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Had Marc emphasized mother, or had that been her nerves triggering her imagination? On Friday, Stella had clung to Marc and hidden behind his leg, but she hadn’t been hostile. Or was that Fiona’s longing coloring her perception?
Pastor Connor placed a cup of water in front of her. “You two can work out meeting the family and whatever other details you think are necessary. But I have a recommendation to help Stella adjust.”
Hope rose in Fiona.
Pastor Connor met her gaze, then Marc’s. “It’s what I’d do if she were mine.”
* * *
Marc folded the last of the clothes from the dryer and walked into the living room to wake Stella from her nap. He and Stella and Fiona were all going to go to the introductory meeting of his sister Renee’s new toddlers Bridges group tomorrow morning. As far as he could tell from his sister’s enthusiastic description and the literature she’d given him, Bridges was a program for broken families.
He sighed. He guessed that’s what he and Stella were, and he was feeling it more since Fiona had dropped her bombshell.
Marc ran his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t had any other choice but to agree to have Stella participate in the group, not after the way Fiona’s face had lit up when Connor had couched his recommendation for Stella in such a personal way. And he’d given into Connor’s other suggestion that he and Fiona try the Bridges groups for parents that Renee’s supervisor at the Christian Action Coalition was starting. For Fiona. He’d been there, done that already with grief counseling.
Agreeing had given him some breathing room, time to investigate Fiona as much as he could. Before they’d left Connor’s office, he and Fiona had agreed to put off getting together until after the Bridges meeting. Tonight he was taking his mom and dad out for a Friday fish fry to update them.
Looking down at his daughter’s sleeping face, her long red-brown lashes resting on her plump baby cheeks, he hated to disturb her. Were Fiona’s lashes red-brown, too? He couldn’t recall.
“Stella, sweetpea.” Marc touched her shoulder and she blinked her eyes open. Eyes that were the same golden hazel as Fiona’s. “Time to wake and go to Aunt Natalie and Uncle Connor’s house to play with Luc.”
Stella sat up. “Luc? Luc at school. Stella go to school?”
He took her wanting to go back to preschool after spending the morning there as a positive sign. While Stella hadn’t resisted going, she hadn’t talked much about school, either, even when he’d prompted her. So he didn’t know whether she liked playing with the other kids or how she’d react to going to Renee’s group.
“No, not school. Aunt Natalie and Uncle Connor’s to play with Luc,” Marc repeated. “Remember? I told you when I picked you up at school? Daddy has a meeting.”
Stella nodded and climbed off the couch. “Burgers and ice cream.”
He laughed. “Yes, you guys are going out for hamburgers. I didn’t know about the ice cream.”
His daughter nodded emphatically. “Ice cream. Stella’s ready.”
Looking at her bedhead mop of curls, Marc laughed with love and wonder that God had given him such a treasure, a treasure he wanted to feel secure enough about that he could share her with Fiona.
“Let me brush your hair first.”
“’Rette?” Stella asked.
“Sure. I can put a barrette in it.”
He got her ready and over to the parsonage with plenty of time to spare to drive to the restaurant in Schroon Lake where he was meeting his parents.
“Give Daddy kisses.”
Stella bussed his cheek, and he rubbed noses with her before he placed her down in the parsonage kitchen.
“You be a good girl for Aunt Natalie.” He shifted his weight from foot to foot. Stella had never stayed with Nat before, but she obviously liked her cousin Luc, and the restaurant where he was meeting his parents wasn’t far from the parsonage or the Paradox Lake General Store, where Natalie and Connor were taking the kids.
“Stella good girl. Big girl.” She stood tall as if trying to match the height of her slightly younger, but taller cousin.
“All right, then. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Daddy come back.”
Was that a quaver in her voice? No, she seemed okay.
“We’ll be fine,” Natalie said.
His sister probably knew better than him. He grimaced. Even as Stella’s only parent for a good part of her life, with his long work hours in New York, he was sure he’d spent less physical time with Stella than Natalie had with Luc.
“Let us know how it goes,” Connor added.
Marc gave him a noncommittal nod and left.
His parents’ car was already parked in front of the restaurant when he drove up. The dashboard clock said he was ten minutes early, right on time for his scheduled plan to be there first, get a booth and have the upper hand from the start. But he hadn’t accounted for Dad’s philosophy that being on time was being fifteen minutes early. He pulled into a space a ways down the street and walked to the restaurant.
