On New Year’s Eve, I drank too much champagne with Kayla as we watched the ball drop on TV. I almost called Gabriel, but forced myself not to. I pictured him kissing Chloe as the clock struck midnight and cried so hard Kayla asked me if she should call an ambulance. That made me laugh through my tears, and then I cried some more and laughed some more and fell into an exhausted sleep.
On January third, Lien Mai delivered a healthy baby boy, and I visited her at the hospital with a “bouquet” of blue balloons. I sat in a chair by her bed and took the small bundle into my arms and looked into the perfect round face of James Allen Nguyen and fell instantly and completely in love.
“You have own baby someday,” Lien said. “You can no have mine.” And then she laughed, a knowing gleam in her eyes as she grinned at me holding her baby boy.
I laughed, too, and then he grasped my finger and I sucked in a breath. “Oh, look, Lien, he disagrees.”
Lien laughed. “Okay, we share him.”
And in a way we did. After a two-week maternity leave, Lien brought James to the shop two days a week from nine until noon when her mother would pick him up. James slept in his car seat in the back office where it was well-ventilated, and if it was slow and Lien was busy, I’d sit back there and feed him his bottle, gazing down into his beautifully slanted eyes, and smoothing the inky black hair from his forehead. And I loved him so much it hurt.
I thought about a lot of things there, too, in the quiet as I provided sustenance to my friend’s baby. It seemed love did that for me—brought everything inside me to the surface so I could examine it all slowly and carefully, casting out that which I was ready to, and saving the rest for those dark nights when I pieced together Lady Eloise.
I thought about whether I wanted to find out what had become of my father and decided that, no, I didn’t need to know. He was a small missing part in the rebuilding of my heart, and I felt at peace that that was the way it should be. I’d hoped so hard for his love, longed for his acceptance, but he hadn’t been able to give it. And I knew now, believed, that that was because of him, not because of me.
I also thought a lot about what I wanted to do with my life as I fed James.
You and your lifelong dreams, I had said disdainfully to Gabriel once upon a time.
I’ve got a few, he’d said as he’d smiled that beautiful smile of his. I bet you do, too.
The thing was, though, I never had. I’d never dared to dream because in my mind, dreams never came true. It was too painful to dream, to hope for what could never be and for what I didn’t trust myself to obtain. Even the books I’d loved as a little girl, the stories I’d spent hours reading in the library after school as a teen, had inspired too many dreams and so I’d given them up. But now … now I found myself allowing my mind and my heart to join forces as they ventured out together into the misty land of hopes and dreams. What would I do if I could do anything at all? What would that be?
I thought about my mother, how I’d wished to heal her, how I would have done anything to provide her comfort. I thought about the sweet little man in my arms and how nurturing him brought me peace and happiness, and I wondered if I could be a nurse. Would I make a good one? Would I be able to pass the necessary classes? I’d always done well in school, despite my home life. I’d received good grades; I’d studied hard, and achieved my high school diploma. At least I had that.
Of course, going to nursing school would cost money. Money that I didn’t have. I sighed, not dismissing my dream, but putting it into the category of future possibilities. Frankly, a miracle would have to arrive at my door if I was going to make that dream come true.
In February, that miracle arrived just as I was grabbing my purse to leave for the grocery store. I heard a knock at my door and frowned. Who in the world could that be? The only person who ever came to my apartment was Kayla, and she was working.
I pulled open the door to find an older woman with a strawberry-blonde bob haircut standing there, looking slightly nervous. I tilted my head, something about her looking familiar. “Can I help you?”
She cleared her throat. “Are you Eloise Cates?”
“Yes.”
She released a breath. “Oh, good. I’m MaryBeth Hollyfield.”
Hollyfield.
“Oh,” I breathed. “Uh”—I stood back—“would you like to come in?”
MaryBeth shook her head. “No, I only have a minute.” She looked back down the steps to where a white Honda Accord was idling in the parking lot. Opening her purse, she pulled out a check. “This is for you.” She held it toward me.
I took it from her, frowning in confusion. Looking down, I saw it was made out to me for the amount of ten thousand dollars. I blinked. “This isn’t mine,” I said, attempting to hand it back.
She shook her head. “No, it is yours. It should have been yours. My mother left five thousand dollars to you. It was all the money she had to her name when she died. She’d spent almost all of her retirement savings, and in the last few years of her life she lived off the interest—mere pennies really—of the small amount of cash she had left and the social security she received.” MaryBeth looked down, an expression of shame passing over her face. “We contested her will and won. I suppose you were never notified. There didn’t seem to be a way to find you …”
I looked at her in shock. “No, I suppose there wouldn’t be. My mother died … I went …” My words faded away as I shook my head.
“Well, anyway, I’ve always felt bad about that. My brother and I didn’t do right by our mother. I will always have that on my conscience. I can’t do anything about that now. But I saw your name in the paper several months ago, and it’s been sitting at the front of my mind ever since. I wasn’t sure how to figure out interest, so I doubled it. I just hope somehow my mom knows that I made it right. I’m sorry it took me so long.” She smiled a sad smile and turned to leave.
I looked down to the check and back up at MaryBeth. “Thank you,” I called. I didn’t know what else to say.
MaryBeth paused, turning back to me. “My mother loved you very much,” she said. And with that she descended the steps, got in the car, and it pulled from the lot.
My legs felt like jelly as I shut my apartment door and sat down at my desk.
I didn’t go to the grocery store that day. Instead I worked on Lady Eloise’s hands, letting my mind wander to red Popsicles and rainbows that had formed on water, maybe not just because of the grime, but in spite of it. But mostly, I thought about a woman who had loved me, a woman who had been a sort of lifeline, not once, but twice. And I remembered Gabriel’s words about having two extra angels on his side. Perhaps I did, too, and had just been too filled with pain to recognize their gentle, loving nudges.
* * *
A week or so after MaryBeth Hollyfield stopped by, I got another knock on my apartment door. And if I’d thought I was shocked by that visit, I was even more shocked by this one: Dominic.
I froze in surprise when I pulled the door open. He was bundled up in a winter coat and beanie, and for a second I didn’t recognize him. His hands were in his pockets and the expression on his face was unsure, nervous. For a moment I just stared.
“Hi, Ellie,” he finally said.