia, by the time I graduated from college.”

“Oh Rob…”

He held up his hand, shaking his head. “I was raised speaking German. When I was drafted-I wanted to enlist, but Susan wouldn’t let me-the U.S. Army found my ability to speak German immensely useful and they sent me over to this new little unit they had called the Office of Strategic Service. Their job was intelligence.”

“You were a…spy?”

“You could say that.” He nodded. “Unfortunately, Father Patrick had a Xerox of this article.”

Leah shook her head. “How?”

“Susan.” He grimaced, putting it back in the box. “She gave it to him before she died and told him if I didn’t agree to raise Erica in the Mary Magdalenes, he should come to me with that photograph. She knew, even if the truth came out, that it would ruin my professional reputation. I’d never work anywhere again.”

“My god.” Leah glanced down at the pictures still spread out on the bed between them. “What kind of monster was she?”

“She’d been raised in it. She didn’t know anything else. She looked at that charlatan like he was some sort of God walking around on earth.”

“So what did you do?”

He laughed, a sad, bitter thing. “I made a deal with the devil. I sold my soul for vengeance.”

“But how did you end up in all… all this?” Leah asked, watching him gather the photos and put them back in the box.

“I called the man who had been my commanding officer during the war, who now had a high ranking position in what used to be the Office of Strategic Services. He was now the head of the Special Activities Division of the Central Intelligence Bureau.”

“The CIA?”

“Yes. I told him about the photograph and the priest who was threatening to reveal it. I also told him about the rituals, the abuse of young girls, and told him the church was filming these events and selling them to very rich collectors.”

“They were?” Leah gaped at him. “How did you know that?”

“Susan and Patty showed one to me, about two weeks before my wife died. You see, I didn’t believe her, about the Mary Magdalenes. It sounded…”

“Crazy?”

He glanced over at her. “Doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” She nodded. Of course it did. Who would believe such a thing?

“He said he was very interested, and he believed his friend, J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I would most definitely take an interest in such activity. He told me to sit tight and he’d call me back.”

“And then?” Leah prompted when Rob trailed off, staring into space.

He shook his head to clear it. “He got back to me about a week later and said the F.B.I. and specifically J. Edgar Hoover himself was particularly interested in the filming of the rituals and the selling of pornography. They wanted me to continue to find out as much as I could. He asked if I thought I could gather intel, and I told him I was pretty sure I could arrange that.”

“To what end?”

Rob looked at her. “They wanted to gather enough evidence to close it down.”

“Magdalene House?”

“The church.”

Leah gasped. “The entire Catholic Church?”

“From the top down.”

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“I did what I was ordered to do. I gathered evidence. I shut up and took pictures. I filmed the rituals. I took still photographs of girls for the ‘art books’ you found under my developing table in there. The church sells them for a tidy profit on the black market. Many of those girls would go on to become Magdalenes in their rituals.”

“Why did Father Patrick let you do that? He obviously didn’t trust you and had plenty of reason to resent you.”

“I had far more reason to resent him,” Rob replied darkly. “It was like the Cold War between us. I knew too much about him and he knew too much about me-or he thought he did. The longer our relationship, the more he began to rely on me. That’s the way intel works. People trust the familiar, the things they see every day. I simply offered my services, and he accepted.”

“Well… don’t you have enough evidence now?” Leah asked. “Can’t you tell him, your contact, whoever he is… can’t you tell him it’s time?”

“It’s not time. Not quite.” He smiled sadly, taking her hand. “The ritual that Erica participated in-” He choked over those words, clearing his throat. “It’s a yearly event in each Mary Magdalene chapter, but once every ten years they do that same ritual in Rome. Father Patrick facilitates. They do it on years ending in eight, something about the eight beatitudes. They even hold the ritual in an octagon built under the city.”

Leah remembered the tunnels under the church at St. Mary Magdalene’s leading to the circle in the center with all the cubbies on the sides where naked bodies writhed on red or white pillows. It wasn’t a circle after all-it was an octagon.

“And, of course, the eight on its side is the symbol for infinity. These are their biggest rituals, the most well-attended, by the highest of church officials. Including, so I hear, the Pope himself. They had one in 1918, 1928, 1938-that’s the one Patty and Susan participated in-and then again in 1948. The next one will be…”

“1958.”

“Next year.”

“Oh my God.”

“I think Father Patrick has his sights set on Erica for next year’s ten-year ritual.” Rob’s jaw tightened as he considered this. “I don’t intend to let that happen, but regardless, I do know that I have to film it. I need that evidence.”

“But Rob, you can’t keep doing this!” Leah protested. “If someone finds out before then, you’re going to get stuck holding all of this… and the picture of you in that Nazi uniform will just be the icing on the cake.”

“It’s just a little longer, Leah.” He put his arms around her. “Hang on with me a little longer. I’ve been doing this for five years, gathering evidence for five years. If I reveal what I know now, yes there will be a scandal, but the church will have time to cover it up. Trust me, they are very, very powerful. It has to go all the way to the top in order to for us to bring it down.”

“Oh my God.” She buried her face against his chest, unable to take it all in. She didn’t like it, any of it, but she understood what he was saying. “I feel trapped. Like there’s no way out.”

“There is.” He rocked her, kissing the top of her head. “I promise you.”

“So Erica really is my sister.” Leah tried this on for size. They’d always been like sisters. No wonder they’d never wanted to be apart. If Leah wasn’t at the Nolans then Erica was at Leah’s. They’d always been inseparable. They could never stay mad at each other for long. It made perfect sense, in hindsight.

“Yes.” He stroked her hair. “You get tell her. Unless you want me to do it?”

“No, I’ll do it. She’s too mad at you right now.” Leah pulled away, frowning at him. “So…my mother was never really in love with you?”

“No. She was in love with my wife.” He smiled sadly. “I think some part of her died with Susan.”

“But she always talked about you,” Leah said, shaking her head and putting her arms around him again. Had her mother really been in love with another woman? “Said you were such a catch.”

“It was a cover, I guess,” he said, holding her close. “She’s never remarried. She doesn’t date. I think she’s had to pretend so long, maybe some part of her believes it. I don’t know.”

A thought suddenly occurred to her and she asked, “Did my mother know what they were going to do to Erica?”

“You mean the operation?”

“Yes.” The operation. That made it sound so simple. They had taken her-Leah’s sister, her twin-a young, healthy, trusting little girl, and gutted her like a fish.

“Patty told me, after Susan died, that my wife did it without her knowledge. Father Patrick had it all arranged. Your mother didn’t know, not until it was too late,” Rob replied, his eyes dark with anger. “My wife betrayed both of us for that pompous old pervert. She made a promise to Patty she wouldn’t ever let Erica join the Mary Magdalenes that she never intended to keep.”

“I just don’t understand her,” Leah said finally.

“Susan?” Rob gave a short, little laugh. “I thought I knew her. But I was wrong. They say love is blind, but it’s not. It’s not blind or deaf-it’s dumb. We still see and hear everything, we just don’t ever say so. Love makes forget who we are without that other person. ”

“I meant my mother,” Leah said, considering his words. “Not Susan. I really don’t understand either of them.”

“Don’t be too hard on your mother. It can be exhausting to keep a secret.”

She shrugged. “I suppose.”

Rob squeezed her tightly. “When you have to hide who you really are to the world, you create a shell around yourself over time. A painted on coating of lies. It becomes your shield…and your prison.”

“I never thought of it like that.” Leah had only glimpsed the woman her mother really was, she realized. What must it have been like, to be in love with someone you could never acknowledge in public, to be in a secret relationship society deemed not only inappropriate and sinful-but criminal? And her mother had not only had to live with that, but she had sacrificed one of her daughters to be raised by a woman she loved, only to find herself betrayed in the end by her lover.

No wonder she had clung to Leah so tightly.

“She guards her heart very well,” Rob murmured.

Leah felt tears stinging her eyes. “Yes. Yes, she does.”

“Do you understand now why I can’t stop?” Rob asked, punctuating his question with a kiss on her forehead.

Leah sighed, giving him a reluctant, “Yes.”

“And you still love me? And forgive me? And trust me?” He punctuated each of these questions with a kiss too, making her laugh.

“You don’t ask for much do you?” Leah lifted her head, meeting his eyes. “But… yes.”

“Now can we go to dinner?”

She laughed and kissed him. “Yes!”

Chapter Eight

Erica was so late there was no point heading to the Mayflower to meet Father Michael. She had effectively stood him up after telling him she would meet him for coffee on Monday, but she’d been out so late the night before with Clay. He’d taken her to St. Casimir’s in the middle of the night, which is where he put together his underground papers, and they’d spent the night printing the next issue, in between the teasing and the flirting, which had finally overtaken them both, and they’d ended up clearing the workspace.

They’d missed one of the papers though. It had gotten stuck to the small of her back. She still had the reversed image of downtown Detroit in smudged ink on her skin.

All of which explained why she had overslept, right through her alarm, but she couldn’t relate any of that to Father Michael. She just hoped he was in his office at the church. She took the steps two at a time, opening the entry doors, stopping to cross herself out of habit before going off to search for him.

Father Michael’s office was through the vestibule to the left. She had to go through the front office first, a glassed-in area where the church secretaries worked. There were two of them sitting at their desks behind the counter. Erica stepped up to it, clearing her throat. The secretary closest to her looked up-the other one had some sort of earphones on, typing away, oblivious-frowning at the interruption.

“Can I help you?”

“Is Father Michael in?” Erica tried to sound casual, like she came in here all the time asking to see Father Michael, although the secretary probably knew that wasn’t true.

“Is he expecting you?”

He was, about five hours ago…

“I thought I heard your voice!” Father Michael opened his office door, smiling when he saw Erica standing behind the counter. “It’s fine, Gertie. Come on in my office, Erica.”

Erica smiled at the secretary as she edged by her desk, feeling the woman’s eyes on her as she slipped by Father Michael into his office. He closed the door behind them, looking down at her, still giving her that big, bright smile. She’d stood him up, and here she was five hours late, and still he was glad to see her.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” she apologized. “Planning Leah’s wedding is taking up all my time.”

It was as good of an excuse as any she could think of and slipped easily out of her mouth.

“I missed you. But I’m glad you came here to find me.” Father Michael leaned on his cane as he moved around to the other side of his desk. “Go ahead, have a seat.”

Erica slid into one of the two big leather chairs across from him.

“The Mayflower is cozier, isn’t it?”

“This is fine.” Erica looked around, taking in the clutter on his desk, the bookshelves that took up one entire wall, the pictures of the Madonna and child, a large cross and a calendar with the days marked off in red. December 1957 was almost over by the amount of X’s. She couldn’t believe it, but she’d actually never been in Father Michael’s office, in all her years attending church at St. Mary Magdalene’s. “Nice office. No window?”

He laughed. “Father Patrick got the office with the window.”

“Did you thumb-wrestle him for it?” she teased, enjoying the smile it elicited.

“Here’s your Christmas gift.” Father Michael reached into his suit coat pocket. He was wearing a black suit with his collar today rather than his cassock. She liked seeing him in a suit. “Sorry it’s a little late.”

She accepted it a reluctantly, even though it had been the stated reason for her visit. “I didn’t get you anything…”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said with a shake of his head. “Open it.”

The box was small and square and Erica peeled off the paper, finding a ring box inside. Of course, she didn’t expect a proposal-the man was a priest. Even if she had tempted him into sinning by kissing him on two occasions. But for a moment, just one brief moment, her heart thudded in her chest and her hands trembled and she saw two ring boxes sitting in her palm.

“An Elvis ring?” Erica exclaimed as she opened the box. She pulled it out, studying it. It said ELVIS in big letters, decorated in rhinestones. She laughed, trying it on, but it was far too big, even for her thumb. It hadn’t been that long ago that she’d met the man-the legend-Elvis Presley himself. She remembered thinking how much Leah was missing that day. And Father Michael had been there. He’d remembered.

“I told you it was just a small thing.” He smiled, looking at it on her thumb. “The man who sold it to me swore Elvis himself wore it, but I believe he also wanted me to buy some swampland down in Florida too…”

She laughed, putting it back in the box. “I’ll wear it on a chain. All the girls will be jealous.”

“They should be.”

Erica met his gaze across the desk, the way he looked at her making her weak-kneed again, and she was glad she was sitting down. It wasn’t fair, to feel this way about a man who was so perfect, so sweet and kind and honest and full of integrity, and so impossibly, patently unavailable.

“So I hear you’re dating Clayton Webber.”

Erica stared down at the ring in the box instead of looking up at him. “We’ve gone out a couple times. He’s going to Berkley in the fall. He wants me to apply.”

“Well, that’s… sudden.”

“Can’t hurt to apply.” Erica shrugged. “Keep my options open. So I did.”

“California’s a long way from here.”

“Does it really matter?” She looked up, giving him a small, sad smile. “It could be two miles or two million. I could go to the moon and we’d still feel this way.”

Father Michael nodded. “I know.”

“Anyway, you said you’d found out something…?” Erica closed the ring box and put it into her coat pocket.

He looked at her, puzzled.

“You know… our Nancy Drew mystery?”

He laughed. “Right. Well, I have some interesting news, even if it doesn’t solve our mystery. At least I was able to find some of the information you asked me to look for. It turns out the records for Magdalene House come here for storage after the girls leave the maternity home. All their records are archived in our basement.”

Erica perked up, eyes widening. “Grace! Did you find her file? Do you know where she is?”

“That’s part of the interesting.” Father Michael stood, leaning on his cane as he came around the desk. “Her file is missing. Gone. Just disappeared. Come on, let me show you.”

Erica stood, following him as he opened his office door.

“Gertie, have you met Erica Nolan?”

“So this is the infamous Erica Nolan!” The secretary looked up from her desk where she’d been writing on her message pad, tucking her pen behind her ear and smiling at Erica. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Gertie is Clay’s mom.” Father Michael informed her.

“Oh!” Erica turned to the woman, surprised enough to feel faint all of a sudden. What a way to meet Clay’s mother! Her face felt hot as she held out her hand and the woman shook it. Her hands were cool and soft. “Hi! Nice to meet you.”

“Gertie was the one who told me about the records from Magdalene House.”

Erica blinked. “Really?”

“What do you call them again, Gertie?”

“Records of Removal,” she replied, making a face. “Horrible term isn’t it? Those poor babies. I developed the archive filing system myself, so we can search for them by both the adoptive parents’ last names or the biological mother’s last name. It’s kind of like a card catalog that you look through at the library. Did Father Michael tell you we found his mother’s file?”

Erica looked up at him, raising her eyebrows at the news. “No. He didn’t.”

“Come on, I’ll show you.” Father Michael headed toward the door out into the church proper. “I’m going to show off your handiwork, Gertie!”

“Nice to meet you Mrs. Webber,” Erica called over her shoulder. Gertrude Webber waggled her fingers at Erica and smiled, not unkindly. She seemed nice enough, especially after Clay’s sardonic treatment of her in his stories of his home life. He was going to flip when he found out Erica had met his mother today. She smiled in anticipation of telling him all about it.

“Oh, Father Michael, I wanted to ask you something.” They walked past the sanctuary across from the front doors, heading down the opposite hall. “Clay talked to the minister at the New Bethel church about the wedding.”

“New Bethel?” He raised his eyebrows. “The black church down on Linwood?”

“That’s the one,” Erica agreed. “The minister said we could use the church, and he would even marry them, but Leah had her heart set on you perform the ceremony. Would you have any objections to doing it there?”

“At New Bethel? No, of course not. I apologize for Father Patrick on Christmas Day. That was…” He stopped, pulling open a door that led to a stairway.

“Anyway, Clay said he reserved the church for January 4.”

“That’s this Saturday!” He hesitated in the doorway, wide-eyed.

Erica laughed.“I know.”

“How are you going to get all the girls here by then?”

“Let’s hope we get some divine intervention.” She grinned at him. “You found them-that’s step one. So, how did you manage it?”

He started down the stairs. “Remember how I told you I was orphaned and raised by the nuns here at St. Mary Magdalene’s?”

“Yes.” Erica followed just a pace behind.

“I don’t know how the conversation rolled around to it… I think we were talking about the foster kids Gertie takes in. Anyway, we ended up talking about Magdalene House, and she mentioned those records of removal…”

“What a horrid phrase.” Erica shivered.