“Good evening,” said a waitress who looked familiar, but he couldn’t place. “Find a seat and I’ll be right with you.”
“Marc,” his mother called from the booth where he’d already spotted them.
The waitress smiled and handed him a menu.
“Thanks,” he said, finally recognizing her as someone who’d been a few years behind him in high school. Marc walked to the booth and slid into the seat across from his parents.
“So,” his mother said, “what’s the big news that merits you treating us to a meal you’re not cooking? Did you get the revitalization grant for La Table Frais?”
“Terry,” his dad cautioned. “Let the man catch a breath and look at the menu.”
“All right. You know, you could have brought Stella.” His mother glanced around the restaurant at the numerous families with children.
“I know, but I thought it would be nice to have an adult dinner with you.”
His father tapped the menu on the table in front of him. “I’m going to have the fish fry special.”
“Me, too,” Marc said.
“Guys, did you even look at the other specials?” his mother asked.
“Why would I, when I came in knowing what I want?” his father answered.
Marc laughed. This was an ongoing dialogue between his parents that went back as far as he could remember.
The waitress came and took their orders, and they had their food in front of them in no time.
Marc pressed the side of his fork through the tip of his battered fried fillet. It was time for his announcement. The prospect took him back to high school, the day he told his parents he wanted to study culinary arts in college and not farm management, that he didn’t want to be part of John Delacroix and Sons. Dad had mellowed a lot since then. But what he had to say tonight would hit Mom harder.
Marc cleared his throat. “I met a woman, a friend of Claire’s, one of her coworkers.”
“Oh.” His mother’s eyes brightened.
Bad start. “A business meeting. Fiona Bryce. She’s the new farm-to-table liaison.”
His father nodded. “I read about that program and her hiring in the Times of Ti. She’s a Cornell grad, like Claire.”
“Yes, a couple years behind Claire,” Marc said. One of the things he’d found in his online search about Fiona. “Claire suggested Fiona and I talk about how she can work with me, setting up connections with local food producers.”
“Do it,” his father encouraged. “The Cornell people know what they’re doing.”
His father’s words frustrated him. It wasn’t that Dad wasn’t proud of him graduating from the Culinary Institute or his youngest sister from the University at Albany, but he was inordinately proud of Claire and Marc’s younger brother, Paul, being Cornell graduates. His father had wanted to go to Cornell, but for financial and family reasons had settled for a two-year degree in dairy production and management from a state college.
“I already have a contract.” Fiona had wasted no time emailing it to him. “My partners are reviewing it. But there’s something else I want to tell you about Fiona.”
Both of his parents stopped eating and looked at him, his mother’s brow creased with concern.
Had it been something in his voice? “It’s nothing bad.” At least I hope it’s not. “I mean, it’s good. I wanted to tell you first because it affects the whole family.”
His mother made a show of wiping her hands on her napkin and placing it back on her lap. “You’re interested in this woman enough to want to tell us? You just met her.”
“No, not in the way you’re thinking.” Although his thoughts had gone in that direction, too—until Fiona’s claim to Stella had turned his world upside down. Marc gripped the table edge as if that would give him the extra boost of strength he needed. “Fiona is Stella’s biological aunt.”
The tension in his muscles went into overtime while he waited for their reaction.
“Is that what she told you?” his mother asked.
“Told and showed me. Stella’s birth mother, Fiona’s sister, is dead. Fiona had a copy of Stella’s original birth certificate and the Ticonderoga Birthing Center’s record of Stella’s birth, among other things. I talked with Autumn. She delivered Stella, and the birthing center released her to Precious in His Sight when Fiona’s sister returned with her a few weeks later to give her up for adoption.”
“You can’t let this woman take Stella from us.”
Red spots flashed in front of his eyes. “Fiona says she simply wants to be an aunt to Stella.”
“And you believe her? What do you know about the woman?”
“Terry.” His father placed his hand over his mother’s, the note of warning in his voice loud and clear.
Well, to Marc, at least. He wasn’t so sure about his mother.
“It was a sealed adoption,” Marc said. “I talked with the lawyer who handled it. Fiona has no legal grounds to contest it.”
“I see,” his father said.
“But what do you know about her?” his mother repeated.
Marc bit his tongue. Should he have prepared a dossier? “She’s Claire’s friend, and I haven’t found anything in my searching that shows she’s anything other than what she says. And now we can know more about Stella’s medical history if we ever need to, and answer her questions when she’s older and starts asking.” He faced his father. “You know I’d protect Stella with my life.”
