The Lucky Ones(22)

“I should have written you a long time ago,” he said. “I talked to Dad about you sometimes. I asked him once if he thought it would be okay to look for you. He said if you wanted us, you’d come back on your own. But you didn’t. I told myself you forgot about us. Better than thinking you hated me.”

“Don’t move,” she said.

“What?”

“Just...stay here.” Allison walked back to the mudroom, grabbed her bag off the hook and pulled out the photograph that she’d kept with her for thirteen years and four moves. She took it back to the kitchen where Roland stood waiting, back against the fridge.

“Here,” she said, and handed him the photograph. “Proof I never forgot.”

He took the picture from her and stared at it. Then he turned and put it on the fridge with a magnet. Then he took his wallet out from his back pocket and removed a photo of his own. It was the missing section of her picture, the torn-off part. With another magnet he put the two halves of the photograph together. Now it was complete. Allison in Roland’s arms, Roland standing next to Deacon standing next to Thora and all of them holding their sparklers together so that the four glowing tips became one.

“You gave me the picture?” Allison asked.

“I guess you really don’t remember anything from that time,” he said. “You were in the hospital and I wanted to go talk to you. Dad had told us you were going home with your aunt when you got discharged so I knew it was probably my last chance to clear the air with you. I waited until after dark and I snuck in to see you.”

Allison looked at him, stunned.

“You were asleep,” he said. “So not a big surprise you don’t remember that. But I talked to you for a long time, anyway. Probably my first confession.”

“What did you confess?”

“I said...” Roland paused. His eyes darkened. “I said I was sorry about what happened between us. I said I wished I’d been at home so I could have helped you when you fell. I said I hoped you’d get to come home to us soon. But if you didn’t, I wanted you to have this picture of us until you could come home again.”

Allison blinked and hot tears fell.

“I wondered where this picture came from,” she said. “I thought your dad put it in my suitcase.”

“I wanted you to remember us,” Roland said. “I should have given you the whole picture but I wanted to remember you, too. Monks don’t carry wallets but I had that picture of you in my prayer book until I left.” He paused and seemed to be deciding if he should say what he said next. “I prayed for you.”

“You did? What did you pray?” she asked, deeply touched. Had anyone else ever prayed for her?

“Nothing big. That you were happy. That you were okay. That you’d come home someday,” he said. “And here you are.”

She touched the photograph where the torn seams met. Seeing the two halves of the picture together again made the old wound in her heart, the one left when she was taken away, ache a little, but the good kind of aching, the kind of aching that meant the wound was healing.

“I’ll stay the night,” she said, smiling through her tears.

“You will?”

“Why not?” she said with a resigned sigh. “One night won’t kill me.”





Chapter 8

Roland insisted on going out to her rental car to bring in her luggage. While he was gone she wandered around the downstairs. The house was neither grand nor intimidating but the signs were everywhere that Dr. Capello had money and lots of it. She’d learned how to spot money from McQueen. His house was beautiful and big but minus obvious ostentation. The really rich people, McQueen had said, are rich enough they don’t have to prove anything. A millionaire will keep a wad of cash in a gold-plated money clip in his Armani suit pocket. A billionaire will show up in jeans with a couple twenties in his faded leather wallet. Now Dr. Capello, she knew, certainly wasn’t a billionaire, but he had enough money he didn’t have to prove anything to anyone. Yet the signs were there. The paintings on the walls weren’t prints but originals with familiar-sounding names inscribed in the bottom right corners—Rex Whistler, Grant Wood, even one O’Keeffe. The furniture was heavy, handcrafted and hand-carved. Nothing from IKEA here. As a child, she hadn’t had the eyes to appreciate the decorative woodwork, the antique mantel clocks, the stained glass transom windows, but her well-trained adult eyes saw it all. She was amazed that a man with Dr. Capello’s wealth had become a doctor when he could easily have lived off his inheritance. Even more amazing that instead of getting married and having biological children, he’d adopted kids out of foster care. McQueen would never have taken in a needy kid. Not unless she was over eighteen and he was sleeping with her.

Roland returned with her suitcase in his right hand and her overnight bag on his left shoulder.

“You okay going upstairs?” he asked.

“I’m fine, I promise,” she said as he led the way. The house was three stories high, and when she’d lived there, all the kids slept on the second floor. Dr. Capello’s office and bedroom took up the entire third floor. They started up the stairs, and Allison clung to the carved banister railing as she followed Roland up.

“I hope Dr. Capello doesn’t have to climb these stairs as sick as he is,” she said.