“I know.” He turned left at the bottom of the stairs. “I told her what happened to Leah, how she’d been coerced into signing those adoption papers, how we couldn’t find where the social worker had placed the baby without a court order, and she says to me, ‘Father Michael, I can tell you right now where that baby was placed.’ You could have knocked me over with a feather.”

“I bet.” Erica followed him down-they were stairs she and Leah had snuck down when they played hooky. They’d found a way out that didn’t attract the attention of the nuns. “Aren’t adoption records sealed or something? Isn’t that what that lawyer my father hired said?”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But those are state records. The maternity homes keep their own records. And they don’t give those out to just anyone.”

“You’re special?”

“It’s one of the perks of being a priest around here.” He winked at her and she laughed. “Anyway, Gertie, she brings me down here, and she shows me this room. I’ve been down here a thousand times, and had no idea that’s what we were storing down here.”

Father Michael led them to a door, turning the knob and pushing it open.

Erica grinned, looking down the hall at the little room she had discovered with bunk bed cots and a ladder up to an old storm shelter entrance to the church. It was there she and Leah had snuck out. It was also the place she and Bobby used to meet to make-out. She’d lost her virginity on one of those thin old mattresses. It seemed like a million years ago.

“Are you coming?” Father Michael turned on the light and Erica stepped into the room, recognizing it immediately. She and Leah, two nefarious truants, had slipped in here to avoid discovery by Sister Abigail. It had worked too. They’d made it out to the street and had walked home, free as two little jailbirds flying the coop. She remembered kneeling on the floor, her arms around Leah, both of them praying Sister Abigail wouldn’t discover their whereabouts.

“Gertie created this card filing system. It’s really brilliant. Like she said, you can look up any of these files by the last name of the mother or by the adoptive parents’ names. That’s how I found out the names of the girls you were looking for.”

“Leah’s roommates?” Erica looked up and down the rows. The boxes stretched from floor to ceiling, row after row after row. So many babies. So many adoptions.

“Yes, let’s see…” Father Michael slipped a hand into his suit coat pocket, pulling out a white slip of paper. “I wrote them down for you. Elizabeth-her real name is Carolyn Anne Schumacher. She’s from Flint.”

“How did you find them, if you didn’t know their real names?”

“Oh, Gertie has that covered, too! Look-all the girls are given fake names, in rotation. She just keeps them in this card file. Here are all the Lizzies. They’re filed in order of the date each girl came to Magdalene House. We knew the approximate dates, so it was easy from there.”

Gertie’s card catalog was, sadly, even bigger than the one at her school. Erica didn’t know which was sadder, the diminutive size of her school library or the massive numbers of “records of removal” cataloged here.

Father Michael looked back at his slip of paper. “There was Frances-her name is Marguerite Morales. She’s from Marquette. Marty-she’s the one I had the hardest time tracking down. Her name is Maureen O’Connor, but when I called the number at her last known address in Kalamazoo, her mother said she’d received a postcard from Australia postmarked in Tamworth, and hadn’t heard from her since. So I called the operator and asked to be connected to Tamworth, Australia.”

“From the church phone I hope.” Erica grinned. “Long distance?”

“Of course.” He returned her grin. “The operator in Australia-what a delightful woman, very strange accent! I asked if there was a Maureen O’Connor listed in Tamworth, and she told me no, there was not. Frustrated, I told her my story, and she got very excited. You see, she was from Tamworth, although I was actually connected to the operator station in Brisbane. Tamworth is, apparently a tiny little town between two much larger ones-Brisbane and Sydney.”

“Even I’ve heard of Sydney,” Erica remarked, flipping idly through Gertie’s card catalog. “Are you going to tell me the operator knew this Maureen O’Connor?”

He laughed. “Not exactly knew her, but she had heard of her! She said she knew a girl named Maureen had moved into their little town-which wasn’t even declared a city until 1946, if you can believe it-with her baby. I guess they’d done some sort of story in the local paper about arranged marriages, which apparently are becoming more and more popular in Australia. Ruth said men outnumber women there two to one.”

“Those are sad odds.” Erica mused. “Who’s Ruth?”

“The operator.”

“Oh, right.”

“Anyway, she remembered the article and the man’s name.”

“Really?” Erica looked at him, hands on her hips. “She remembered the man’s name?”

“It’s a small town. I guess.” He shrugged. “So she gave me his number, and sure enough, we struck gold!”

She grinned, holding out her hand for the slip of paper. “You really did some good detective work there, Hardy Boy!”

Father Michael laughed, glancing down at his list, his smile slowly beginning to fade as he talked. “There’s one more. Jean-Norma Pyke-she’s actually still at Magdalene House. Working in the laundry. That’s where I found my mother.”

Erica raised her eyebrows at him. “What?”

“You know, I was very young when I came to the nunnery here at St. Mary’s. Three or four, I think?” Father Michael mused. “I barely remember a time before, but I do have some memories of that place. I remember hearing my mother’s voice. She used to sing to me. And I remember them calling her Lily. But that was all I could remember.”

“That’s not much to go on,” Erica agreed.

“But while we were down here, looking for these girls, Gertie and I got to talking about Magdalene House and I mentioned my mother and what I remembered, and she said, ‘I bet I can find her!’ So I told her the month and date of my birth, and what do you know, she goes straight to her little card catalog, and pulls out the two Lilys who had stayed at Magdalene House around that time. We looked up their files, and found their real names. The first name was a dead end. But the other name-Marianne Locke-that was my mother.”

“You talked to her?”

He nodded, but he looked so sad. “I went to see her. Before the holidays. At Magdalene House. She still works in the laundry.”

“But you found her!” Erica reached out, taking his hand. “Isn’t that good news?”

“Come on, I want to show you something else.” His smile was still far too small and sad for Erica’s liking. She followed him down the corridor, her belly clenching with the memory of her last trip through them as a representation of The Virgin-not at Father Michael’s sweet living nativity scene, but at a bastardized pagan ritual turned on its head, made Catholic for Father Patrick’s perverted purposes. She knew, the deeper they went, where Father Michael was taking her, what secret he had discovered, and she wished she could take it back, take it all back, give him back his innocence because hers was lost forever.

“Father Michael,” Erica said as they neared the heart of the circle, the inner sanctum, the center of the star, putting her hand on his arm. “I need to tell you something-”

She took a deep breath, swallowing, the words stuck, and when she looked up at him she saw she didn’t need to say it after all.

“I know.” He held his hand out to her and she took it, hers trembling in his. “I’m so sorry, Erica. So sorry.”

The worst thing wasn’t her pain, her fear, her sudden sense-memory returning, her body reliving the experience in hot flashes and gooseflesh. The worst thing was, she didn’t know what he was apologizing for. What did he know, exactly?

She let him lead her, just like she had let Father Patrick lead her, a lamb to the slaughter. They didn’t speak as he opened the door and turned on the light, leading her toward the mammoth crosses in the center of the room, glancing up at him and wondering what he knew.

She had a feeling she was about to find out.

Inside, Erica couldn’t catch her breath, looking around at the huge, empty cavern where she had been strapped to a cross and sacrificed to priest after priest. Father Michael must have seen the panic on her face, stopping to put his arms around her, and she let him hold her, helping still her quivering limbs.

“Why did you bring me here?” she whispered.

“I’m sorry, Erica.” He kissed the top of her head. “I’m so sorry for what they did to you. What they did to all of you. My mother told me about this place. She told me… about the place I’m going to show you. The place she lived for fifteen years.”

“What?” Erica lifted her head, meeting his eyes, seeing tears there. “What are you talking about?”

Father Michael walked to the platform where the crosses were mounted. They were mechanized, the gear and pulley system used to raise them while the Mary and the Magdala were strapped down, bodies on the vertical axis, arms on the horizontal. Father Michael pushed a button and the crosses began to rise, no drugged, terrified girls on them this time, and Erica watched, heart in her throat, as they hit their maximum reach, still at a three-quarter angle to reduce the strain on the girls’ arms.

“Come on.” He took her hand, leading her around the platform to the opposite side. Father Michael stepped over the thick metal framing that surrounded and supported the platform, into the space created underneath, the crosses looming overhead, throwing deep shadows.

“What-?” Erica took a step forward, curious, always curious, and saw him grasp something at his feet and pull, lifting up, and she realized it was a door, like some sort of trapdoor, right in the floor.

“What is that?” she asked before she thought. Did she really want to know?

“It’s where Father Patrick kept his daughter for fifteen years.” Father Michael took a step into the darkness under the door and Erica’s heart leapt, but she followed him anyway, climbing over the steel railing and seeing stairs leading down.

“His daughter?” Erica whispered, gladly taking the priest’s offered hand. The smell hit her first, like something rotted, long-dead. She gagged, covering her mouth and nose with her hand as they made their way down the stairs in complete blackness. “Aren’t there any lights?”

“At the bottom. Watch your head.” He flipped a switch and fluorescents hummed, revealing a small cell-like room, no windows, the ceiling so low Father Michael had to duck-he couldn’t even stand straight up. How deep under the ground were they, she wondered? There was a small vent near the ceiling.

A filthy mattress sat in one corner and for a moment, as Erica’s eyes adjusted to the light, she thought she saw a baby with thick, dark hair under the cover of a threadbare blanket, like someone had tried to cover it to keep it warm, and a scream rose to her throat before she could stop it, clutching Father Michael’s arm in terror.

“It’s okay. It’s a doll,” he assured her, squatting in front of the mattress and pulling the blanket down, revealing the naked, plastic limbs. “I thought the same thing at first…”

The doll was missing an eye and there was something wrong with its mouth, like it had been cut-or chewed. Rats? Erica shivered, hugging herself and looking around. In the other corner was a bucket and as Erica took a step toward it, her foot kicking something. She glanced down and saw a book with a red cover and gold letters-The Holy Bible.

“What is this place? How did you know this was here? And what is that awful smell?” Erica gagged again, pulling her collar shirt up to cover her nose. She glanced over the rim of the bucket and saw the thing she’d feared-a rat-but it was long dead. It looked like something had been eating it.

She went over to where Father Michael was squatting by the mattress, looking down at the doll with the missing eye and deformed face. He looked up at her and she saw tears welling in his eyes.

“Come on.” He half-stood-that’s all he could do, walking stooped over, taking her hand and leading her back to the stairs. “I’m sorry. I just had to show you.”

“I don’t understand,” Erica said as they climbed the stairs. “You said Father Patrick kept a daughter down there? He had a daughter?”

“My mother.” Father Michael closed the trap door and Erica frowned, looking at the latch. It was seamless, hidden completely from view. No one ever would have known it was there, if they hadn’t been looking for it. It bothered her and she wasn’t sure why. She had seen something like it before…

“Your mother?” Erica was having a hard time making sense of anything. “Can we get out of here?”

“Yes, of course.” Father Michael returned the crosses to their previous horizontal state, shutting off the lights before leading her out of the inner sanctum. Erica took deep, cleansing breaths when they stepped out into the hall, clearing her head.

“So Father Patrick had a daughter he kept down in that hellhole?” Erica surmised, the thought of it making her want to gag again, in spite of her distance from that awful smell. “And your mother told you about it? How did she know?”

“She was that little girl.” Father Michael let that sink in, and when it did, Erica sank too, sliding down the wall in utter disbelief, staring up at the young priest with wide, horrified eyes. “I’m sorry, Erica. I had to show you. You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.”

“Oh I believe you.” She rested her forehead on her knees, trying to think, but her brain felt fuzzy, warm, too bright, like her mind was a breaker box that had just blown every fuse at once.

Father Michael sat beside her on the cold basement floor-the tunnel floors were cement-putting a hand on her shoulder. “There’s more. I don’t want to tell you, but I have to.”

Erica groaned, wrapping her arms around her knees, but nothing would keep out the words.

“Marianne… my mother…. She was born with a birth defect. A cleft palate. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes.” Erica had seen a girl like that once on a vacation in New England. Boston, maybe? They were on a boardwalk, it was summer, and they were feeding the birds, when a mother had walked by holding a young girl’s hand, and the child had smiled at Erica with that strange, twisted mouth. She’d been very young and had pointed and exclaimed about it. Her father had taken her aside and explained it to her, but she couldn’t remember the incident now without reddening in shame.

“The nuns raised her for a long time, like they raised me.” He swallowed, she heard the thick click of his throat, not looking up at him. “But when she got older, he came to get her. My mother told me the story…”

Erica did look up then, when he hesitated, and saw the tears brimming in his eyes.

“She was a teenager by then. A beautiful young teenager-with that damnable cleft palate. She showed me a picture. She was beautiful, just beautiful, and he came to get her, and she thought he was coming to bring her home, to live with him.”

“Did she know he was a priest?”

“No.” Father Michael’s voice broke. “All she knew was her father was coming to get her. That’s what the nuns told her.”

“Oh my God.”

Father Michael didn’t reproach her for taking the Lord’s name in vain. “And he did bring her home, didn’t he? Right here, to the place she was conceived. And he kept her locked up down there. Until she got pregnant.”

“Oh my God!”

He didn’t say anything about her second offense either, continuing the story. She noticed he was crying. Silently, no sobs or hitches or sniffles. Just tears. Rivers of them running in rivulets down his face. “That was 1915, the year she turned twelve. She had a little girl.”

“A… girl?” Erica lifted her head, puzzled. “You have a sister?”

“She named her Susan. He let her choose the baby’s name before he took it, and gave it to the couple he had hand-picked to adopt her.”

“Susan…” Erica repeated the name.

“Can you guess who that baby was?”

“No!” she cried, incredulous.

“Yes, Erica. Your mother was my sister. My mother spent another fifteen years in that hole, and I don’t know how she managed not to get pregnant for another fifteen years. Maybe he didn’t visit her as often, I don’t know. A lot of her mind… is muddled… she wanders.”

He was really crying now, tears just streaming down his face.

“But she knew enough to tell me about the tunnels and the inner sanctum. She described the crosses, the rituals, the trap door under the crosses. She told me what I’d find in that little room. And it was there, everything she said.”

“No, oh God, no…”

“And when she did get pregnant again, when he noticed her belly was growing big, he took her out of that hole in the ground and he had the nuns clean her up and he sent her to Magdalene House. My mother said he wanted a son this time. A son to carry on his legacy.”

“That was you?”

He nodded grimly. “That was me. I’m sure he didn’t count on his infant son contracting polio, but it certainly gave him a good excuse to give me to the nuns to raise until I was old enough for him to take over that job.”

“What happened to your mother after that?” Erica asked.

“I stayed at Magdalene House for the first few years. And he let her stay there too. She threatened to expose him if he brought her back… here.”

“So she stayed in the laundry?” she asked. “She worked at Magdalene House?”

“Yes. He came for me when he decided I was old enough.”

Erica puzzled over this. “But she didn’t expose him?”

“No. I think she just kind of lost all her fight when they took me away.” He wiped at the tears on his face, as if noticing them for the first time. “Do you know what this means?”

“That Father Patrick is a lying, sick, disgusting pervert?” she snapped.

“It means we’re related,” Father Patrick repeated quietly.

“What?”

“Susan Nolan was my sister. That would make me your…uncle.” Father Michael told her. “And it would make Marianne Locke your…grandmother.”

“Oh…” Erica laughed. She threw back her head and laughed. What else could she do? Father Michael looked at her like she was insane. “We’re not related. Oh my God if that’s the only bright spot in this humungous pile of crap, I’m going to kill myself.”

“Don’t even joke about that, Erica,” he said, squatting and putting a hand on her arm.

She just looked at his hand resting there, shaking her head. “I was adopted. I don’t know who my parents were. I might have been one of those Magdalene babies. I just happened to fall into the hands of a woman who decided to sterilize me and perform sick rituals on her only daughter. Because apparently I’m just that special.”

“That’s what he did to my mother,” his voice was a stunned whisper now. “After I was born. And to Susan after that, and every woman who became a Mary after that. The first doctor did it because my father told him Marianne was his daughter and had given birth to a monster like her. Every doctor after that, he paid. The church paid. We have endless coffers, Erica. Bottomless amounts of money. The doctors did what he wanted them to do.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Gertie told me. She told me about the rituals. About what goes on. How it all works. She told me about you…”

“Gertie…” Erica gaped at him. “Gertie, as in Clay’s mother, Gertie? The woman upstairs who created this insane card filing catalog systems so the church could keep track of the number of babies it sells every year? That Gertie?”