His father nodded, understanding showing in his eyes.
“You can’t mean to just bring her into your...our family,” his mother said.
Marc sensed a tone of almost fear in her voice. Mom was always so open and giving. When he was growing up, their house had been a haven to any of their friends needing one.
“Stella isn’t ready to be told who Fiona is,” he said. “We’ll be working on that in the Bridges program.”
“This Fiona is going to be part of that?” his mother asked.
“Yes, we talked with Connor about it Wednesday evening.”
“You’ve known since Wednesday?” His mother pressed her lips together.
He wasn’t about to admit that he’d known in his gut for a week, since Fiona had told him on the phone. “All three of us are going to the Bridges meeting tomorrow, and I plan to invite Fiona to Sunday dinner at the house.”
He hadn’t actually planned to, not until this minute. But something inside him wanted to crack his mother’s uncharacteristically stony facade, to open her up to the family accepting Fiona.
Because, he realized suddenly, he wanted to accept her.
Chapter Four (#uab09f0e3-f685-5dee-9013-ef003b10b605)
Fiona breathed in a deep lungful of the crisp mountain air before she pulled open the door to the Hazardtown Community Church hall. She’d gone back and forth as to whether it would be better to be one of the first to arrive for the Bridges meeting or one of the last, and had decided on last. She hadn’t wanted to risk being there with only Marc, Stella and the meeting leader, even though that was the idea of the Bridges program, to help bring together members of changing families.
Fiona swallowed, remembering what Marc had said about Stella’s hostility toward women like her. Perhaps arriving early when fewer people were here may have been better after all, given that she didn’t know how Stella would react to her.
Too late now. She stepped into the hall, the door closing behind her with a startling bang that brought everyone’s attention to her.
“Welcome,” a man called to her.
“Hi.” Fiona looked past him to the table where the group was gathered, searching for Stella. She saw only adults, and her gaze settled on Marc’s expressionless face. The others blurred around him. She set her jaw against the shudder that threatened her composure. She wasn’t that poor little Bryce girl anymore that everyone had been quick to pity, no matter how little time her family spent in one place.
“I’m Noah Phelps, the group facilitator,” said the man who’d greeted her. “You must be Fiona.”
Fiona pulled her focus from Marc. She lifted her chin. She’d been the last to arrive. Not the unobtrusive entry she might have wanted, but she’d accomplished her goal of not being alone with Marc and Stella.
“Come join us,” Noah said. “We were about to go around the table and introduce ourselves.”
Fiona slipped into an empty chair kitty-corner across the table from Marc.
“As you already know, I’m the director of the Bridges program at the Christian Action Coalition. I’ll be moderating the group. Unlike the children’s programs Bridges offers, this group will focus on the needs of the adults in the transitioning families. Let me remind you of the confidentiality agreement you all signed when you registered for the group. What we share in group stays in group.”
Absorbing Noah’s words, Fiona looked around the table. Most of the people appeared to be couples, except for one, an older woman with a twentysomething man that might be a mother–son or mother-in-law and son-in-law pair.
Noah continued, “This group is as much or more about your sharing what you’ve found works for your family as it is about my providing guidance to give your new family structure a solid start.”
Fiona gazed down at her hands, running one thumbnail against a rough edge of another. She wasn’t against getting some guidance to use as a ruler against her perceptions. The promising start she’d made with Marc businesswise—his asking for a contract before his partners had agreed—hadn’t carried over when their situation became personal. And the start she’d thought she’d provided Mairi had crumbled when Fiona hadn’t been there to hold it up.
She shouldn’t be surprised. That had been her life. The glimmer of something going well followed by crushing reality. Her stepfather’s new job that had ended up being a prelude to his leaving. Her mother’s multiple promises of a new start. Fiona’s optimism when a teacher at her first high school had taken an interest in her, only to have her mother pull her out of the school a few months later for another new start. Fiona pulled her hands apart and straightened. That’s why she meant to be there for Stella, to carry through—no matter what it took.
“I’ve done enough talking. Now it’s your turn.” Noah motioned to the person on his right. The people between Noah and Marc shared about themselves and their families.
Fiona had been wrong. A few of those attending were single, divorced or widowed, with children. Had Marc signed on for the group before she’d told him Stella was her sister’s child? For whatever reason, that thought relaxed her.
