With This Child.... Sally Carleen
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And a baseball slammed onto the hood of her car, followed by a young girl and then a dull thud. Marcie swerved to the side of the road, crushing the brake to the floor, while adrenaline exploded through her body.
Oh, God! She’d just run down her daughter!
Her breath caught in her chest as she shifted into park. The trees and houses and everything else around her blurred as mat moment in time locked on itself, filling her vision with the sight of the girl slamming against her car.
“I’m sorry, lady!”
Marcie jumped at the sound of the words coming from the passenger window.
The beautiful child from the pictures, now distressed instead of laughing, peered at her from wide blue eyes.
From the same blue eyes Marcie saw in the mirror every morning.
In that instant, she knew, and in spite of the black fear that hovered around the edges of her soul, happiness burst over Marcie like sunrise after a night filled with terrors.
Her baby wasn’t dead. She was alive, breathing, speaking.
A thousand words and a thousand emotions lumped in Marcie’s throat, and she had to blink back sudden tears as she gazed at her child in the flesh only a few feet away. She wanted to fly across the distance, grab her and hold her in her arms, tightly enough to make up for all the years she hadn’t been able to hold her. She wanted to laugh, to cry, to live the thirteen years separating them in one burst... to reclaim her baby.
Instead, she sat behind the wheel of her car, paralyzed, unable even to speak.
And the child she’d carried inside her body, given birth to, shared the same hair and eyes with, that child looked at her as if she were a stranger.
Which she was.
Cold darkness pressed against her, throwing a shadow over her joy.
“Don’t cry, ma’am. We’ll pay to have your car fixed.” The girl inclined her head toward the hood. “It didn’t make much of a dent, anyway. You hardly notice it.” She smiled tentatively. “And I didn’t even make a dent at all when I ran into you.”
A tall, muscular man wearing cut-offs and a T-shirt jogged over from the yard and put an arm possessively about her daughter’s shoulders.
Sam Woodward.
The man who’d raised her baby and given her the laughter she’d seen in the photographs her detective took.
The man she was grateful to and resentful of. The man she envied and feared beyond all reason.
He leaned over and peered in the window, his face beside her daughter’s. “Are you all right?”
She forced herself to nod, though she was as far from all right as it was possible to be.
He went around to the hood of the car, peered closely at a spot and traced a small circle with one finger of a large hand, a hand big enough to catch footballs.
She didn’t want to look at him. She wanted to focus on her daughter, to never let her out of her sight again, to never risk losing her again.
But her gaze involuntarily followed him, her mind racing, as she tried to think of what she should say.
With a scowl, he walked around to the driver’s side window. He had a kind face, tanned, with laugh lines like sunbursts accenting his clear hazel eyes. Unruly brown hair tumbled over his forehead, imbuing him with a rakish innocence.
“My daughter’s right,” he said. “The ball didn’t leave a very big dent at all. I have a friend who works on cars. He can probably pop it out for you today without even hurting the paint.”
My daughter?
No! she wanted to scream. She’s my daughter! You can’t have her!
She lifted a shaky hand to her forehead.
“Of course, you can take your car wherever you want and get it fixed, and I’ll pay for it,” Sam continued, apparently mistaking the reason for her confusion.
She had to say something, she had to tell them.
“Why don’t you get out and come sit on the porch for a few minutes?” Sam asked in a concerned voice. “You seem kind of shaken up. Kyla—that’s my daughter—she’ll fix you a glass of iced tea and you can catch your breath.”
Kyla.
Not Jenny, but Kyla.
She hadn’t even been able to choose her daughter’s name. She’d given her baby’s name to Sam and Lisa Woodward’s baby. She’d buried their child with her daughter’s name.
Sam opened her car door and extended his hand to help her, as if she were an invalid.
It was an accurate assumption. Her brain and body had shut down, ceased to function. She had no idea what to say, and wasn’t sure she’d be able to speak if she did know.
She shut off the engine and accepted Sam’s hand. It was big and competent and gave her a protected feeling. As she slid from the car and stood, he placed his other hand at the small of her back, steadying her, as if she were fragile and likely to stumble.
She squelched a nervous giggle at the irony. Sam Wood-ward was helping her, making her feel protected and secure. Sam Woodward, whose life she’d come to destroy.
Kyla bounced up beside her as they came around the car. “Dad was teaching me to catch pop flies, and that one got away. I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Marcie said, the words coming out barely above a whisper. “I thought I hit you. I thought you were hurt.”
“Nah. I ran into your car ’cause I wasn’t watching where I was going. Hardly anybody ever comes down that street, but Dad’s always yelling at me for running out.” She grinned at Sam. “Guess he’s right once in a while. I’ll go fix you some tea. You want sugar and lemon?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Yes, please. I’d like that.” She didn’t usually take sugar and lemon, but she’d have taken salt if her daughter offered it.
Her baby was there, in person, real, alive.
Kyla sprinted up the walk and into the house ahead of them, a happy, secure, obviously loved child, with no clue that she’d just met her mother.
They reached the porch, and Sam indicated a scattering of wrought-iron chairs with faded green-and-white striped cushions. Marcie sank into the closest one, grateful that she was no longer dependent on her shaky legs to hold her up.
“I’m Sam Woodward.” He offered his hand again, and she clasped it for the second time. His shake was firm and confident, and she was amazed at how much she liked him, in spite of everything.
He was the personification of a high school football coach. His open, friendly smile—the same smile she’d seen in his pictures, but even more potent in person—promised carefree autumn evenings at football games and wiener roasts in the park.
Sam looked at her oddly, and Marcie realized she hadn’t told him who she was. She smiled nervously. “I’m Marcie Turner. I, uh—” I’m Kyla’s mother? No, that probably wasn’t a good way to establish her identity.
Sam took the chair beside her, looking at her expectantly, waiting for her to finish her sentence. She couldn’t think of anything to say except I’m Kyla’s mother. Every crevice in her mind was filled with that thought, leaving no room for coherency.
“I’m an accountant,” she finally blurted, then wondered why she’d said it. An attempt to offer some sort of validation that she existed, that she had an identity and a life, that she wasn’t really as disconnected as she felt right now?
“That must come in handy around April fifteenth,” Sam replied, as if their conversation were perfectly normal. And maybe it was. Right now, she