He nodded dumbly. “I’m so sorry, Erica. I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you, what they’ve done to you.”

He went to put his arms around her, but she pushed him away, shaking her head. “No… we can’t do this. I can’t torture myself anymore. Or you. I just want it to stop. I need it all to just… stop.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I thought I was helping those girls I sent to Magdalene House. I didn’t know they were being coerced into signing adoption papers. I didn’t know about Father Patrick, about what he’d done, what he was doing, the way he lied and manipulated…”

“We know now,” Erica said. “That’s all that matters. Now the question is, what are we going to do about it?”

“I’m going to report him to the Bishop,” he said, and Erica heard the steel in his voice, despite the tears. “I just need enough evidence…”

Erica met his eyes and a slow smile spread across her face. “I think I can help you with that.”

Chapter Nine

Leah woke up the morning of her wedding to the sound of rain on the warehouse roof. She and Erica had slept together in Erica’s little twin bed, just like they used to, and Rob had spent the night in a hotel room, because the entire place was filled with squealing, screaming, giggling girls, and he fell back on the excuse that it was “bad luck to see the bride before the wedding” to hightail it the hell out of there.

Solie, who still had a terrible cough, wrangled them all, feeding them popcorn and Cokes and homemade cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate, and Leah’s mother brought Ada with her, the housekeeper who had practically raised Leah while Patty Wendt worked in Donald Highbrow’s law office all day. Ada shadowed Solie, helping where she could, but she kept bursting into tears and hugging Leah and saying, “My baby! My sweet baby girl!” so often the shoulders of Leah’s sweater was soaked by the end of the night.

Leah’s mother stayed over, sleeping up in the loft, and Solie and Ada had bunked on the pull-out sofa, and the rest of the girls were sleeping on Erica’s floor in sleeping bags. They had stayed up talking and giggling and playing records and making inappropriate jokes until the wee hours. She couldn’t remember when she’d fallen asleep, the excitement in her belly buzzing, but she did remember looking over at Erica asleep, thinking how much she loved her, had always loved her that way, like a sister. Finding out they were twins had been shocking at first, but now it felt so natural. Of course they were sisters. Had they ever been anything else?

Who else but her sister would have gone out of her way to track down Leah’s roommates from Magdalene House, the girls Leah had spent those long, anxious months with, four girls who really knew how Leah felt losing Grace? They were all here snoring on the bedroom floor, thanks to her best friend-her sister, her twin.

Beside her, Erica stretched and yawned. “I can’t believe it’s raining on your wedding day. I ordered sunshine, damn it.”

“I can’t believe you’re my sister,” Leah whispered, snuggling up and spooning her. Erica hugged Leah’s arm over her middle, a sweet, familiar gesture, one that was so comfortable, Leah wondered if they had slept this way in the womb. “My real sister.”

“I know.” Erica smiled, eyes still closed. She had taken the news far better than Leah thought she would, accepting the fact they were fraternal twins without a beat. Her only question had been, “Do I have to call Patty ‘Mom’?”

Leah hadn’t told her mother yet that they knew, that Rob had revealed her secret.

“I can’t believe you’re marrying the guy I always thought of as my dad.”

Leah giggled. “I can’t believe I’m marrying the guy I always thought of as your dad either.”

She really couldn’t believe it. Today was her wedding day.

The sound of a baby crying startled her before she remembered that Marty’s baby was sleeping next to his mother, sweet little Gregory Adam Walker, a name that Leah didn’t have much trouble with, since she had it on a postcard tucked into the mirror over her dresser. She was having a much harder time with the names of her former Magdalene House roommates however. Marty was Maureen, which wasn’t too much of a stretch, but Lizzie was really Carolyn and Jean was Norma and she never remembered to call Frannie Marguerite. All of them kept calling Leah by her fake Magdalene House name too, and Erica laughed hearing her called “Lily” all the time. They’d finally just given up and stuck to the names they knew each other by.

Leah looked over at Marty nursing her baby. She was still half asleep, on her side, the baby pulled to her, suckling happily, instantly quieted. Leah realized with a sick feeling in her middle that even if baby Grace came home today, she wouldn’t be able to nurse her. They had bound her breasts and given her an injection to dry up her milk.

“Are you ready to be Mrs. Robert Nolan,” Erica whispered, making Leah smile at the words.

“More than ready.”

She couldn’t believe how fast it had all come together. The lawyer had told them to get married as soon as possible, and she had cried in Rob’s arms at the loss of a big church wedding. She was willing to make the sacrifice for Grace’s sake, of course, but it still broke her heart to give up her adolescent dream of the white dress and the flowers and the bridal dance.

Rob had held her and whispered, “Okay, if it’s a big wedding you want, it’s a big wedding you’ll have.”

And then he had moved heaven and earth to make it happen. He and Erica had put their heads together, taken Leah’s list of wedding wishes, and had taken charge of everything. Leah picked out the dress, the invitations, the flowers, her bridesmaids dresses. She picked the cake, the menu and their reception venue. But she had no idea how they had managed to make any of that possible on such short notice.

Erica yawned and stretched again, sitting up and slapping the bed, announcing, “Let’s get this show on the road!”

All the girls groaned, pulling various pillows or blankets over their heads after their late night, but Erica wasn’t having it.

“C’mon, troops! Ten-hut!” Erica hopped over Leah, landing on the floor in bare feet, grabbing blankets and sleeping bags, rolling girls out of their comfy hideaways.

“Okay, Sergeant, you rally the troops while I go take a shower.” Leah giggled, threading her way through limbs and torsos, waving to her former roommates, all of them protesting. But they were smiling.

Leah was smiling too. She couldn’t help it. She smiled all the way through her shower, shampooing her hair twice, shaving her legs-and between them too-wondering if she would ever have a better day than this one in her whole life. The day Grace was born, of course.

And the day she comes home.

Even the thought of Grace couldn’t keep Leah from smiling as she came out of the bathroom to find the weather had cooperated with Erica’s orders, and the sun had appeared, making a rainbow in the sky that the girls were standing in the living room exclaiming over as they looked at it through the skylights.

“It’s the best luck in the world for a bride to have a rainbow on her wedding day.” Leah’s mother smiled over a cup of coffee.

Leah smiled back, joining the gaggle of girls in goggling at the refracted light show, thinking her mother was right. Today, she was the luckiest girl in the world.

“I don’t think there have been this many white people on Linwood street since the riots,” Erica whispered, peeking out the door.

“Erica!” Leah’s mother gasped, but she was laughing, pulling her back into the room.

“Erica, don’t start,” Leah called from where she sat, surrounded by her bridesmaids, thanks to her best friend and sister, waiting anxiously for it to be time to walk down the aisle. They were all so beautiful in their brown satin empire waist dresses with the pink satin sashes and their brown pillbox hats.

Marty fluffed her veil while Frannie retouched Leah’s lipstick. Lizzie was sitting on the floor, flipping through the baby book-Leah’s mother had brought it to put on the cake table for people to look at-and Jean sat beside her. It reminded her so much of the time they’d all spent upstairs in the turret room at Magdalene House that it made Leah’s eyes well up with tears.

“Oh no you don’t,” Frannie murmured, giving her a look of disapproval. “No crying! You’ll run your mascara!”

“Here, I’ve got one.” Marty clucked, opening her pocketbook and digging out a tissue.

Frannie grabbed it, touching just the corner of the Kleenex to the corner of Leah’s eye, letting it wick away the wetness.

“Nice technique,” Erica said, looking at Frannie with approval.

“Were you being naughty?” Leah blinked, frowning at her sister.

“They didn’t hear me.” Erica grinned. “Well, Clay saw me, but he just waved. He looks awfully dreamy in a suit.”

“You’re going to be making a trip like this down the aisle before you know it if you’re not careful,” Leah’s mother remarked, joining the group of girls.

“Oh no, not me.” Erica shook her head. “I’m going to move to California and become a news anchor.”

Patty Wendt raised her eyebrows, but she was smiling. “You really are my daughter, aren’t you?”

Leah met her mother’s eyes in the mirror, so proud of how well she’d taken the news that Erica had accidentally let slip just a few hours before, while they were all in the kitchen fighting access to the coffee percolator. Patty Wendt had taken it in stride, taking Erica by the arm and leading her out of the kitchen. They had disappeared up to the loft for an hour and Leah didn’t know what the two of them said to each other, but they both came down dabbing their eyes with Kleenex and laughing, so it couldn’t have been too bad.

“Oh, I almost forgot your something old.” Leah’s mother opened her pocketbook, looking through it. “And no, it’s isn’t me!”

The girls laughed and then gasped when she pulled out a small box, opening it to reveal two pearl earrings.

“Oh Mom…” Leah gaped at her as Patty clipped them to her ears. She’d never been allowed to get them pierced.

“They were your grandmothers.” Patty stepped back, cocking her head, and smiling. “You are the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”

“I went to the bank and got your something new.” Erica stepped forward, holding out a shiny copper penny in her palm. “1958. You can put it in your shoe.”

Leah gathered up the fabric of her dress, lifting her foot so Erica could slide the penny into her white satin shoe.

“Keep your skirt up, girlie.” Frannie grinned, producing a white garter with a blue satin bow. “Here’s your something blue.”

Leah blushed and they all laughed as Frannie slid it up her calf. Leah took hold of it and slid it the rest of the way up her thigh. “I guess all I need now is-”

“Something borrowed,” Marty said. “Since it’s supposed to be from someone who’s in a happy, stable marriage, I was elected.”

“I’m so glad you’re happy,” she breathed as Marty touched her cheek to Leah’s, pressing her ‘something borrowed’ into Leah’s hand.

“This is for your happy tears,” Marty whispered back.

Leah looked down at the handkerchief monogrammed with her friend’s initials and felt her eyes tearing up again.

“Noooo!” Frannie protested. “No crying until after the pictures!”

The door opened and a dark face peeked in. It was the pastor’s daughter-Aretha-the one Erica had arranged to sing after the exchange of vows.

“It’s time,” she called, smiling at all of them standing there. “Time to get married!”

The girls gathered around Leah, already squealing and giggling in anticipation, gathering their bouquets of pale pink and white roses and handing over Leah’s. Hers was double in size, and all her roses were a light blush, the palest pink.

“Ready?” Leah’s mother asked, taking her daughter’s arm.

“You look beautiful, Mom,” Leah whispered. It wasn’t the blush-colored mother-of-the bride dress she was wearing, it was the smile on her face, the sparkle in her mother’s eyes. She’d never seen her look so light or free. The secret her mother had been carrying hadn’t just hardened her, it had dimmed her, but now that she’d opened up about it, something about Patty Wendt absolutely shined.

Erica looked at their mother, cocking her head and smiling. “You do, Mom.”

“So do you, girls.” Patty Wendt started blinking fast, tilting her head back. “Oh no, not the waterworks!”

Leah came to the rescue and handed over Marty’s borrowed handkerchief to Erica, who wiped away their mother’s happy tears as the girls all lined up, the music already filling the church. Leah smiled at her mother as she took the handkerchief back, keeping it in her hand, hidden by her bouquet.

She had a feeling she was going to need it.

Leah thought she couldn’t top that moment when Erica called Patty “Mom,” just before Leah took her mother’s arm and walked down the aisle.

But then she saw the look on Rob’s face when he first glimpsed her in her wedding dress, the pride and love there shining like a light meant just for her, and she was sure then nothing could get better than that.

Until the moment Father Michael pronounced them husband and wife, and Rob lifted her veil and gathered her up and kissed her as the dark angel behind them broke into glorious song and she thought she’d never felt so beautiful, had never heard anything so beautiful, would never in her life experience anything this beautiful again.

But if her wedding day had been the most delightful, enchanting day of her life, like walking into the pages of a fairy tale, her honeymoon surpassed it by light years. Her wedding had taken place on the planet Earth, and while she felt as if she were floating through the day like an angel or a goddess, there had been reminders of everyday life to keep her at least a little grounded.

Every day things like exchanging addresses and phone numbers with all her bridesmaids, knowing she wouldn’t see them again for a long time. Things like meeting Marty’s tall, tanned, real-cowboy husband, who shook her hand in the receiving line and said, “Congratulations to you and your bloke, Sheila,” and Leah had been too embarrassed to correct him on getting her name wrong, and thank goodness she had been, because Marty explained later while they dancing to Chubby Checker’s Twist, that her husband had just been using an Australian term of endearment.

She had glimpsed Ada crying through the ceremony while Solie handed her Kleenex out of the depths of her considerable cleavage, like an endless scarf-pulling magic trick, using the space between her voluminous breasts as a tissue dispenser for Ada on one side of her and Leah’s mother on the other. Between the three of them they cried a happy river of tears.

Leah saw Erica dancing with that Clayton boy, her blond head resting on his shoulder, eyes closed, and she wondered how long it would be before they were doing this again for her, in spite of Erica protests about running off into the big, wide world and becoming a journalist. Erica had, after all, caught the bouquet.

All of those things kept pulling Leah back down to earth throughout the day and into the evening as their guests ate dinner and drank champagne and toasted the happy couple and rapped on their glasses with their knives so often Leah thought her lips would get chapped from the kisses initiated by that long-standing tradition. Not that she minded kissing Rob. Not at all.

By the time she’d changed into her brown pinstriped going-away outfit, she was more than ready for her honeymoon to begin. The long stares Rob had been giving her all night, that dark, wolfish look in his eyes, had made her knees wobbly and her belly a roiling sea of emotion. She hardly ate anything, too distracted, and anyway, fairy tale creatures didn’t need human sustenance, did they?

Leah kissed all her bridesmaids goodbye and hugged her sister the tightest, thanking her for everything, everything, and Erica kissed her cheek and promised to take care of everything while they were gone, not to worry, she had it under control. Leah’s mother hugged them both, the three of them a trio of wet eyes and smudged mascara when they parted.

And she cried again when Marty handed over little Gregory and she held him close, watching him make sucking motions in his sleep, her tears falling onto the soft blue blanket his mother had swaddled him in. Marty promised to write and urged Leah to call her, not if but when, baby Grace was back in her mother’s empty, aching arms.

The honeymoon started in the limo on the way over to the hotel. Rob had booked a room overnight in the Fort Shelby-their flight to the Caribbean didn’t leave until the morning-and the two of them made out like teenagers in the back of the Rolls-Royce Phantom in spite of the driver being able to glance in the rear view mirror and see them. That just made it all the more exciting.

“I can’t wait to get you out of these clothes,” Rob whispered into her ear, his hand moving up under her skirt, stroking the exposed expanse of skin on her thigh above her stocking. “You’re mine, sweetheart. All mine.”

“Yes,” she breathed, squirming on the seat, arms twined around her neck, breath coming so fast she thought she might faint. “Always.”

She could barely believe it was true. Leah heard the man behind the concierge desk in the Fort Shelby address them as Mr. and Mrs. Nolan with a sense of wonder and awe. The bellhop brought up their luggage, taking them down the hallway to their room. Rob tipped him and the bellboy tipped his hat and grinned, handing over the key and thanking him before heading back down the hall.

Leah remembered staying at Fort Shelby during their annual end of the school year trip to Detroit’s local amusement parks. They had run around like little kids, she and Erica, so young and carefree. Leah had been head over heels in love with Rob and neither of them could deny it anymore, in spite of Erica’s misgivings about the relationship. He had proposed to her that very weekend, and she thought they were going to live happily ever after, that she finally had the fairy tale.

So much time and heartache between then and now, so many losses, so much sacrifice. But none of it mattered when Rob unlocked the door to the honeymoon suite, sweeping her off her feet and carrying her over the threshold, nudging their suitcases in and kicking the door closed behind him. She laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek, leaving a visible lipstick print.

“What should we do first?” Leah pondered aloud when he set her on the bed. She leaned back, kicking off her high heels. “Take a shower? Watch TV? Order room service?”

Rob crawled onto the bed, onto her, making her lean back on the pillow. “The first thing I’m doing is getting you out of these clothes and making love to my wife.”

“Your wife,” Leah repeated, trying it on for size.

“My wife.”

“I like the sound of that,” she whispered.

“So do I.”

