Forbidden Falls (Virgin River #9)(92)

Beneath the shoe boxes, a treasure trove. While Hannah hung on her knees and Matt tried to grab at the things Vanni removed from the box, Vanni pulled out picture after picture—school pictures, those cute toothless, pigtail pictures, pubescent shots of what Vanni had always referred to as the “big-teeth” age. Terri in braces, Terri in dance class, Terri helping someone wash a car. And then there were prom pictures and winter-dance formals and the homecoming game with Terri right out in front, a trim and beautiful high school cheerleader who could not have imagined her life would be cut short at the age of thirty, leaving a baby behind.

Vanni tried looking through the pictures though her eyes clouded with tears. She simultaneously kept rescuing photos from Matt’s eager little hands. Finally, frustrated, she leaned Hannah against the couch and picked Matt up. She found his favorite blanket with the satin binding and snuggled it to him, putting him down in the playpen. It wasn’t exactly nap time, but when the blanket came out, it meant quiet time. He did a little insulted fussing before his thumb found his mouth and he nestled down.

She went back to the sofa and lifted Hannah onto her lap. She continued to sift through the pictures, showing them to Hannah, saying, “Hannah’s mama, see?” Hannah didn’t grab or fuss, but leaned against Vanni and just looked as each picture was pulled out. And then there was a framed wedding picture. Terri had been married? Vanni didn’t know that. Obviously she hadn’t been married while Paul dated her, and if she’d been married afterward, Hannah would have had a stepfather. She looked very young in the picture; she must have been divorced before Paul met her.

There were several albums that Vanni pulled out and stacked on the couch, one of them a wedding album.

Beneath the albums was a smaller box. Inside, carefully preserved, were several items. A white, lacy christening gown wrapped in tissue paper, a silver cup and spoon, badly tarnished, a couple of rattles, a pink knitted baby sweater with a hood and matching mittens. And inside more tissue paper, a floppy, sorely used stuffed puppy with one eye. “Oh, Hannah,” Vanni said. “Oh, Hannah, Mama’s puppy.”

“Bah-bah,” Hannah said, hitting the stuffed toy.

“Sweet puppy,” Vanni choked out, pressing the toy to Hannah and holding her tight. Vanni rocked Hannah back and forth, tears running down her cheeks.

Hannah settled back against Vanni and looked up at her face. She put a pudgy little hand against Vanni’s cheek and said, “Mama.”

“Yes, my little angel,” Vanni said with a sniff. “I’m going to be your mama. Yes. Mama loves you.”

By the time Vanni had given the kids lunch and settled them in their cribs for afternoon naps, she had everything from that box spread across the dining-room table. Then she called Jack. “Can you give me Rick Sudder’s phone number?”

“Sure,” Jack said in some confusion. “You all right, Vanni?”

“I’ll be okay—it’s just real important that I talk to him right away and I don’t know when he works or goes to school, or anything.”

“Well, he and Liz just moved into their own place in Eureka near the college. It’s a little dump, but they think it’s the frickin’ Taj Mahal. He has classes three days a week, works for Paul on Tuesdays and Thursdays and some Saturdays, so he’d be in Eureka today. I have no idea of his class schedule and I don’t know if they have an answering machine. Here’s the apartment number,” he said, reeling it off. “But, hey—he’s got that cell phone I gave him when he was in the hospital. He gets no reception in Virgin River, but it works fine in Eureka. Whether he carries it or stuffed it in the back of some drawer—”

“Jack!”

“Yeah, okay. Here’s the number,” he said, reciting it. “You sure you’re okay, Vanni?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

Vanni immediately dialed the apartment number and of course, there was no answer and no machine. Then she tried the cell phone and it went directly to voice mail. “Rick, it’s Vanni Haggerty. God, I hope you actually carry that cell phone so you get this message. I really need to talk to you the second you get this. Nothing’s wrong, Rick, but it’s real important. Please call.”

While Vanni waited, she continued looking through the dozens of snapshots and pictures. She had put Hannah to bed with the stuffed puppy. If she didn’t hear from Rick by early evening, she would call his grandmother, Lydie Sudder. But really she’d rather—

The phone rang and she grabbed for it. “Hi, Vanni, it’s Rick. Is everything okay? You sounded a little—”

“Freaked out?” she asked with a nervous laugh. “Rick, you know we have Hannah with us now, right?”

“I heard that, yeah. Paul said he was living in some kind of day-care center.”

She laughed, but there were tears in her throat. “Yeah, that’s a true statement. Listen, Rick, I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but there aren’t too many people I can ask. I know your parents were killed when you were really young…”

“Car accident,” he said. “I was two.”

“Like Hannah’s mother, but she’s not even a year yet. What I want to know—did you cry for your parents? Did you grieve? Did you miss them? Want them? Feel like something was missing out of your life?”