After dinner, as Angie washed the dishes, no one spoke to her, but everyone who walked past the sink squeezed her shoulder or kissed her cheek. Everyone knew there were no more words to say. Hopes and prayers had been offered so many times over the years, they’d lost their sheen. Mama had kept a candle burning at St. Cecilia’s for almost a decade now, and still it would be Angie and Conlan alone in the car tonight, a couple who’d never multiplied into a family.
Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She tossed the dishrag on the table and went up to her old bedroom. The pretty little room, still wallpapered in roses and white baskets, held twin beds ruffled in pink bedding. She sat down on the end of her bed.
Ironically, she’d once knelt on this very floor and prayed not to be pregnant. She’d been seventeen at the time, dating Tommy Matucci. Her first love.
The door opened and Conlan walked in. Her big, black-haired Irishman husband looked ridiculously out of place in her little girl’s room.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Yeah, right.”
She heard the bitterness in his voice, felt stung by it. There was nothing she could do, though. He couldn’t comfort her; God knew that had been proven often enough.
“You need help.” He said it tiredly, and no wonder. The words were old.
“I’m fine.”
He stared at her for a long time. The blue eyes that had once looked at her with adoration now held an almost unbearable defeat. With a sigh, he turned and left the room, closing the door behind him.
A few moments later it opened again. Mama stood in the doorway, her fists planted on her narrow hips. The shoulder pads on her Sunday dress were Blade Runner big and practically touched the door frame on either side. “You always did run to your room when you were sad. Or angry.”
Angie scooted sideways to make room. “And you always came running up after me.”
“Your father made me. You never knew that, did you?” Mama sat down beside Angie. The old mattress sagged beneath their weight. “He could not stand to see you cry. Poor Livvy could shriek her lungs out and he never noticed. But you … you were his princess. One tear could break his heart.” She sighed. It was a heavy sound, full of disappointment and empathy. “You’re thirty-eight years old, Angela,” Mama said. “It’s time to grow up. Your papa—God rest his soul—would have agreed with me on this.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
Mama slipped an arm around her, pulled her close. “God has given you an answer to your prayers, Angela. It is not the answer you wanted, so you don’t hear. It’s time to listen.”
Angie woke with a start. The coolness on her cheeks was from tears.
She’d had the baby dream again; the one in which she and Conlan stood on opposite shores. Between them, on the shimmering expanse of blue sea, was a tiny pink-swaddled bundle. Inch by inch, it floated away and disappeared. When it was gone, they were left alone, she and Conlan, standing too far apart.
It was the same dream she’d been having for years, as she and her husband trudged from doctor’s office to doctor’s office, trying one procedure after another. Supposedly she was one of the lucky ones; in eight years, she’d conceived three children. Two had ended in miscarriage; one—her daughter, Sophia—had lived for only a few short days. That had been the end of it. Neither she nor Conlan had the heart to try again.
She eased away from her husband, grabbed her pink chenille robe off the floor, and left the bedroom.
The shadowy hallway waited for her. To her right, dozens of family photographs, all framed in thick mahogany, covered the wall. Portraits of five generations of DeSarias and Malones.
She looked down the long hallway at the last, closed door. The brass knob glinted in moonlight from the nearby window.
When was the last time she’d dared to enter that room?
God has given you an answer.… It’s time to listen.
She walked slowly past the stairs and the vacant guest room to the final door.
There she drew in a deep breath and exhaled it. Her hands were trembling as she opened the door and went inside. The air felt heavy in here, old and musty.
She turned on the light and closed the door behind her.
The room was so perfect.
She closed her eyes, as if darkness could help. The sweet notes of Beauty and the Beast filled her mind, took her back to the first time she’d closed the door on this room, so many years ago. It was after they’d decided on adoption.
We have a baby, Mrs. Malone. The mother—a teenager—chose you and Conlan. Come down to my office and meet her.