Her whole life started then, right there in the Fort Shelby hotel, when they made love for the first time as husband and wife. She didn’t understand it and she didn’t have to-her body had already decided for her. It had picked Rob without hesitation, making her palms sweat whenever he was around, her bottom clench, her breath quicken, and her nipples harden. Her body had chosen it all-even the spark of life that had grown inside of her as Grace, finally birthing her right into Leah’s own hands.

“I love you, Mr. Nolan,” Leah whispered as he kissed her blouse open with every button.

He smiled up at her. “I love you too, Mrs. Nolan.”

Mrs. Nolan. She was Mrs. Nolan. She belonged to him.

He rained kissed down on her as he undressed her, kissing every exposed bit of skin as he revealed it, bit by bit, until she was just in her stockings, bra and garters, her panties down at her knees. She wanted him so much by then she was shaking with it, but he ordered her to stay there, right there on the bed, while he stood and pulled off his tie, tossing it aside and beginning to unbutton his shirt.

“Hurry!” Leah complained, holding her arms out to him like a child. “Faster!”

“Brat.” He peeled his shirt off, tossing at the foot of the bed, unbuckling his pants.

“I’m your wife now,” she reminded him, sticking out her tongue. “You should be a good husband and say ‘Yes, Dear.’”

“Yes, Dear,” he replied, sliding his trousers and boxers off and adding them to the pile with his shirt.

“Socks, too,” she instructed. “I can’t make love to you if you’re still wearing your socks. That’s just wrong.”

He rolled his eyes, and she laughed at the way he looked, his erection bobbing as he pulled off first one sock, then the other. “Better?”

“Much!” She opened her arms and he went to her, sliding inside of her before she could open her mouth to say another word, his aim shockingly accurate, the drive of his hips forcing her thighs apart and her knees up.

“Now what was that about being a good husband?” he whispered, looking into her eyes as he pulled his hips back and thrust again.

“I don’t remember.” She put her arms around his neck, pelvis rocking to meet him.

“Sure you do.” He rolled his hips between her legs, grinding slowly. Leah moaned, feeling every bit of him touching her inside, front, back, filling her completely. “What am I supposed to say?”

“Yes, Dear,” she cried as he gave her a sudden, sweet pulse of thrusts, short, hard blasts that made her teeth rattle and her breasts bounce and her sex ache. “Ohhh yes! Yes!”

“That’s my good little wife,” he teased, giving her more of that-hard and fast was the ticket, and she let him know with her moans, hips gyrating, hand slipping down to rub herself. “Tell me how much you like it.”

“Oh Rob,” she cried, looking up into his eyes. “I love it, I love you.”

“I love you too.” He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose.

Leah had been anticipating this moment all day, her whole life, and she worked toward that moment of bliss, feeling it hovering just out of her reach as Rob pounded her into the bed, the headboard banging hard against the wall, making her flush with embarrassment at the thought of their neighbors hearing, whoever they were-what if they ran into them in the hallway, what then?

But the thought was fleeting because Rob was taking her now, giving into his own lust, taking her with him on a one-way ride to ecstasy. Leah cried out when her head hit the headboard, putting her other hand above her head to keep herself from sliding further up, her other too busy between her legs to move it, but Rob didn’t notice.

“Oh yeah,” he groaned, and she felt him swelling inside of her, just when she thought he had filled her completely, there was more. Leah’s body stiffened, her toes curling into the small of his back, calling out his name, screaming it as she came, feeling him exploding like a rocket burst into space, leaving trails of white streams in its wake.

Leah blushed and buried her face in the pillow when she remembered how loud she’d been, how the headboard and banged and shuddered. Rob just laughed, gathering her up and kissing the top of her head.

“They really should nail these things to the wall,” she mused, pressing her hand against it, making it rock. “See? Too loud!”

Rob chuckled. “I’ll leave a note on the suggestion box when we leave.”

They both drifted for a while, exhausted from not only the wedding, but from the tension and strain of the court case coming up.

“We will be back in time for court, won’t we?” Leah asked for the hundredth time at least, but Rob reassured her again anyway that yes, they would be home on a Friday night and the court date wasn’t until Monday. They’d make it back, even if the flight was delayed or cancelled.

“I want to look for a house,” Leah said, fingers trailing over Rob’s chest hair.

“A house?” He didn’t even open his eyes.

“I want to move out of the warehouse,” she said, leaning up on her elbow. “I want a real house with walls and rooms and a deck and a backyard and a fence and a dog and a nursery for Grace…”

“Wait…” Now his eyes were open. “A dog?”

“If you buy a house, you have to buy a dog. I’m pretty sure there’s a law.”

He smirked. “And where do you want to buy this house?”

“I was thinking… New York.”

“New York!”

“Well, that’s where the School of American Ballet is,” she reminded him. “And if I get in, it would be a long commute from Detroit. I mean, you can work anywhere. And Erica will probably end up at a school out east anyway. We’d all be closer.”

“New York…” He considered it, staring at the ceiling for a while. Then he smiled, shrugged, and said, “Okay. New York it is.”

Leah squealed. “You mean it?”

“I would move to the ends of the earth to be with you, Mrs. Nolan.” He pulled her closer and kissed her smiling mouth.

“Well, luckily, we don’t have to go that far.” She laughed. “Want to order room service? I’m starving.”

“Yes, Dear.”

She giggled. “Spoken like a good husband.”

“I’m learning.”

Chapter Ten

Erica fell face-down on her bed and slept until noon the day following the wedding, waking up with a champagne headache and cotton in her mouth to the sound of nothing. Complete silence. Solie, who still had that hacking cough, had said she would come by today, had promised Mr. Nolan she would check in and make sure Erica didn’t burn the place down trying to cook for herself, a comment which had elicited a tongue stuck out in his direction from his daughter.

She stumbled out to the kitchen in her bra and panties-she had managed to hang her bridesmaid dress and take off her garters and stockings, but that was it, before she’d passed out, so exhausted she couldn’t see straight. Putting together a wedding in a week-including personally calling everyone on the invitation list, because she wasn’t sure, even though many were sent by courier, that they would all arrive in time-had completely wiped her out.

Coffee was the only thing on her mind. She put the percolator on, smiling as she remembered Clay driving her home the night before. She had asked him to stay over-“No one will be home,” she reminded him-but he said his mother would have a heart attack. It was probably best anyway, because she would have done nothing but snore in his ear all night, and she didn’t want to spoil her feminine magic and mystery this early in the relationship.

Relationship.

Yes, she had to admit she was in one. She didn’t know, exactly, how she felt about that. Her own emotions, everything in her life, actually, had taken a backseat to the crazy wedding planning. She had run around like a mad woman setting things up, plunking down her father’s American Express card to pay for it all. She didn’t even want to think about the bill he was going to get in the mail next month and she hoped he’d really meant it when he handed it to her and said, “The sky’s the limit. Just make it happen.”

And she had.

The day had been the magical, fairy tale wedding Leah had wanted and deserved. Erica was proud of her accomplishment, even if she was still feeling her way around this new relationship of “twin” to the girl who had been her best friend since-forever. And she had definitely not gotten her sea legs when it came to accepting Patty Wendt as her mother, although they had sat in the loft for an hour, talking about it.

She had just been getting used to the idea of being adopted when that bomb had been dropped on her. And Father Michael’s revelations had been like the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. Erica hadn’t told anyone that little secret, not yet. She wanted Leah and her dad-she still thought of him that way, and probably always would-to have a good time on their honeymoon and giving either of them any more drama or heartache would just be cruel, under the circumstances.

The doorbell rang just as Erica was pouring herself a cup of coffee and she groaned, taking her cup with her to the door, sure it was Solie. She probably forgot her key. Erica yanked the door open, standing there in her bra and panties, hip cocked and mouth firing off without thinking.

“I’m not a baby, I can take care of myself, you kn-ohhhhhhboy.”

“Hi.” Clay grinned, gaze sweeping her nearly naked form. “Wow, I need to knock on your door more often.”

“Crap. Get in here.” Erica stepped out of the line of sight, letting him in and shutting the door behind. “I thought you were Solie. What are you doing here?”

“It’s nice to see you too. Missed you at church.” He was still staring, mostly at her cleavage, and he held up the brown bag in his hand. “I brought donuts. Did anyone ever tell you that you’re very fetching in your underwear?”

She smirked, sipping her coffee. “Are you a dog? Do you want to go fetch?”

“Woof.” His eyes met hers. “Can I come in or are we just going to stand here in the hallway?”

“My dad said I shouldn’t let strange boys in the house,” she teased, very aware of the way her hips swayed as she walked the length of the hallway.

“Am I strange?”

“The strangest.”

“Wow, this is your room huh?” He followed her in, looking around as she grabbed a sweatshirt off the floor. “Awww, no, don’t get dressed on my account.”

“Solie could show up any minute.” Erica smiled as he slipped his arms around her waist, turning her face up, ready for his kiss.

Clay lowered his lips to her neck, kissing under her ear, a spot he’d discovered, much to her ambiguous protest, was quite sensitive and elicited the type of reaction he seemed to be going for. “Well, I’d hate to have her interrupt…”

“Damn it.” Erica swore as the phone rang down the hall. “Stay here. Don’t… don’t be bad. I’ll be right back.”

She waggled her finger at him, pulling her sweatshirt on as she ran for the phone.

“Hello?” she said, out of breath.

She was greeting with a horrible whooping and hacking sound. Erica held the phone away from her ear, wincing. When the ruckus had died down, she put the receiver back to her ear and asked, “Solie?”

“I’m sorry, I-” A deep, whooping breath and more coughing. “I’m too sick to come today. Can you manage? I put a casserole in the fridge. It’s tuna. No milk delivery on Sundays but-”

“Solie, stop talking. I’m fine. Go to bed. Good Lord, you sound awful. Don’t even say goodbye. Hang up the phone.”

More coughing. Then the line went dead. Good. Poor Solie.

Erica went back to the bedroom, finding Clay sitting on her bed, sifting through her 45s.

“That was Solie,” she told him. “She’s sick. We’ve got the place to ourselves.”

He frowned when he saw she’d put her sweatshirt on.

“You’re just making more work for me.” He patted the bed, tossing her records on the night table.

“I haven’t showered. I haven’t brushed my teeth,” she protested, but she went, sitting next to him on her bed.

“That’s okay.” Clay grabbed the edge of her sweatshirt, pulling it over her head. He put his hands on her hips, looking down at her cleavage like a starving man standing in front of a buffet. “I like you dirty.”

“You are a very bad, bad man.”

He nodded, bending and kissing the tops of her breasts. “I’m about to get badder.”

“Worse,” she corrected him.

“If you insist.” Clay unhooked her bra, cupping her breasts and letting them fill his eager hands. Erica moaned when he tongued her nipple, bathing it with saliva before moving to the next, and she gave in, letting him guide her back to the bed she’d just recently vacated.

“You are entirely overdressed for this party,” Erica reminded him, tugging on the ends of his t-shirt. Clay peeled it off, kneeling up between her thighs to do so and looking down at her, a strange expression on his face.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, feeling suddenly self-conscious, moving to cover her breasts with her arms.

“Nothing,” he replied, shaking his head and smiling. “I’ve just never seen you in the light before like this. You’re… beautiful.”

“Stop it.” She swatted at him, rolling her eyes.

Clay unbuckled his belt, then unzipped his jeans, sliding them down his hips. Erica reached out and grabbed the elastic edge of his boxers, stretching them out until they were taut, forcing him to lean into her.

“Kiss me,” she whispered, their eyes locked. Clay leaned in and captured her mouth, exploring the soft recesses of hers with his tongue. When they parted, Erica sighed, shaking her head. “That’s not where I wanted you to kiss me.”

He grinned, moving down her body, unable to resist stopping at her breasts again, sucking her nipples hard and leaving them that way before heading south, pulling her panties down. Erica found herself more than ready for him, annoyed with the teasing licks and gentle kisses.

“What are you doing?” she cried, half-sitting to look at his big, surprised eyes appearing over her mound.

Clay blinked. “I was savoring the brownie.”

Erica looked at him and then cracked up. “Let’s skip to Tootsie Pop.”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

“And don’t call me ma’am.”

Once Clay focused, Erica found herself taken away. No longer having to chase her climax, she let her knees fall open, threw her arms over her head, and enjoyed the roller coaster ride. Clay fully made up for in enthusiasm what he lacked in actual skill, and all she had to do was close her eyes and remember the look on his face the first time he came in her mouth, the feel of his thighs tightening, the hot, rhythmic pulse of him as he flooded her tongue with his seed, and she pushed herself over the edge, of course, not without the help of Clay’s mouth and tongue, working furiously between her quivering thighs.

“Oh I like that,” Clay breathed, kissing that button, making her shiver and cry out at the sensation. “More? Can you do that again?”

“Not yet,” she panted, covering her mound with her hand. “So, do you want my mouth or….” She parted her labia with her fingers, giving him a glimpse of wet, glistening pink.

“Oh God, Erica,” he groaned, his gaze focused between her legs. “You are so beautiful right here. So fucking beautiful. It’s like looking at the stars or the moon or something you couldn’t ever describe to anyone even if you tried, it’s everything, it’s like God, right here, between your legs.”

Erica blinked at his sudden soliloquy and then laughed. “Come here. I want you inside me.”

He crawled up to kiss her, and she tasted herself, just like she had before, sucking at his tongue as she rolled him into his back and straddled him.

“Oh wow.” He grabbed onto her hips, looking up at her in wonder. “I don’t know which is better, my view, or the fact that I’m not sticking to the backseat of my car right now.”

“Yeah, sex in a bed is better,” she admitted, rocking her wetness on him, slick, up and down her slit. Then she tilted her hips and in one easy motion, she slid down onto him, all the way down to the root.

Clay let out a pent-up breath, watching her as she began to ride him, rocking into the saddle of his hips like riding a horse, catching a rhythm and then squeezing him between her thighs, going just a little faster. He bit his lip, trying to hold onto her grinding hips, his eyes closing, then opening, then closing again, unable to focus.

“Are you close?” Erica whispered and he nodded, his breath coming fast. “Open your eyes. Look at me.”

He did, blinking as she rocked on top of him, faster, faster.

“Look,” she murmured, leaning back just a little, showing him, giving him a clear view of himself buried inside of her pink cavern, the swollen lips of her labia hugging his length.

“Oh Erica!” he cried, the sight of them together like that clearly too much-she’d done him in, and she knew it, rolling her hips in circles to finish him off, feeling him writhe and shudder and thrust as she milked every last bit of his orgasm with the tight, contracting muscles of her sex.

Erica collapsed on top of him, smiling at the way he touched her, even now after it was all over, he kept his hands moving, stroking her shoulders, her back, her sides, making her shiver with delight.

“Do you smell something burning?” she asked, sniffing the air.

“You’re just catching a whiff of how hot you are,” Clay joked, eyes still closed.

“I’m serious. I smell…” Her eyes flew open. “The coffee!”

She bolted to the kitchen, yanking the percolator off the stove and tossing it into the sink, turning on the water. It hit the hot pot with a hiss and steam rose from the sink as she turned off the burner. Clay came wandering in wearing just his boxers, standing there, staring at her naked in front of the stove.

“I promised I wouldn’t burn the place down.” Erica glared at the percolator like it was all its fault as she turned off the water in the sink.

“Well, disaster averted.” He came over and looked into the sink, picking up the percolator and opening the lid, peering inside. “Black as sin in there. I think you’re going to need another pot.”

Erica peeked into it and frowned. “Great.”

She took his hand and he left the burnt coffee pot on the counter, following her through the living room. “Oh, hey!” She perked up, pointing to the rows of boxes-wedding presents-stacked against the wall that had been arriving over the past few days. The delivery boy from Hudson’s was making out like a bandit in tips. “I bet there’s another percolator in there somewhere. Whew. I’ll go through them later and find it. No one will ever know.”

They went back to her room and Erica pulled on a t-shirt, much to Clay’s disappointment, which he vehemently expressed, but she complained of cold, so he relented.

“Well, we might be low on coffee but…” Clay held up the paper bag. “We have donuts!”

Erica snatched it, opening the bag and fishing out a powdered one, taking a big bite and tossing him the bag.

“I kind of like you all messy with white stuff all over your face,” he remarked, watching her lick her fingers.

