Twelve Days (24 page)

"I was just thinking of me. I'm always thinking of me and what I want. I saw that tonight. All they really want is their mother," she said. "How could I want them so badly? How could I be wishing so hard and praying that they could stay with me and Sam, when all they really want is their mother?"

"You want to take care of them," he said. "That's not a bad thing."

"But I wasn't putting their needs ahead of mine. Or Sam's. Maybe Sam needs to leave me. Maybe it's unfair of me to even try to stop him."

"Do you love him?" Father Tim asked.

"Yes."

"Does he love you?"

"I don't know," she whispered. She certainly hadn't found the courage to ask that. Still, "How could he still love me, if he's going to leave me?"

"He's the only one who can tell you that, Rachel."

"I've been too scared to talk to him about it, and I guess I hoped we'd never have that conversation. I hoped the children would stay and Sam would stay because of them, and I'd get what I wanted.
Me."

"Could you be a good mother to those children?" he asked.

"I hope so."

"I think so. After all, you're doing it right now, Rachel. You're asking what would be best for them, not you. That's what mothers do."

"But I—"

"We all think of ourselves. It's only natural. And it's not such a bad thing. Figuring out what you want in life, what's important to you, and how to get it, is usually what makes people happy in this world. Provided we've got our priorities straight and are after the right things. What do you really want? Deep down in your heart?"

"I want Sam to be happy, and I want the children to be safe and happy and loved," she said.

"And you'd really like it if Sam and the children could be happy with you?" he suggested.

"Yes."

"If they could only be happy without you, you'd let them go?"

"Yes," she cried.

"So you're not putting your welfare above their own. You just love them and want to take care of them. You want them in your life."

"Yes."

"I don't suppose you climbed onto Santa's lap and told him all that?"

"No." She laughed.

Father Tim nodded toward the altar, lined with greenery and candles and all sorts of finery, and Rachel's gaze caught on the stained-glass window behind the altar, a depiction of Jesus awash with light, ascending into heaven. The whole image seemed to glow tonight. There was such power there. It seemed to radiate warmth and reassurance and something else that just made her heart feel so heavy it might overflow in a moment. She wanted so much right now. She needed so much.

"Want to sit here and tell the big guy?" Father Tim asked.

"The big guy?" Rachel laughed again. "We haven't exactly been on speaking terms lately."

"Not since you lost your baby," Father Tim said. "I won't pretend to think I know how that felt, because I don't. But I asked you one question back then, and you weren't ready to hear it. I think maybe you are now."

"What's that?"

"There are some things you can only take on faith, times when that's all we have to fall back on. I want you to look in your heart. Deep inside. You've been a part of this church your whole life, and I think that still means something to you. But I know, too, that real faith comes in times like this. When we're tested. It's not until we ask ourselves the really hard questions that we know whether or not we truly believe," he said. "So I want you to think about this. Where do you think she is, Rachel?"

"My baby?"

"Yes. In your heart, don't you know that she's with God, and she's fine? Because that's what true faith is. Knowing. I think in your heart, if you dig down deep, you'll see that you know that you don't have to worry about her. I know it's terrible that you had so little time with her here, but she'll be yours again one day. Do you believe that?"

It was a question Rachel usually avoided at all costs. Where was her baby? Had she simply ceased to exist? Or was she out there somewhere? Sometimes she had nightmares that her baby did exist somewhere, that she was crying and she needed Rachel and Rachel simply couldn't get to her.

So usually, she tried not to think about it at all.

But she'd been raised in the church and grown up on the stories of the Bible.

Stories? Or something real? Was this all there was to this earth? Only what she could see and touch? She didn't believe that. She couldn't. Was someone watching over her and everyone else? Some order to what sometimes seemed chaos? Some master plan?

"There are so many things I don't understand. Things that made me so angry."

"I know. Me, too."

"You?"

"I'm as human as you are," he said.

"But—"

"Now we're talking mysteries of the universe, Rachel. I don't have those answers. I struggle with them myself. Are there things in this world I'll never understand? Yes. Do they trouble me? Yes. Do I get angry at times and even ask God what in the world He thinks He's doing? Yes. Even I do that. But I still believe. I believe in Him and His innate goodness and His guiding hand in my life and in yours. I think you believe in all that, too."

Rachel looked back up at the stained-glass window, at beautiful golden light streaming out of heaven and Jesus' open arms, waiting, just waiting.

"Think He's going to wink at you or something?" Father Tim asked.

Rachel smiled through her tears. "Does He wink at you?"

"No. I stopped asking Him to. I stopped asking for proof or for any kind of a sign. That's the faith part, Rachel. The hard part. Sometimes you have to take it all on faith, because that's all you've got. Not just faith in God. Faith in yourself, too. Faith in the people around you, the people who love you. Sometimes you have to make that leap. Reach out to the people you love, the people who need you. Believe that things are all going to work out somehow."

"I don't know if I remember how to do that," she said.

"Of course you do. You took the children into your home and you've taken them into your heart."

"That was an act of pure selfishness."

"It was an act of faith. At worst, something you did because you needed them and had faith that they could help you. At best—which I choose to believe—something you did because they needed you, too, and you believed you could help them. And it looks like it worked out just fine."

He gave her a handkerchief, and Rachel dried her tears.

