The phone call telling Grace of the automobile accident had come at noon yesterday. By the time she had arrived at the hospital, Mary’s child had already been born, taken from his mother by emergency surgery.
And by six this morning, the doctors had finally conceded that her sister was dying.
Younger by three years, Mary had always been the more practical of the two sisters, the down-to-earth one. She’d also been the bossier of the two girls. By the time she was five, Mary had been ruling the Sutter household by imposing her will on their aging parents, her older half brothers still living at home, and Grace. And when their parents had died nine years ago in a boating accident, it had been eighteen-year-old Mary who had handled the tragedy. Their six half brothers had come home from all four corners of the world, only to be told their only chore was that of pallbearers to their father and stepmother.
After the beautiful but painful ceremony, the six brothers had returned to their families and jobs, Grace had gone back to Boston to finish her doctorate in mathematical physics, and Mary had stayed in Pine Creek, Maine, claiming the aged Sutter homestead as her own.
Which was why, when Mary had shown up on her doorstep in Norfolk, Virginia, four months ago, Grace had been truly surprised. It would take something mighty powerful to roust her sister out of the woods she loved so much. But Mary only had to take off her jacket for Grace to understand.
Her sister was pregnant. Mary was just beginning to show when she had arrived, and it was immediately obvious to Grace that her sister didn’t know what to do about the situation.
They’d had several discussions over the last four months, some of them heated. But Mary, being the stubborn woman she was, refused to talk about the problem with Grace. She was there to gather her thoughts and her courage and decide what to do. Yes, she loved the baby’s father more than life itself, but no, she wasn’t sure she could marry him.
Was he married to someone else? Grace had wanted to know.
No.
Did he live in the city, then? She’d have to move?
No.
Was he a convicted felon?
Of course not.
For the life of her, Grace could not get her sister to tell her why she couldn’t go home and set a wedding date—hopefully before the birth date.
Mary wouldn’t even tell her the man’s name. She was closed-mouthed about everything except for the fact that he was a Scot and that he had arrived in Pine Creek just last year. They had met at a grange supper and had fallen madly in love over the next three months. She’d gotten pregnant the first time they made love.
It was another four months of bliss, and then Mary’s world had suddenly careened out of control. In the quiet evening hours during a walk one day, the Scot had told her a fantastical tale (Mary’s words), and then he had asked her to marry him.
Two days later Mary had arrived at Grace’s home in Virginia.
And for the last four months, Grace had asked Mary to reveal what the Scot had told her, but her sister had remained silent and brooding. Until she had announced yesterday, out of the blue and with a promise to explain everything later, that she was returning to Pine Creek. Only she hadn’t been gone an hour when the phone call came. Mary had not even made it out of the city when her car had been pushed into the opposite lane of a six-lane highway by a drunk driver. It had taken the rescue team three hours to free Mary from what was left of her rental car.
And now she was dying.
And her new baby son was just down the hall, surprisingly healthy for having been pulled from the sanctuary of his mother’s womb a whole month early.
A nurse entered the room and checked the IV hooked up to Mary, then left just as silently, leaving Grace with only a sympathetic smile and a whisper that Grace should let her know if she needed anything.
Grace rushed to follow her out the door.
“Can she see the baby?” Grace asked the nurse. “Can she hold him?”
The nurse contemplated the request for only a second. Her motherly face suddenly brightened. “I think I can arrange it,” she said, nodding her approval. “Yes, I think we should get that baby in his mother’s arms as soon as possible.”
She laid a gentle hand on Grace’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Miss Sutter, for what’s happening here. But the accident did a lot of damage to your sister, and the emergency cesarean complicated things. Your sister’s spleen was severely ruptured, and now her organs are shutting down one at a time. She just isn’t responding to anything we try. It’s a wonder she’s even conscious.”
The nurse leaned in and said in a whisper, as if they were in church, “They’re calling him the miracle baby, you know. Not one scratch on his beautiful little body. And he’s not even needing an incubator, although they have him in one as a precaution.”
Grace smiled back, but it was forced. “Please bring Mary her son,” she said. “It’s important she sees that he’s okay. She’s been asking about him.”
With that said, Grace returned to the room to find Mary awake. Her sister’s sunken blue gaze followed her as she rounded the bed and sat down beside her again.
“I want a promise,” Mary said in a labored whisper.
Grace carefully picked up Mary’s IV-entangled hand and held it. “Anything,” she told her, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Just name it.”
Mary smiled weakly. “Now I know I’m dying,” she said, trying to squeeze back. “You were eight the last time you promised me anything without knowing the facts first.”
Grace made a production of rolling her eyes at her sister, not letting her see how much that one simple word, dying, wounded her heart. She didn’t want her sister to die. She wanted to go back just two days, to when they were arguing the way sisters did when they loved each other. “And I’ll probably regret this promise just as much,” Grace told her with false cheerfulness.
Mary’s eyes darkened. “Yes, you probably will.”
“Tell me,” she told her sister.
“I want you to promise to take my baby home to his father.”
Grace was stunned. She was expecting Mary to ask her to raise her son, not give him away.
“Take him to his father?” Grace repeated, slowly shaking her head. “The same man you ran away from four months ago?”
Mary weakly tightened her grip on Grace’s hand. “I was running back to him yesterday,” she reminded her.
“I’m not making any promises until you tell me why you left Pine Creek in the first place. And what made you decide to return,” Grace told her. “Tell me what scared you badly enough to leave.”
Mary stared blankly at nothing, and for a moment Grace was afraid she had lost consciousness. Mary’s breathing came in short, shallow breaths that were slowly growing more labored. Her eyelids were heavy, her pupils glazed and distant. Grace feared her question had fallen on deaf ears. But then Mary quietly began to speak.
“He scared me,” she said. “When he told me his story, he scared the daylights out of me.”
“What story?” Grace asked, reaching for Mary’s hand again. “What did he tell you?”
Mary’s eyes suddenly brightened with a spark of mischief. “Lift my bed,” she instructed. “I want to see the look on your face, my scientist sister, when you hear what he told me.”
Grace pushed the bed’s lift button and watched her sister sit up. Mary never called her a scientist unless she had some outrageous idea she wanted to convince her was possible. Grace was the rocket scientist, Mary was the dreamer.
“Okay. Out with it,” she demanded, seizing on that one little spark like a lifeline. She settled a pillow behind Mary’s head. “What did lover boy tell you that made you run away?”
“His name is Michael.”
“Finally. The man has a name. Michael what?”
Mary didn’t answer. She was already focused on gathering her words as she stared off into space over Grace’s right shoulder.