They each ate two donuts and then crawled into bed, bellies full, utterly satisfied. They talked about school, which started back up tomorrow for the both of them. They talked about what they wanted to be when they grew up, which involved writing for both of them, but Erica wanted to go into broadcast media, while Clay wanted to be a “newspaper man”-whatever that was. They talked and talked, and Erica was sure they slept, at least a little while.

When she opened her eyes, the light in the room had changed, the shadows different, and Clay was wedged between her legs, hugging her thigh, his cheek resting there.

“Can I ask what you’re doing?”

“Just admiring the view.” He smiled. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

She ran a hand through his hair. “Anything.”

“This scar.” He ran a finger across her lower belly. “What really happened?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

He raised his eyebrows, just looking at her, staring her down.

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Once upon a time there was a couple who couldn’t have children…”

She started it like a fairy tale, and that’s how she told it. There was an evil priest villain and an evil witch social worker, and twin sister heroines, and in the end, Erica found herself telling him everything, absolutely everything from the beginning, her own beginning as a twin in the womb with Leah to Father Michael’s revelations about his parentage and Father Patrick’s sick and twisted crimes.

He didn’t interrupt her. He didn’t ask questions.

He just listened until she ran out of words.

“Say something,” Erica whispered finally, unable to stand the silence one minute more.

Clay lifted his face and she saw the tears on his cheeks. “I love you, Erica. You are the most beautiful, special, precious human being I’ve ever met. I don’t care if you don’t love me and I don’t care if we never see each other again, I will remember you for as long as I live.”

Erica blinked back her own tears, swallowing around the lump in her throat. She had told the story in such a way that she could remove herself from it completely, but he brought her back in an instant and her mouth quivered when she told him, “I love you too, Clay.”

“Can I ask you one more thing?” Clay asked. Erica nodded. “Did that really happen? Was that fairy tale true?”

“Yes, it happened. And yes, it’s true.”

“Your father really has a hidden darkroom under his loft?”

Erica stood, pulling on her underwear and a pair of her dungarees. Clay got dressed too, taking his cue from her. She pulled on a t-shirts and went into the jewelry box on her dresser, retrieving a key.

“Come on.”

He followed her down the hall, around the corner, through the living room and under Mr. Nolan’s loft bed. Erica pulled aside the tapestry to reveal a bolted door and a padlock.

“My dad changed the padlock when he found out I’d been in the room.” She held up the key and fit it into the padlock, turning it and unlocking it. “I just borrowed his keys-told him I needed to use the car-and I took the key off his ring and got another key made. Then I put his back.”

“Remind me never to try to pull the wool over your eyes.” Clay’s jaw dropped when she turned on the overhead fluorescents in the darkroom, staring at the pictures of nude women strung up on the line with clothespins.

“This is nothing.” Erica opened the second door, remembering now where she’d seen a latch like that-in the inner sanctum, under the crosses, the access to the hole where Father Patrick had kept his daughter. She wondered if the same person had built them both. Erica took him through and turned on the light, showing Clay the reels of film stacked in the cabinet.

“There are others at the church like this,” she told him. “Behind that room I told you about with all the adoption records-the records of removal. I saw the cases, although they were all locked. But they were just like these.”

Clay held the film of one reel up to the light, giving out a low whistle at what he found there. “This is hardcore stuff. And you think the church is selling it to make a profit? Damn I hate being right so often about corruption and hypocrisy in the church.”

“I think my father’s making it and they’re selling it.” Erica nodded. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”

“And Father Michael wants you to give him all of this because…?”

“He’s going to confront Father Patrick,” Erica told him. “The reels from the Mary Magdalene rituals he wants so he can go to the Bishop with evidence. The others?” Erica shrugged. “Maybe just a little more incentive, to get Father Patrick to turn himself in.”

“To the police? If your father was ever found out… Erica, it would be over for him. He’d go to jail.”

“No,” she disagreed. “We thought of that. Once all of this is gone from here, there’s no way to prove it was my father. It would be his word against Father Patrick’s. And once word of the rituals gets out, once people know Father Patrick fathered a daughter by his own sister and that she gave birth to a baby with a birth defect-a child who was raised in secret until he took a fancy to her too and decided to keep her like his pet sex slave in a hole in the basement under the church… and then got her pregnant. Twice…”

“Jeez when you put it like that.” Clay cringed. “So who was Father Patrick’s sister? You didn’t say. Where is she now?”

“Father Michael told me she’s a nun at Magdalene House. Sister Benedict.”

“Does she know he’s still doing it? All the Mary Magdalene ritual stuff, I mean?”

Erica nodded. “She sends the Magdalene girls to him. She sends them to the rituals on a bus.”

“You know this is crazy.” Clay sat on the bed. “Like, really, super crazy.”

“I know.” She smiled thinly. “I told you we were a couple of bananas short of a bunch. I’d understand if you wanted to go. No hard feelings. Really.”

“Are you kidding me?” Clay scoffed, standing and grabbing the box next to him on the bed. “Let’s get the car loaded up and drive this stuff over to Father Michael.”

Erica heard the phone ring and swore. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

“Will do,” Clay replied, sifting through the photographs he found on the bed. “I’m not going anywhere. Just gonna look through these nice pictures of… yowza!”

Erica laughed, going back through the darkroom, coming out under the loft and running to grab the phone before it stopped ringing.

“Hello?” she gasped.

“Hello, Erica, it’s Donald Highbrow calling.”

She nodded, still panting. “Hi there, Mr. Highbrow.”

“I was wondering if you might know how to track down one of the girls from Magdalene House. You did such a good job of finding Leah’s roommates…”

“Sure,” Erica said, grabbing a pen. “Give me the info.”

She wrote it down, slipping the paper into her pocket and reminding herself to ask Father Michael about it. Given the extensive nature of Gertie’s card catalog, it was pretty likely they would be able to find the girl Donald Highbrow was looking for without too much of a problem.

Erica stopped short at the door under the loft, realizing that in all of her candor, there was one thing she had missed telling Clay. She hadn’t revealed that his mother, Gertrude Louise Webber nee Phillips, had participated in the Mary Magdalene rituals as a “Mary,” that Clay’s mother could never have given birth to him, because she was sterile. Clay, like Erica, had been adopted.

She considered telling him, but she remembered what her mother had said, up in the loft on the morning of Leah’s wedding when she had asked if Susan had ever told Rob about her feelings for Father Patrick, and her mother had said, “There are some secrets a woman keeps for a lifetime.”

Erica knew this one was one of those.

She crept back in through the darkroom, sure she would find Clay looking through dirty pictures or even watching one of the blue movies, but instead he was sitting in the same spot on the bed, holding an old, faded and yellow article in his hands.

“What’s that?” she asked, looking over his shoulder and gasping when she saw the image of her father-Robert Nolan-wearing a Nazi uniform and doing the Hitler salute. “Oh my God, where did you find that? What is it?”

“It’s in German.” Clay surrendered the article when she put her hand out for it. “Do you read German?”

“No.” Erica held it up to the light. “What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.” Clay shrugged. “But if Nazis are involved, it can’t be anything good.”

“I’ll just keep it.” Erica folded up the clipping, putting it into her pocket with the information she was supposed to find out for Donald Highbrow.

“Are you going to ask him about it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Well while you’re chatting, you might want to ask him about these,” Clay said, holding up a stack of pictures.

Erica took them, flipping through, her mind doubling back on itself as she looked at the pictures of her mother-mothers, plural, her real mother, Patty, and her adopted mother, Susan, in various sexual positions together in the photographs.

“I’m guessing from the look on your face that you didn’t know about those?”

Erica tossed them into the box, shaking her head. She was so tired of the lies, the pretending and hiding and keeping up appearances. But she was keeping secrets too, not telling Clay about his mother, about the fact that he was adopted, so how could she possibly judge?

Clay stood, putting his arms around her, pulling her close. He didn’t say anything, he just held her, and when Erica lifted her head to look into his eyes, she realized the words she’d repeated to him were true. She did love him. She had come to love him very much in a short amount of time. She knew it sounded impossible, but it had happened and it was true. Just like everything she had told him today, the post-coital horror story hidden in a fairy tale, had also happened and was also true.

There were some secrets you kept for a lifetime, and some stories you wished had never happened, and some people you never, ever wanted to leave, and some people you wished you’d never, ever met. But in the end, Erica realized, thinking about her mother, her first mother-the one who had been the daughter of a monster, who grew into a sort of monster herself, because that was the story she had been told was true about her-in the end, you lost everyone you loved, and all the secrets you kept and all the stories you believed died too.

The only thing you could hold onto in the world, the only thing that made any sense, was the feeling she had when Clay put his arms around her and told her he loved her. That was worth having, worth holding, worth its precious weight in gold. The rest of it was just a fairy tale, a made-up story with characters who walked around and talked and did all the things the storyteller told them to until people forgot about them and then they too, were nothing more than dust.

Nothing stayed, nothing ever changed. But love, only love, that was the true part of the story, no matter what the beginning, middle or end.

* * * *

Things had returned to some semblance of normal when it happened. Erica and Leah had gone to Hudson’s the Saturday after they’d returned from their honeymoon to take back some of the duplicate items Leah and Rob had received as wedding gifts. They were meeting Leah’s mother for lunch on the thirteenth floor and Erica was looking forward to her Maurice salad, but it never even made it to the table.

They had just sat down when Leah excused herself to use the bathroom. Erica didn’t think anything of it. Their mother-still so strange to think of her that way, but she was slowly growing used to it-was showing them a new hat she’d purchased and Erica sipped her water and listened, watching Leah disappear around the corner.

Her sister had come home happy and tanned from the Caribbean, talking about blue water and white sand. Her father couldn’t wait to get to his darkroom to develop the photographs he’d taken, and Leah and Erica had curled up on the couch together and played catch up.

Of course, Erica didn’t tell her everything she’d done while they were gone. Her father would find out, soon enough, she gathered, when he went into his darkroom. She didn’t know how often he used that hidden darkroom, to be honest. He had another darkroom. There was a red light over the door that meant keep “out.” That was the darkroom he went to when they’d returned from their honeymoon, coming out with photographs so beautiful they took Erica’s breath away.

“So I hear they’re talking about New York,” Patty said, sipping her tea.

“That’s what Leah said.” Erica raised her eyebrows. She didn’t know Leah had told their mother already that they were making plans, looking for a new house.

“Well, that will be good if you go to Wellesley or Brown.”

Erica shrugged, tracing her finger over the round, wet ring left by her water glass on the tablecloth. She didn’t want to advertise it too much, but she was really hoping to get into USC. Going to Berkley with Clay was the most exciting thing she could imagine. They’d spent all week talking about it, planning for it. Things were moving fast, so fast, but for Erica, they couldn’t be fast enough. She’d spent the whole week with him, playing house, and she discovered that there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to play house with him for real.

She’d fallen in love with him so fast it scared her, but in spite of that, she wasn’t going to shy away from the fact. She loved him, and more than anything, she wanted what Leah had with Rob, what she saw in their eyes when they danced that first wedding dance-only with a smattering less sappy and a dash more sarcasm. That was Clay, and that was what she wanted.

They both heard the raised voices at the same time, their eyes meeting in surprise. Someone was having quite a heated argument at the front of the restaurant. That’s when Erica clearly heard Leah’s voice, pitched at a near scream, loud enough for every head around them to turn in that direction.

“Where is she?” Leah screamed, and that’s all Erica needed to hear. She bolted from the table, Patty close on her heels. “I want my baby back! Where is my baby? Where is she?”

Erica found her way blocked by a crowd of spectators that had begun to gather at the front of the restaurant, near the restrooms. Patty used her shoulder to edge her way through, saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me, please!” the whole time, but she was knocking patrons aside like a linebacker, and Erica followed in her wake, the screaming turning to crying, wailing really, a high-pitched keen.

“Leah!” Patty burst through the crowd, finding her daughter being restrained by a burly security guard, but she was still struggling, kicking her feet-her heels were scattered on the floor, along with the contents of her spilled pocketbook. Erica got on her knees, hurriedly picking up her sister’s things, still trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

“This is hers too.” The woman handed her a hair comb she recognized, one with sharp metal teeth, and Erica looked up, seeing matching gouges in a long line down the woman’s bloody face, right under her eye.

If the puzzle wasn’t clear enough already, Patty cleared things up, leaning over to whisper in Erica’s ear, “It’s the social worker.”

“She could have blinded me, the vicious little bitch!” the social worker snapped as the owner of the restaurant apologized, offering her a cloth and some ice for her cheek, and Erica watched this with growing anger, resisting finishing what Leah had started only by sheer force of will.

No matter what Patty or Erica said, the security guard refused to let Leah go, insisting, “She assaulted that woman! She’s going to jail, Lady!”

Desperate, Erica ran for the pay phone, calling her father who was, thankfully, still at the house. She told him what had happened and he said he was on his way, hanging up before Erica could even finish telling him everything.

“Where is she? Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?” Over and over Leah screamed, her voice growing hoarse, whittled down to a croak by the time the police arrived. The crowd that had gathered was told to disperse, but they refused, staying to watch the train wreck.

The officer put her in handcuffs, but he told his partner they really needed four-point restraints and radioed for an ambulance. When they arrived, Leah was put on a stretcher, this time in some sort of jacket that wrapped around her body and buckled to keep her from moving.

Her eyes were closed, and she was drugged and mumbling when they started wheeling her away. The only word Erica could make out was, “Grace.”

The paramedics tended to the woman, the one Leah had called ‘the ghoul,’ bandaging her face and suggesting she come with them to the hospital.

“I’m not riding in the same ambulance with her.” The ghoul sneered, looking over where Erica stood, her father just arrived, hugging his daughter close, his desperate gaze searching for some glimpse of his wife, but they had just wheeled her away. Patty was holding Leah’s things-the dropped pocketbook, her shoes, looking as lost as Erica felt.

The ghoul pointed in their direction, eyes burning with anger. She came closer, her voice low, but loud enough to hear. “That dirty little whore will never, ever get her hands on that baby now. She’s going to jail for this, and I hope she rots there. I’ll see you all in court on Monday.”

Chapter Eleven

“All rise.”

Leah did, with Rob’s help at her elbow, although her knees were wobbly and threatened to buckle. She had dreamed about Grace all night, tossing and turning and crying out in her sleep. Poor Rob had a bruise on his side from where she had elbowed him, dreaming about fighting the ghoul for her baby, wrenching the infant away from the woman, only to find the blanket empty.

She had done her best to cover her dark circles, dressing very modestly-their meeting with Donald Highbrow the day before had deeply impressed that upon her. Appearances mattered. He just shook his head and sighed when they told him about her arrest and being taken in restraints to the hospital. She’d only stayed there overnight, being released in Rob’s custody on Sunday.

She knew she had put the case in jeopardy, but when she’d seen that woman in the restaurant bathroom, just standing there washing her hands, carefree and happy as a lark, she had lost it. There was the ghoul, the woman who had taken Leah’s baby right out of her bassinette, bold as you please, right under her nose. The ghoul was singing to herself as she dried her hands, turning to see Leah standing in the door, and the worst part was, she didn’t say a word. Not one word.

The ghoul just straightened her shoulders, tossed her head back and walked right past her, nudging Leah aside to open the door. It was that cold, callous treatment, the woman’s utter disregard, like Leah was nothing to her, invisible, that had done it. Leah had snapped. She couldn’t remember much after she grabbed the ghoul’s arm, turning the woman to face her at the front of the restaurant, demanding to know where her baby was.

She didn’t remember the fight, and Erica and Patty weren’t much help in that regard, since they had arrived after it had been broken up, but she had, apparently, removed the comb from her hair and gouged the woman with its metal teeth at some point during their argument. Rob told her it was probably the drugs causing her loss of memory, but she wasn’t sure that was it. Everything in her vision had gone black with rage when the ghoul had turned around and told her in a hiss that she would never, ever see her baby again.

Rob sat, pulling Leah down with him, and she collapsed into him like a rag doll, trembling against his side. Her mother served as another bookend on her right, holding her up, and Erica was next to her. Erica had asked Clay to come with her, and she was sitting close to him, holding his hand.

The lawyer had explained everything. First the judge would come out and he would call their case. There would be other cases, and other people in the courtroom. Today they would be simply addressing Donald Highbrow’s motion that the child be returned to Leah based on the law-she had six months to change her mind about the adoption, regardless of whether or not she was coerced into signing the papers.