"Think about it. And if you need to talk some more, I'll be here." Father Tim nodded toward the image of God. "So will He."

"Thank you," she said.

"My pleasure. I've been waiting for you."

"All this time?"

He nodded. "I knew you'd come back sooner or later."

"Faith?" she suggested.

"Of course. I always knew it was somewhere inside of you."

Chapter 13

Sam was about to go out of his mind.

Rachel had been gone for an hour and a half. It was below freezing outside now, and he had a houseful of kids. He couldn't go look for her.

And he was scared. Scared in an illogical way of what she might do. Scared he might lose her forever. It was the kind of fear that grabbed him by the throat, making it almost impossible to talk, grabbed him in a tight band around his chest and made it hard to breathe.

He couldn't imagine his life without Rachel.

He could start calling her family and tell them she was gone, but they'd want an explanation, more of one than he'd given her father a few nights ago. He could call the sheriff. Not because he thought someone had grabbed her or hurt her, but because the deputies would keep an eye out for her. They were certain to spot her before long. But again, there'd be explanations to give, and he didn't know what he'd say.

He was afraid Rachel was upset because of what Zach said. They'd both stood there, frozen with guilt for wanting these children so badly while Zach told Santa that all he really wanted for Christmas was to have his mother back.

Maybe that's what Sam needed to give the boy, too.

Frowning, Sam looked at the clock once more and then his gaze caught on the road map on the table in the corner. He'd been sitting here staring at the map, looking for a clue, when Rachel had run out of the house.

And now there it was. Right in front of him.

It was as if the name leaped out at him.

Shepherdsville.

Zach said the town had a funny name. Like a dog. That must have been the one he was talking about. Shepherdsville was just across the border in Indiana, about forty-five miles from here. Emma said when her mother left, she promised to be back that day. She should have been able to make the trip there and back in a day with no problem. Except she hadn't come back.

Sam had found it easy to blame her for that at first, to think she must be scum to leave her children that way. But these were good children. Well behaved, well mannered, self-assured. Obviously someone had taken good care of them, at least at some point as they were growing up.

So, if she was a good mother, running away from an abusive husband, but she had to go back there for some reason.... Could she have left them, thinking they were safer here in a motel with Emma than in Shepherdsville with a man who beat her?

Sam stared down at the map and frowned.

He'd never been particularly good at taking care of the people he loved, and he had to do something.

He'd had enough experience with the social services system not to trust it to take care of the kids. Maybe that wasn't fair, because he knew Miriam, knew she worked hard and that she cared as much as she could about everyone she tried to help, as much as she could without going nuts doing the job. And he knew it was a hard job. He hadn't been fair to her over Will. It wasn't her fault. He was sure she'd done all she could. But he didn't trust the system.

Shepherdsville was only forty-five minutes away, and it wasn't a very big town. It was up to him, he thought. It wouldn't be that hard to spend the day there and see what he could find out. He didn't have to tell anyone what he was doing. If it was a dead end, it was a dead end. If he found the kids' mother and she had a good explanation for what she'd done, maybe he'd tell her where she could find her children. If their father was there and he'd done the things Emma believed, Sam didn't know what he'd do to the man. Likely get himself arrested.

No, he thought. He wouldn't. Because that would lead the man right to his children, and Sam wasn't going to be the one who did that.

He'd made up his mind—he was going to that town to see what he could find out—when he heard the back door closing softly and hurried to it, expecting to find Rachel there. She wasn't. And there was no way anyone had slipped past him and gone upstairs.

Which meant... Someone had gone outside. At this hour?

Sam pulled open the door and saw someone disappearing around the side of the house and it didn't look like his wife.

"Emma?" he called out.

She turned for a moment, a lost little girl wrapped up in her new coat and with her new boots on her feet, something he couldn't make out clutched in her hand. What in the world?

Sam waited, thinking she'd come back. But he'd made that mistake once already tonight. He grabbed his coat off the peg on the laundry room wall and took off after her.

"Emma!" he said again as he came to the front of the house and found her standing on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. She just looked at him, all sad eyes and what he suspected were big tears. Was every female he knew crying tonight?

Sam was afraid she'd make him chase her, but she didn't. She stopped right there, staring up at their house. So he took his time walking across the street to her, wishing he knew this child better, wishing he would somehow just know what to say to ease her mind.

"Out for a stroll?" he said, as casually as he could manage and noting that she was in her nightgown. It was long and the edges were hanging down below her coat, brushing the top of the snow. She was going to freeze.

"No," she said. "Just to here."

"What are you doing, Emma?" She finally looked up at him and he frowned. Those were definitely tears. Emma, who'd been so brave, was now reduced to tears.

"I had to see the house," she said.

"Why?"

"It's a secret."

"I think you're going to have to share it with me, Em."

She frowned up at him, tearing up again. "My mom called me that."

"Does that mean I shouldn't?" Sam asked gently.

Her bottom lip trembling, she said, "I don't know."

He slipped an arm around her thin shoulders and pulled her to his side, something he'd wanted to do for a long time. She bent her head against his chest and rested there for a moment.

"You want her back, too. I know that."

She nodded. "Do you believe in magic?"

"You mean like rabbits coming out of hats and stuff like that?"

"No. I know that's not real."

"Then what?"

"Signs?" she tried. "Do you believe in signs."

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I want to."

"What kind of sign, Emma?"