The lawyers would present their arguments and witnesses. Leah would be called to the stand to verify that, yes, she was changing her mind about the adoption and now wanted her baby back. Donald explained that the state would present their case, calling the social worker and others in an attempt to show Leah as an unfit mother. They would also be able to cross-examine her. He had prepared her as best he could for their questions, making it very clear if she had another outburst in the courtroom like she had in the restaurant at Hudson’s, it was likely she really would never see her baby again.

Leah looked around the courtroom, searching for Grace-there were lots of babies and children in the room, more than she’d expected-but the lawyer had reminded her of their tactics. Donald told them they would likely try to stall and give reasons, even if the judge deemed her a fit parent, why Grace couldn’t be handed over right away.

“They aren’t above lying,” they lawyer had assured them. “We will just have to be persistent. So don’t expect to take your baby home from the courtroom tomorrow.”

When she didn’t see her baby anywhere, Leah rested her head on Rob’s shoulder, watching things unfold, cases called. Some adoptions were being finalized, and adoptive parents cried and hugged their new family members when the judge brought his gavel down, giving them forever-rights to their adoptive child, and every time, Leah winced. She couldn’t help but wonder about the baby’s mother. Had she really wanted to give her baby away, she wondered? Had she been too scared to speak up? Had she been told, like Leah had, that she didn’t have anything to offer a child?

Had she been tricked, lied to, treated like dirt? Less than dirt, really, more like an object, a baby machine, useless once its job was complete. And the irony was, it was all legal. The lawyer had explained, the church couldn’t ask adoptive parents for money directly in exchange for a baby according to the law, but they really didn’t have to. They just had to make the suggestion that the “standard donation” was $20,000, and desperate, infertile parents would pay it. More, upwards of $50,000 depending on their requests-if, for example, they wanted a boy, or a specific hair or eye color, or a mother whose hobbies included playing the piano or singing or whose parents were doctors or lawyers or other professions.

That was the reason they had all been asked to fill out those endless questionnaires, why the ghoul had kept asking and asking and asking, “Who is your baby’s father? What does he do? What do his parents do?” The more information they had, the more valuable the baby became, the more money they could ask for in “donations.”

“Leah, it’s you,” Rob whispered, giving her a gentle nudge, and she looked up, seeing Donald waiting expectantly near the witness box.

She stood and made her way down the row, past her mother and Erica and Clay, who smiled encouragingly at her. Donald Highbrow waved her into the witness seat and Leah approached on shaky legs, grateful to take a seat, even if it meant she was right next to the judge, who was a stern looking man with gray hair and half-moon glasses that he peered over to look at her.

Leah put her hand on a Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, and that’s exactly what she did. Donald smiled a lot, putting her at ease, and she found it effortless to answer his questions, letting him build his case, layer by layer. Yes, she had been a resident at Magdalene House because she was an unwed mother at the time. Yes, she had intended to give her baby up for adoption because she felt she had no other choice, but after the baby was born, she changed her mind and wanted to keep her.

Once that had been established, Donald painted a picture with a deft lawyer’s brush, and with simple strokes, he showed her as bright, competent, talented young woman, getting her to mention her invitation to audition for the American School of Ballet. He clearly made the point that she was now a married woman, in fact married to the father of her child, who was a very successful and well-known photographer. He established that they had a stable environment in which to raise the child and a network of support in the community, including a solid relationship with the Catholic Church.

The judge nodded, writing things down and even smiling at her occasionally when she dared to look his way. It seemed to be going so perfectly, Leah couldn’t believe it. She tried to remind herself, Donald had warned her not to get too excited, not to anticipate what might happen, but after her lawyer’s questioning had gone so well, she couldn’t help it.

Then the lawyer for the state got up to cross-examine her.

Leah took a deep breath, looking at the kindly man who approached the bench. He was an older man, probably in his fifties, maybe sixties, and he introduced himself to her as Frank Talley, “But you can call me Frank,” he assured her with a wink. He wore a brown suit and a yellow tie, and when he smiled at her, his teeth matched his tie. He wore glasses that made his eyes appear much larger, making Leah think of a fish. How bad could this be, she mused, watching him look at his notes on the legal pad in his hand.

His questions weren’t any harder than Donald’s. He wasn’t mean, he didn’t badger her like her lawyer had during their practice. His questions were asked in a non-threatening way. In fact, he seemed to sympathize with her when she told him about her breakdown, how much she missed her baby, how she woke up at night sometimes, thinking she heard her cry.

“Does that still happen, dear?” Frank asked kindly, leaning on the edge of the witness box.

Leah nodded, her eyes welling with tears. “Sometimes.”

He seemed very interested when she told him she felt as if she was being followed around all the time, like there was a shadow behind her she couldn’t quite catch, a ghost-baby in the house.

Whenever she looked away from him-up to the judge or over to where her family was sitting, or to where Donald sat in front of them-Frank would redirect her, smiling and dropping a wink, saying, “I’m right here, Dear. Can you focus on me? Good girl. There we go. Hi there! Are you back? There you are!”

It made Leah laugh, the way he did that, and then he would continue his questions. He had a lot of them written down on that yellow legal pad.

Even when he asked her about the altercation at Hudson’s, he didn’t get angry or confrontational. He was very interested when she told him that “everything went black” when the argument started, and that she couldn’t remember much about the actual argument itself.

“But I’m very sorry,” Leah interjected before he could ask anything else. “I’m really very sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her. I just wanted to know where my baby is, that’s all.”

“I understand, Dear.” Frank even patted her hand where she was clutching the railing in front of her.

When she sat back down next to Rob, she smiled up at him and whispered, “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

He pressed his lips together and nodded, putting his arm around her shoulder, but he didn’t say anything. She couldn’t understand why they all looked the way they did, her mother and Erica and even Clay-like someone had died and they were attending a funeral.

Then Frank asked the ghoul to take the stand and Leah watched her world crumble around her ears. She thought they’d been playing the game perfectly, but the ghoul, with Frank’s help, created a sudden tornado that knocked down their house of cards.

The Frank who had cross-examined Leah disappeared. That kindly, sympathetic old gentlemen became a direct, confident lawyer, asking the ghoul questions about her experience of Leah at Magdalene House-“rebellious, defiant, clearly sexually deviant”-and after Grace’s birth-“depressed, belligerent, anxious.” He asked her matter-of-factly about the assault-that’s what he called it, “the assault,” and he kept calling it that, saying it so many times Leah lost count-detailing her injury, asking her about the diagnosis and treatment, whether or not the doctor said she would be permanently disfigured.

Donald objected-“Hearsay, your honor!”-and that was sustained, so Frank started asking the ghoul, in her “professional opinion,” what kind of person assaults an elderly woman in such a way? Donald objected to that too, but the judge allowed it, saying the witness was, after all, a professional and it spoke to the point. So Leah had to sit there and listen to the ghoul throw out diagnosis after diagnosis-neurosis, borderline, depression-doing just what Donald said they would do, proving to everyone that Leah was unfit to be Grace’s mother, she was unfit to be anyone’s mother, and the more they talked, the more she started to believe them herself. Frank asked the ghoul if she believed a psychological evaluation was warranted, and of course the ghoul recommended one be done immediately, because Leah just wasn’t a danger to herself and others she knew, she was a much bigger danger to “society at large.”

Leah looked at the judge, who had been smiling before, but not anymore. By the time Donald got up to cross-examine the ghoul, Leah felt so small she was sure she was invisible next to her husband, whose jaw was working again. She could hear his teeth grinding. But of course there was nothing they could but sit there, sit there and wait for them to nail the coffin shut and seal her in.

It didn’t seem to matter what Donald asked, the woman was as slippery as a fish.

“Mrs. Goulden, I didn’t ask you your opinion of Mrs. Nolan’s mental state, I asked you where her baby had been placed.”

“As you know, that information is confidential.”

The ghoul looked bored, Leah thought. No, not quite bored-she looked like she had better things to be doing than being cross-examined by Donald Highbrow.

“It’s only confidential after the adoption has been finalized.” Donald corrected her with a wag of his finger. “Until the mother has signed over her rights, she is allowed visitation. Was Mrs. Nolan informed of her rights to visit her child?”

“In my opinion, Mrs. Nolan isn’t fit to visit her child.” The ghoul sneered, emphasizing the Mrs. in Mrs. Nolan as if Leah was misrepresenting herself as a married woman. “She’s a danger to herself and others. I have the scars under here to prove it.”

The ghoul tore off her bandage and, as if on cue, the whole courtroom gasped. It felt so staged and dramatic to Leah, she wondered if the ghoul and Frank had planned it somehow. Not that it mattered. Leah sank down further in her seat, feeling everyone’s eyes on her.

“She could have blinded me, you know!” the ghoul snapped, tossing the bandage aside.

“Again, I didn’t ask your opinion of Mrs. Nolan’s mental state.” Donald ignored the woman’s drama, not looking at her but at the judge. “Can you please direct the witness to answer the question, Judge Solomon?”

The judge frowned at the ghoul, leaning over and asking, “Mrs. Goulden, where is the baby now?”

The ghoul touched her cheek, which was healing, Leah saw, just in the two days since their altercation. Erica said there was a lot of blood and there were gouges on the woman’s face-she made it sound like mincemeat-but from where Leah was sitting, it didn’t look that bad. Like surface scratches made from fingernails maybe.

The ghoul sighed and relented, looking up at the judge. “We placed her in foster care at our facility on the other side of the state. She needed special care, Your Honor. We believe she’s exhibiting signs of her mother having some sort of drug habit. The doctor’s aren’t sure.”

Leah had had enough. She sat bolt upright, protesting out loud, “That’s not true!”

Judge Solomon frowned, glancing in her direction. “Mrs. Nolan, please be seated.”

Leah leaned forward, feeling Rob’s hand on her shoulder. “Your honor I’ve never even smoked a cigarette!”

“Enough!” The judge banged his gavel, making her jump. “So help me, you will be held in contempt! Do you understand?”

She nodded, too afraid to speak, shrinking down against her husband’s side.

“Mrs. Nolan-do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Leah croaked, clearing her throat and repeating it. “Yes, Judge. I’m sorry.”

Donald gave her a stern look too and Leah felt her mother’s hand in hers, squeezing, reassuring, as the questioning resumed.

“Did you or did you not inform Mrs. Nolan of her rights.”

“All the girls at Magdalene House are informed,” the ghoul snapped. “They sign a statement of rights upon their admission. It’s kept in their file.”

“Did you read Mrs. Nolan those rights?”

The ghoul looked directly at Leah. “It would be Mrs. Nolan’s responsibility to do so.”

“So you don’t know if Mrs. Nolan read the statement of rights?”

The ghoul threw up her hands. “She signed a statement of rights. It’s in her file. Would you like to see it?”

“No, thank you, I’ve seen it. Mr. Talley was kind enough to send me a copy.” Donald leaned against the railing of the witness box, like they were just having a conversation, asking, “Did you tell Mrs. Nolan that she had six months to change her mind?”

The ghoul rebuffed him. “That information is in the statement of rights.”

“Did you inform Mrs. Nolan that her baby had already been promised to an adoptive couple?”

“No I did not.”

Leah gaped at her. Now she wasn’t just avoiding his questions. That was a flat out lie. She felt her mother squeeze her hand again, a warning, and she looked down at her lap, trying to keep from jumping out of her seat again.

“Did you tell Mrs. Nolan that she would be responsible for the hospital bills, and that she would have to pay them before she would be allowed to leave with her baby?”

“Of course not.”

Another lie.

“Did you tell Mrs. Nolan that there was social assistance available to her if she wanted to keep her baby?”

“That information is in the statement of rights.”

“Of course, you said that.” Donald gave a nod, turning as if he was done, and then turning back again. “Did you happen to give a copy of those rights to Mrs. Nolan?”

“They’re in her file.”

“So you said, but did she get a copy?” Donald asked. “She’s an adult, she can sign a legally binding contract. Did you give her a copy of that contract?”

“I’m sure I did.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Donald nodded. “Was Mrs. Nolan offered independent legal counsel to explain the legal document to her and protect her rights? Was she informed of the legal ramifications of what she was signing?”

The ghoul blinked at him. “Mrs. Nolan is an adult, as you said, Mr. Highbrow.”

“Being an adult doesn’t exclude you from having the right to legal counsel.”

“We don’t provide legal counsel,” the ghoul replied. “It would be up to Mrs. Nolan to retain legal counsel, if she wanted it.”

“Was legal counsel present when Mrs. Nolan signed the adoption agreement?”

“No.”

“Was anyone else present? Any witnesses?”

“No.”

“Did you inform Mrs. Nolan of what she was signing?”

“Of course.”

“You didn’t tell her she was signing hospital discharge papers?”

“No, of course not.”

Donald nodding, satisfied. “Thank you, Mrs. Goulden. You may step down.”

When the ghoul passed them, smirking and triumphant, Leah squeezed her mother’s hand so hard she left crescent shaped marks on her poor palm from her nails.

“I’d like to call Rebecca Daley to the stand, your honor.”

Leah looked at Rob, her brows drawn together. She had no idea who that was, and from the confused look on his face, he didn’t either. Why hadn’t the lawyer told them about her?

Someone passed them on the left, approaching the witness stand, and Leah watched the girl walk, something familiar about her, but she wasn’t sure what. When Rebecca took the stand, sitting in the witness box and putting her hand on the Bible, Leah’s jaw dropped, looking over at Erica, and her sister grinned, giving her a thumbs-up.

Elizabeth.

They were all assigned fake names at Magdalene House, and the nuns reused everything, including their names, so there was always a new Jean or a new Lily moving in. After little Lizzie-Carolyn-had given birth, a new Elizabeth had arrived, a haughty girl that no one liked with dark, short bobbed hair and a scandalous rose tattoo on her thigh.

It was that rose tattoo that had allowed Leah to identify her at the Mary Magdalene ritual, strapped on the cross beside Erica, dressed in red instead of white, her belly huge. She was due right around the same time as Leah, and had given birth after the ritual, she remembered, maybe a day or two before Leah had gone into labor with Grace.

But what in the world could she contribute here, to Donald’s case? Leah had no idea, and she watched, they all did, as Donald questioned his new witness, establishing her history, that she lived in Ann Arbor and attended catholic school there, she was the daughter of a prominent local politician, and she had been at Magdalene House with Leah, sharing a room with her at the house for a brief time.

“You shared another room with Mrs. Nolan, didn’t you, Rebecca?”

“Only for a few hours,” she said. “I was supposed to go home, but I spiked a fever and the doctors wouldn’t release me. They’d already filled my private room, so they put me in one of the other rooms until they could get me a new one.”

“So you were in the same room as Mrs. Nolan?”

“Yes. There were lots of other girls too. I think they had ten of us crowded in there. It was… deplorable.” Rebecca wrinkled her nose in distaste and Leah remembered why they hadn’t liked the “new Elizabeth” much when she arrived. She always got special treatment, but now that Leah knew who her father was, it made much more sense.

“So where were you, in relation to Mrs. Nolan?”

“I was in the bed next to her.”

Leah blinked in disbelief. It must have only been a few hours-she didn’t remember Elizabeth-Rebecca-being there at all. But she did remember the curtain next to her being closed. She assumed the girl next to her just wanted privacy to feed her baby.

“Did you know Mrs. Nolan?” Donald asked.

“Only as Lily. And I was Elizabeth. They gave us fake names.” She wrinkled her pretty, pert nose at that too. “But I knew who she was. We stayed in the same room at Magdalene House.”

“Did you talk to Mrs. Nolan when you were transferred in her hospital room?”

“No.” She made a face. “And I wasn’t transferred. It was just a holding area until they could find another private room for me because the idiots gave mine away. Anyway, I kept my curtain closed. I wasn’t feeling well.”

“Did you happen to overhear a conversation between Mrs. Goulden and Mrs. Nolan-the girl you knew as Lily?”

Rebecca looked straight at the ghoul, her gaze never wavering. “Yes, I did.”

“Objection!” Frank jumped up, waving his yellow legal pad. “Hearsay!”

“You need to go back to law school, Frank,” the judge said wryly. “That’s direct testimony.”

“But… but…” Frank fumbled, flustered. “But she heard it through a curtain!”

Judge Solomon looked at him over his glasses for a long time, and finally he just shook his head and said, “Overruled. Proceed, Mr. Highbrow.”

“What did you hear, Rebecca?”

“I heard the ghoul-Joan Goulden-ask Lily-er, Mrs. Nolan, that girl.” Rebecca pointed to Leah, who was sitting on the edge of her seat, eyes wide, heart racing in her chest.

Donald Highbrow turned to the court stenographer. “Let the record show that the witness has identified Leah Nolan.”

“I heard her ask Leah to sign hospital discharge papers.”

“You’re certain.”

“I am.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I heard her.” Rebecca blinked at him, giving him an exasperated look. “She even said the nurses asked her to do it. The ghoul said, ‘The nurses are so busy, they asked me to have you sign the discharge papers before you leave.’ It was clear as day. Besides, I wouldn’t put it past her. She did the same thing to me.”

The whole room was silent and Leah thought she could hear her own heart beating, like a big bass drum in her ears. It was deafening.

“Objection!” Frank jumped up so fast, several people gasped in surprise. Leah was still too stunned to say anything. “Irrelevant!”

Judge Solomon shook his head. “Nope. I’ll allow it. Go ahead, Donald.”

“The ghoul-I mean, Mrs. Goulden-” Several people tittered at Donald’s mistake. “She did the same thing to you? What do you mean?”

“She tricked me. She knew I wanted to keep my baby, and she didn’t want me to keep it. She tricked me!” Rebecca stared down the ghoul, whose face was red, even with all the makeup coverage. “Except instead of discharge papers, she told me I was signing permission for the doctors to commit an autopsy.”

Donald’s eyes widened. “An autopsy?”

“Because she told me my baby was stillborn.”

Leah made a small, pained sound and felt Rob’s hand in hers, her mother’s still clutching her other one. How could she? How dare she?

Leah might not have liked Rebecca-the girl she had known only as “the new Elizabeth”-but when she saw the girl look at her, their eyes locking, she knew their bond went beyond like or dislike. This wasn’t about something so petty. They were both mothers, and they had been denied their rights as mothers by the same woman.

Donald let the judge absorb that information before he leaned in and asked gently, “And was your baby stillborn, Rebecca?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

The girl’s eyes were blazing with triumph when she looked across the courtroom at the ghoul. “Because my father got my baby back.”

“Your father, the senator?”

“That’s right.” Rebecca had clearly lived a life of privilege. It was the same attitude that had rubbed all the girls the wrong way at Magdalene House. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t human, that she didn’t have feelings. Leah saw that on her face when she told Donald, “When my Daddy visited me, I told him they said my baby died, but I knew he didn’t die. I heard him cry. I was drugged, I know-they had me on something really weird. But I heard him cry, I know I did.”

“Did your father pursue this matter for you, Rebecca?”

She scoffed. The idea! “He hired people to pursue it. And they found my baby.”

“Thank you, Rebecca.” Donald looked over his shoulder at the older lawyer. “Frank? Your witness.”

Frank didn’t even get up from his table. He just sat back and muttered, “I have no questions, Your Honor.”

“She’s lying!” The ghoul came rushing up the aisle, past where Leah and her family were sitting, rushing the witness box in a rage. “This little slut is lying!”

The ghoul turned her fury on the lawyer for the state next. “Frank! Don’t you dare just sit there and let that little trollop get away with this!”

Donald Highbrow took a step back as the ghoul stomped toward the judge’s bench, banging her fist on front of it. “This is an outrage! This little whore is a flat-out liar! A compulsive liar in fact!” A sly look came over the ghoul’s face as she looked at Rebecca. “Go ahead, check her file!”

Donald gave a weary sigh. “Do you want to me to call the rest of the girls in, Your Honor? All of the girls in the hospital room with Mrs. Nolan who witnessed Mrs. Joan Goulden misrepresenting the documents she asked her client to sign?”

Judge Solomon looked from Rebecca, out into the courtroom to where Leah was sitting, and then back to the ghoul, who was still fuming and sputtering in front of him about sluts and whores and trollops and liars.

“That won’t be necessary.” The gavel came down, a sharp, sudden sound, making Leah jump in her seat. “This court rules for the plaintiff. Baby… Baby…” Judge Solomon looked down at his file. “Baby Grace shall be returned to her mother.”

The whole courtroom exploded in cheers-not just Leah and Rob and her mother and Erica and Clay, who were all hugging and laughing, but everyone who had been watching the drama unfold before them. Leah couldn’t believe it, feeling the finality of the judge’s statement in every cell of her body.

She turned to Rob, eyes bright, as if to ask, “Did you hear that too?” but the look of relief and joy on his face told her that he had heard it too-she wasn’t dreaming. Their daughter was coming home. She threw her arms around his neck, laughing and crying at the same time, and he rocked her, whispering words she couldn’t hear but she didn’t care. Grace was theirs, now and forever.

Grace was returning home.

Leah saw the ghoul out of the corner of her eye, storming over to where Frank sat with his head in his hands and they put their heads together, plotting she was sure of it, while the judge excused Rebecca as a witness. Leah looked up as she walked over, standing to take the girl’s outstretched hand.

“Thank you,” Leah whispered, still not quite clear on how Rebecca had gotten involved, but she had never been so grateful to someone in her life. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Rebecca gave a satisfied nod, glancing over at the ghoul. “She stole my baby too. Only she told me he was dead.”

“But you knew he wasn’t.” Leah’s eyes filled with tears at the thought.

Rebecca looked back at her, eyes softening. “A mother knows.”

They both smiled, an understanding passing between them that transcended hierarchy and class and judgment. They were both mothers, and they both knew exactly how that felt.

Donald came over, a giant grin on his face, and Leah hugged him without a second thought.

“I don’t know how you did that,” Leah said. “It was like magic. You pulled Rebecca out of your hat just like a rabbit!”

“Well don’t tell anyone but I was bluffing about all the other witnesses. Rebecca was our only trump card.” Donald laughed, hugging her back and planting a fond kiss on the top of her head before letting her go. “Well I had a fairy godmother. Erica and Clay helped me track her down. With Father Michael’s help. So it was magic, plus Nancy Drew and her Hardy Boy over there, with a sprinkle of divine intervention. And luck. Definitely a dash of luck.”

“I’m going to have to hear this story!” Leah looked over at Erica and Clay, bemused. “How in the world did you know she’d been in the room. I didn’t even know!”

“I interviewed the nurses,” Donald replied. “There was a young nurse named Cathy who remembered you, and she remembered Elizabeth too, but she couldn’t remember her real name, just her Magdalene name.”

The judge banged his gavel and the commotion began to die down. Judge Solomon banged it again, making sure they all knew he was serious.

“I have other cases to hear today,” the judge said. “Can we please have quiet in the courtroom?”

Leah was about to ask Donald what was next, how did they go about getting Grace back? But Frank took advantage of the opportunity to speak up.

“Your honor!” Frank stood, clearing his throat. “May I approach the bench?”

“No you may not.” Judge Solomon glared at the table where Frank and the ghoul sat. “And you’d better keep that harpy away from my bench if you know what’s good for you. She’s already looking at a perjury charge. I can add contempt to that faster than you can say Jack Robinson.”

Frank tried again. “There is still the matter of the child’s well-being to consider.”

The judge looked at the lawyer over his glasses, incredulous. “I’ve already considered it, Frank. I’ve ruled on the matter. The child is going to be returned to her mother.”

“Here we go.” Donald muttered, sliding into the seat on Rob’s other side. “The stalling tactics.”

“No,” Leah breathed, the tears she’d been holding starting to fall, dropping onto her skirt, leaving fat, round wet circles on the black satin.

“I’m sorry,” Donald whispered. “I told you she would try to pull this. It’s textbook. This is what they do.”

“Your honor, you seem to have overlooked the fact that this baby is very sick.” The ghoul stood beside Frank, who clearly wasn’t making the argument to her liking. “She’s all the way on the other side of the state. She can’t travel. And it’s likely she’s ill because her mother was taking drugs while she was pregnant with the poor little thing.”

The ghoul glared at Leah and she felt the hair stand up on her arms and on the back of her neck, a low buzzing sound beginning in her head. It was just how she felt before she’d gone after the ghoul in the restaurant, and she told herself to sit there, just sit there and let the lawyers handle it, but her hands were clenched into fists at her side and her breathing was so shallow she was beginning to see spots floating in her vision.

“I don’t care if that baby is on the moon, Lady,” the judge exploded. “I want her brought here-today, before…” He checked his watch. “Before five p.m. If that baby isn’t in her mother’s arms before then, I will hold you in contempt.”

The crowd cheered and clapped, but the judge frowned and banged his gavel for quiet.

The ghoul wasn’t giving up. “Your honor, that’s just not possible. Her foster parents are in no condition to-”

“Lady, you are pushing my very last button…”

Leah looked over at Donald, who gave her a smile and a thumbs-up, making her heart soar. Clearly this wasn’t standard procedure, and she was encouraged by her lawyer’s response. She glanced down the row and saw Erica, sitting next to Clay. Leah wondered how she had managed to track Elizabeth-Rebecca-down, but she knew it must have something to do with the Mary Magdalenes. How had Donald known she was in the room? Leah hadn’t even known!

There was a woman on the other side of Clay, an attractive older blonde, and they were whispering together. Leah hadn’t seen her come in and wondered who she was. The ghoul was still trying, interrupting the judge with an excuse every time he told her to bring Grace to his courtroom, and everyone was waiting for him to snap. She glimpsed Rebecca, sitting a few rows over, and smiled to see her holding her baby in her arms.

Leah felt tears stinging her eyes at the sight, her arms aching like they had for weeks, to hold her own baby. Oh Grace, we’re so close, she thought. I’m almost there. Mommy’s here. I’m coming. Her body tingled all over with longing, a lump growing in her throat, and she could have sworn she heard Grace cry, like she always did. That little plaintive wail of her ghost baby. Where are you, Mama? Where are you?

Leah closed her eyes against it, now realizing her mistake during the questioning, telling Frank about the ghost-baby who followed her, who cried at night, who was just out of her reach, always, so glad it hadn’t ended up hurting her. Thank god for Rebecca.

Stop. Please stop.

But it wouldn’t stop. Grace kept crying. And crying. She knew that cry. Her baby was hungry. She would be sucking on her fists and turning her head from side to side, looking for her milk, but Leah didn’t have any more milk, they had taken that too.

She opened her eyes, looking over at Rebecca, expecting to see her baby boy crying, the sound morphing to Leah’s head into Grace’s hungry-cry, but he was sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. Confused, Leah looked again to her right, where the sound was actually coming from.

“Can you please take that baby from the courtroom?” Judge Solomon was still, still dealing with the ghoul-the man clearly had the patience of a saint.

“I’m sorry, Your Honor!” the older blonde stood and Leah saw the infant in her arms she hadn’t noticed before. Clay had been in the way. “It’s just that there’s been an emergency, and I had to talk to my son-”

“Oh, Lady, please, I don’t want to hear anymore.” Judge Solomon groaned, putting his head in his hands. “Can we please just-”

“Grace!” Leah leapt out of her seat, reaching for the baby, but Rob had her caught in the strong circle of his arms, whispering that it was okay, it was okay, it wasn’t Grace, she was okay…

“Grace!” Leah screamed, pointing at the baby in the blonde’s arms, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it was Grace, her Grace. The woman held the baby close to her, protecting her, turning instinctively away from Leah. “That’s Grace! That’s my baby!”

“Take her out of here!” Judge Solomon banged his gavel.

Donald Highbrow half-stood, asking, “Who, the baby or the mother, Your Honor?”

“Take them both!” the judge roared.

“Noooo!” Leah struggled in Rob’s arms, knowing he had misinterpreted her, believing she had mistaken the baby in the woman’s arms for a sighting of her ghost baby, but that was no ghost. That was Grace. “Rob! That’s our daughter! Let me go!”

He struggled, looking at Donald, asking, “A little help?”

Donald stood, taking Leah by her other arm, and both men carried her, feet off the ground, heading toward the door. The baby-Grace, Grace Grace! — was still crying against the blonde’s shoulder, who was standing at the end of the aisle looking bewildered, rocking the baby without thinking about it.

“Get her out of here! Quick!” the ghoul snapped, shoving Rob as they passed. He gave her a dark look, but the look on the judge’s face was darker.

“That’s my baby!” Leah screamed at the top of her lungs, but she couldn’t fight the men holding her. They were far too strong. “Her name is Grace Patricia Nolan! She has a strawberry birth mark on her belly, just above her navel. She has a teeny tiny baby toenail, so tiny you can barely see it! She-”

“Wait!” the blonde called, rushing to the front of the courtroom. “Wait!”

“Order!” The judge banged his gavel over and over. “Order in the courtroom! Order! Order!”

Leah stood between Rob and Donald, looking at the woman

“Ma’am, can I ask your name?”

“Me? My name is Gertrude Louise Webber.”

“Thank you.” The judge gave her a brief smile. “And is that your baby?”

Gertrude shook her head. “No, Your Honor.”

“Whose baby is it?”

“Mine!” Leah croaked, holding her arms out, oh they ached, like the empty dry socket of a tooth, like a phantom limb, like the rending, tearing pain of a missing womb.

“Oh for God’s sake!” The ghoul threw up her hands, waving Rob and Donald and Leah toward the door. “What does it matter? Now take her out of here and call an ambulance. They’re going to have to put her in restraints again like last time. I told you this would happen Your Honor. She’s insane. She-”

The gavel came down again, once, hard, like a gunshot, and they all froze. Judge Solomon had reached the end of his clearly very long fuse.

“Lady, I warned you. I am holding you in contempt.” The judge nodded toward the bailiff. “Please remove this ghoul from my courtroom.”

Again, the entire courtroom burst into applause and cheers as the bailiff grabbed the ghoul’s arm and she shrieked in protest, trying to shake him off, but he pushed her past where Leah stood, frozen between Donald and Robert, staring at the woman holding her baby.

“Now…” The judge looked between Leah and Gertrude. “Why do you think this is your baby, Leah?”

“Because she is,” Leah croaked, edging a little closer, so close, oh she was so close! “That’s Grace. Rob, that’s our baby!”

She looked over her shoulder at her husband, pleading at him with her eyes. Rob looked between Leah and the child, stunned, like he’d been hit hard on the head with something and wasn’t sure which way to stumble.

“Mrs. Webber.” The judge turned to the blonde, clearly hoping to get some more definitive answers in her direction. \

“She’s a foster child, Your Honor. But her name isn’t Grace. It’s Lily.”

The collective gasp that went through the courtroom made Leah shiver. The ghoul had changed her baby’s name to the fake one that pregnant Leah had been given while she was imprisoned at Magdalene House.

“Does the child have a strawberry mark on her belly?” the judge inquired.

Gertrude nodded. “Yes, your honor.”

Another collective gasp.

“And the pinkie toe?” the judge asked, looking at Leah, his face almost as incredulous as her own.

“Barely there,” Gertrude replied, looking at Leah. “Is she really yours, honey? Is this your baby?”

Leah nodded, holding her arms out, the tears falling down her face in rivers. “Grace,” she whispered. “Grace.”

Gertrude looked back at the judge, hesitating.

He shook his head and Leah felt her stomach drop to her toes. “I have never, in all my years on this bench, seen anything like this fiasco today, and I have been sitting on this bench a long damned time.”

“Grace!” Leah croaked, sinking to her knees-they wouldn’t hold her anymore. “Oh God, please!”

The judge asked the woman holding the baby, “Who is the social worker who placed this foster child with you?”

“That woman… the one who just… left.” Gertrude swallowed, nodding toward the door. “Joan Goulden.”

The whole room seemed to sigh and Leah dropped her head, sobbing, and she felt Rob’s hands on her shoulders and then he was kneeling behind her, holding her around the waist, whispering, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

But it didn’t matter because the judge nodded to Gertrude, who took two, three, hesitant steps forward and dropped to her knees too, holding the still crying Grace out to her mother.

“Take her,” Gertrude urged.

And then Leah was holding her baby for the first time, all over again, her tears dropping on Grace’s sweet, fat cheeks just like they had on the day she was born.

“Grace,” Leah whispered, rocking her back and forth, the baby’s cries slowing and then stopping, her head cocked, eyes open, as if listening to her mother whisper her name over and over. “Grace, Grace, Grace…”

“She’s so beautiful,” Rob whispered, reaching around to let Grace grasp his index finger, and she did, hanging on tight. “Oh Leah, she looks just like you.”

They were surrounded, everyone crowding around, kneeling down to see the baby, Erica and Clay and Patty, even Donald knelt down to get a good look at the baby who had been the spoils of his victory in the courtroom today. Rebecca came over, and she was followed by a few more curious bystanders, and before she knew it, Leah and Grace were completely surrounded by a circle of adoring admirers.

Leah felt them all around her, kneeling down to exclaim over Grace like they had knelt around the manger of baby Jesus, marveling in wonder at the world begun again in one perfect expression of God as they all looked into the eyes of one brand new human being.

When Judge Solomon slammed his gavel down again, it was only after he had taken off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs and blew his nose with a loud honk into his handkerchief. He sent everyone back to their seats, and he called Leah and Grace, and everyone who had come with her that day, to approach the bench.

“Young lady,” the judge began, shaking his gavel at Leah, but he was looking at Grace. “You have turned my courtroom upside down!”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor,” Leah apologized, but she was grinning from ear to ear, still holding the bottle Gertrude had handed over for her hungry little piglet.

“Judge,” Donald interrupted. “I’d like to file a motion to have Joan Golden’s license revoked.”

Judge Solomon smiled. “That would be delightful. I look forward to it. So I think we’re done with this case for the day?”

“Well there’s still the matter of the assault charge against Mrs. Nolan, filed by Joan Goulden,” Donald reminded him.

The judge rolled his eyes and shook his head. “Considering the Goulden woman’s actions today in my courtroom, I wouldn’t doubt that Mrs. Nolan acted in self-defense. Is that your contention, Mrs. Nolan?”

Leah hesitated, glancing up at Donald, who gave her a nod. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“Good. Case dismissed.” The judge gave a satisfied nod, stamping something on the file on his desk and tossing it aside. “Now, I still don’t understand your relation to the Nolans, Mrs. Webber?”

“Well, I’m not.” Gertrude glanced over at her son. Clay was hanging back, holding Erica’s hand. “That’s my son, Clayton, right there. He’s dating Erica. She’s Robert Nolan’s daughter.”

Close enough, Leah thought. If they tried to explain it fully, they’d be there all day, and she was pretty sure the judge didn’t want that.

“And the Goulden woman placed the baby she was trying to hide with you?” The judge slapped his forehead with his palm. “Only stupid thieves get caught, right? That’s what they say!”

“Well to be fair,” Gertrude interjected. “Erica and Clay weren’t dating until recently. I don’t think the Goulden woman had any reason to suspect we would run into each other. And don’t they also say the best hiding place is in plain sight?”

“Do they?” The judge laughed. “I think it must have been divine intervention,” he countered, looking at Leah. “Sounds to me like someone up there likes you, Missus.”

“Well, we do go to the same church,” Clay interjected.

“Oh my God!” Gertrude exclaimed, covering her mouth with her hand, eyes widening in horror. “I almost forgot! That’s why I came here to find Clay! He told me he was going to Erica’s and I heard on the radio about the fire at the warehouse and I rushed right over!”

“Warehouse?” the judge asked, confused.

“What?” Rob interjected. “What warehouse? My warehouse?”

Gertrude nodded at Robert Nolan, covering her mouth with her hand again before exclaiming, “I ran right over and Solie told me you were all here. I’m sorry to be one to tell you, but the fire department is there right now. I heard on my way over here, they suspect arson-Mary Magdalene’s was on fire too, last I heard.”

“What about Solie?” Leah gasped. “Was she okay?”

“The church too?” Erica exclaimed, looking at Clay, both of them wide-eyed.

“Yes!” Gertrude shook her head in disbelief. “The church too! Connie, our nanny, took the bigger kids to the park, but I had Lily with me, and when I heard it on the radio, I rushed right over. I’m so glad Father Patrick called me last night and told me he didn’t need me to come in today.

Clay and Erica exchanged looks, but Leah didn’t understand what it was all about. She was more concerned about the Nolans’ housekeeper.

“What about Solie?” Leah asked again.

“Yes, yes, Solie was fine.” Gertie turned to Leah, looking down at Grace resting in her arms. “Shaken up, but she was okay. She said the fire was already out of control by the time she got there.”

“For pete’s sake!” Judge Solomon burst out. “You people wouldn’t have any luck if it wasn’t for bad luck, would you?”

Leah looked from Rob over to Erica and Clay holding hands, to her mother and back to Rob again in the stunned silence, and then down to the little baby in her arms, and she couldn’t help it-she burst out laughing.

The poor man had no idea!

“When it rains it pours, I guess!” the judge threw up his hands, and it just made Leah laugh even harder, and pretty soon, were all laughing, laughing and hugging and leaning on each other as they left Judge Solomon’s courtroom, headed back into God only knew what next.

But none of that mattered. Leah looked around at her crazy little family and down at the now sleeping baby filling her once empty arms and knew, in spite of everything, this was all that mattered-all that ever would matter. The wish she and Erica had made together on Christmas Eve, two sister angels in the snow, had come true.

Grace had returned to them all.

Epilogue

Erica poked her head into Father Michael’s office-his makeshift office, a supply closet they’d cleared out in the girls’ school that still smelled a little like paste, construction paper and bleach. He looked up from where he’d been sitting at his little desk, head down, eyes closed, hands folded, the epitome of a man in prayer. He smiled at the sight of her, motioning her in.

“Am I interrupting?” Erica hesitated. “There are a million people crowded in the chapel. It’s almost time.”

“They can’t get the new church built soon enough.”

“I’m just glad you’re going to be the one heading it.” She smiled, sitting in the chair across from him. “So any official word?”

“They’ve sent Father Patrick to a rehabilitation facility called Via Coeli in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.”

“They think he can be rehabilitated?” Erica scoffed. “He should be in jail!”

“The church felt it best to handle things internally. There was an investigation. My hands are tied.” Father Michael shrugged, turning his hands up. “Besides, what evidence did we have? Father Patrick had it all burned to the ground. There was nothing left.”

Nothing except the memories of all the Marys and the Magdalenes who had participated in Father Patrick’s sick, twisted rituals, Erica thought with a shiver, but she didn’t say anything. The man was, after all, Father Michael’s father.

“So I guess the Hitler scandal didn’t turn out to be that much of a big deal?” Father Michael asked.

“Nein. “

He laughed. “Who knew Robert Nolan would turn out to be a spy for the CIA-before there even was such a thing as the CIA?”

“I guess they figured it’s been long enough now since the war, they could declassify it,” Erica said. “Leah keeps teasing him, calling him Mein Fuhrer.”

“Sounds like fun at your house.”

“Speaking of houses… what about Magdalene House?” Erica asked. “How’s progress there?”

“Good!” He smiled. “Thanks to the leadership of Patty and Gertie, things are moving along. It should re-open again in a month or so.”

“But this time, they’re going to provide job training and child care for mothers who want to keep their babies, right? No more giving away babies for big donations to the church?”

“Right,” he agreed. “And thanks to your referral, your friend, Yvonne, is going to head up the social work team to make it all happen.”

“I’m glad she’s helping.” Erica had heard the rumor floating around that Yvonne had married Erica’s ex-boyfriend, Bobby, which turned out not to be true-but she had finished social work school and was looking for a job. “Thankfully there are some good social workers in the world.”

Father Michael nodded. “Not all of them are like Joan Goulden. Some of them really do want to help.”

“Thank God they took that woman’s license!” Erica exclaimed and then caught herself. “Oops, sorry about that.”

“I am thanking God for that, actually.” Father Michael grinned. “So, have you heard from USC?”

She smiled. “They accepted me for the fall. They accepted Clay too.”

“I’m really glad, Erica.” He smiled and she searched that smile for the truth, returning his smile when she found it. She thought he really was glad for her. Relieved, even, that she’d found Clay and moved on. “Please don’t think for a moment that I regret… anything. Not a minute of it. You’ve given me so much, I can’t tell you. Because of you, I’ve rediscovered my calling in the church again. That’s priceless to me and I thank you for that.”

“I don’t regret it either,” she murmured. “And I won’t ever forget it.”

She couldn’t help but feel her love for Father Michael in that moment, although it had been transformed, somehow, into something less desperate and more tranquil in the months that had passed. She knew now that she had fallen in love with Father Michael because he was safe, a man she couldn’t have, a man she could idolize and worship from afar, a man she could use to torture herself with until her penance felt it had been paid-around the twelfth of never.

It wasn’t until she met Clay that she realized how much she went around trying to punish herself, not for being a bad girl, which she’d been working hard at when she met him, just like she worked hard at everything she did, but just for existing in the first place, like she had no right to be here in this world at all.

Clay made her realize that she did belong here. She belonged here with him.

Clay lived and breathed and loved her in the real world, where it was dirty and painful and hard and that was good too. It was better than good. It was perfect. Perfectly messed up. That’s what they had, a perfectly messed up relationship, and she didn’t think she had ever been happier in her life.

“So no more Mary Magdalenes?” Erica asked.

He shook his head. “No. Father Patrick was the center of that wheel. The hub. Without him, it all just crumbled.”

“What about the women who worked in the laundry?” she asked, thinking about Father’s Michael’s mother-and sister-poor abused Marianne, and the girl Leah had roomed with, the slow one, Jean.

“They’ve been relocated to new jobs or new homes,” Father Michael replied. “My mother is living in the nunnery here, and she’s quite happy.”

“I’m so glad.” Erica was also glad the fire had been contained to the church and hadn’t spread to the nunnery or rectory or the schools. Just one corner of the square block had been damaged.

“Father Michael?” A knock came on the door. “Have you seen-?”

Erica pulled the door open and there was Leah, holding Grace propped up on her shoulder, the baby looking around with big dark eyes, wearing the same christening gown her mother had worn.

“There you are.” Leah laughed. “We’re ready, Father Michael.”

Father Michael stood, smiling as he reached his arms out for the baby. She was just three months old, but she held her head up and laughed when she saw him, holding her arms out and squealing with delight.

“Okay, but don’t run off with her,” Leah warned.

“Leah’s going to have Grace surgically attached to her hip next month,” Erica said, rolling her eyes, but she winked at her sister, letting her know she was just teasing. She couldn’t blame Leah for being a little paranoid about letting the baby out of her sight.

“Let’s go bless you, beautiful,” Father Michael murmured to the baby, cuddling her in his arms. She cooed and kicked her feet under her long, white satin gown.

“Hey, Leah, can I talk to you for a minute?” Erica asked, tugging on her twin’s sleeve. Leah looked annoyed at first and then she saw Erica’s face, doing a double take.

“We’ll be right there, Father!” Leah called after the priest as he carried the baby down the hall. “What is it?”

Erica took a deep breath, blurting it out. “I’m pregnant.”

Leah gaped at her, blinking in response. No words, just blinking, like a mute’s version of Morse Code.

“No one else knows,” Erica rushed on. “Except Clay, and I was so afraid to tell him because he knows about the Mary Magdalenes and the operation and I know it’s impossible and it’s crazy but I went to a doctor sure I was dying or had cancer or something because I hadn’t had a period in two months but he did a pregnancy test, and I made him do it again, and then I made him to do again-I swear to God, Leah, I made him kill three rabbits-and when I told him I’d had an operation so I couldn’t have children he said if they didn’t take my womb, if they just tied those tubes, those filipino tubes or whatever they are-”

“Fallopian tubes,” Leah corrected, her voice just above a whisper.

“Right, those, he said if they had just done that, it was possible that the ends of those tubes could have grown back together so that my eggs could have been, I don’t know, ripe or something, and whatever, however it happened, I’m going to have a baby…” Erica stopped, looking at Leah in the silence. “Say something.”

Leah laughed, and then Erica did too, and they hugged and laughed some more and Leah, wiping tears from her eyes and kissing Erica on the cheek and whispered, “You are going to be a mother.”

Those words made Erica burst into tears instantly. She had become accustomed to her infertile state, had even moved into a place of acceptance with it-and then wham! God had a funny sense of humor sometimes. Funny, strange-not funny, ha ha, as Clay liked to say.

“What did Clay say?” Leah asked.

“He thought I was kidding of course. Started making jokes about the immaculate conception.”

“Oh no!”

“Luckily I had the doctor give me a note.”

Leah laughed. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Erica giggled. “The doctor wrote it on his prescription pad. And told Clay to call him if he had any questions.”

“And did he?”

“At four in the morning.”

“You told him at four in the morning?”

“I told myself I was going to sleep on it and tell him in the morning, but I woke up and couldn’t keep it a secret one minute longer.”

Leah and Rob and the baby had rented a little apartment until the house they were having built in the suburbs was finished-Leah had changed her mind about New York and dancing the minute Grace had been back in her arms-but Gertie had invited Erica to live with them after the fire-in the guest room of course. Clay slipped into her room after everyone was asleep though.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to be twins in everything again.” Leah took her sister’s hand, teasing. “You always do this. Steal my thunder. Gotta one up me on everything, don’t you?”

Erica froze, jaw dropping. “No!”

“Just a month or so along.” Leah grinned. “And I haven’t told anyone. Not even Rob. Not yet.”

“Mom is going flip.” Erica laughed, hugging Leah and congratulating her while trying to imagine their mother’s reaction. “Both of her daughters managed to end up unwed mothers.”

Leah smiled. “I have no doubt you’re going to have a ring on your finger before long. And we’ll get to plan another wedding!”

Erica groaned, following her sister down the hall. “I just hope we don’t both have twins.”

“Hush your mouth!” Leah gasped. “Anyway, that skips a generation. Doesn’t it?”

“I sure as hell hope so…”

Leah shushed her as they neared the chapel, where the pews were full of family, friends, Rob’s clients, people they had gone to school with, had attended church with. Solie and Ada were up front with Patty, Donald Highbrow sitting on her other side. Erica spied Judge Solomon up front and waved at him. He dropped her a wink. Erica even spotted Rebecca and her baby in the crowd, sitting with a few other former Magdalenes-Lizzie/ Carolyn and Frannie/Marguerite among them. No Marty though, although Leah told her she’d sent a lovely set of knitted white booties that Grace was wearing under her gown.

Erica followed Leah up the middle aisle to the front of the chapel where Rob had his daughter cradled in his arms, and Father Michael was waiting for the girls before he started the ceremony.

Erica stood next to Clay, taking his hand as they looked at Father Michael, who was quieting the congregation and talking about the history and importance of baptism in the Catholic Church. Clay leaned over and whispered, “What’s the difference between Jesus and Picasso.”

Erica stiffened beside him, trying not to laugh, whispering back, “Shhh. We’re going to be godparents.”

“Good, we need the practice.”

“Shhh.” She hushed him, remembering how they had met, so similarly, standing up in front of another congregation pretending to be parents. Clay had tried the whole time to make her laugh with his sacrilegious jokes, and she had to hide her smiles by looking down at the baby in her arms.

It wasn’t until Erica saw baby Grace for the first time that she realized, the baby she’d been holding during the “live Nativity,” had been the Webbers’ youngest foster child, borrowed for the night by Father Michael, who had never seen baby Grace and didn’t recognize her either. Erica had been cradling Grace in her arms that night and didn’t even know it.

Clay and Erica said that yes, they were ready to take on the responsibility of being Grace’s godparents, and Father Michael went on with the ceremony, but Clay was clearly bored with the process and he kept whispering wicked things into Erica’s ear, trying to make her laugh.

“You are going to be in so much trouble when we get home,” she hissed, watching as Father Michael balanced Grace over the baptismal fountain and poured water through her thick, dark hair. The baby squealed but she didn’t cry.

“I christen thee Grace Patricia Nolan,” Father Michael said and Erica smiled at the way Leah had given her daughter their mother’s name, as well as Erica’s middle name. “May grace be with you and with us all, now and evermore. Amen.”

“Do you know why Mary was having sex with God for money?” Clay whispered too low for anyone but Erica to hear.

“Clay…” Erica warned softly, pleading at him with her eyes..

“She was just trying to make a little prophet.”

Erica snorted laughter and covered it with a cough, Father Michael looking at them sharply, and she straightened up and glared at her boyfriend, the future father of her children, and her future husband, once he stopped joking around long enough to propose. He grinned, rocking back on his heels, and she knew she was in for trouble with him, for the rest of her whole damned life.

And she couldn’t wait.

The End

Content

Selena Kitt
Grace

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue