Eclipse of the Heart (30 page)

She cleared the shelf, lugging the books back and forth to
the table, and then carefully removed the first frame from the back of the
shelf.

A young man, maybe a teen, stared up at her. He was standing
on the beach, with the wind blowing his dark hair, and a grin creasing his
face. One arm held up a bright red windsurfing board.

Logan
Winter
.

Her heart stopped.

He looked so happy.

What had changed him from this joyful teen into a solemn and
unsmiling grown man?

Amanda stared at the picture. Could this be someone other
than Logan?
A brother?
A cousin?
Even though, as far as she knew, he didn't have any family.

With trembling fingers, she pulled out the next frame.

For a long moment, her eyes refused to focus as her mind
grappled with a decision. Did she really want to see what would be revealed?
Did she have any right to pry into the secrets someone had carefully hidden?

The baby kicked her, the jolt a reminder that the secrets
might be a history of this child's family. Something he or she would want to
know some day.

Amanda focused on the picture in her hand.

A family laughed at the camera.

A tall man in middle-age, with dark hair frosted with
silver. He had one arm around his wife, a beautiful woman with lovely eyes and
a strong smile.

On one side of the man stood the same teenaged boy, and yes,
it was Logan. That was the exact same grin she'd seen on his face when—her
memories faltered. She forced them into her mind. That was how he'd looked at
her when he'd been laughing at her Christmas tree sweater—one of the few
lighthearted moments she'd seen from him.

Next to the woman stood a younger girl with long, dark hair,
probably a younger teen.

Logan's family.

Amanda's heart clenched around the
realization.
What had happened to them? Why did he never mention them?

"I'm not surprised you found them." Mrs. MacDonald
spoke from the doorway, startling Amanda so that she almost dropped the frame.

"I—
Who
—" She waved toward
the bookshelf.

"I put them there," Mrs. MacDonald said calmly.
"He had ordered me to dispose of every photograph."

"Logan." Amanda didn't need to phrase it as a
question.

"He's the only one left."

Amanda gasped, even as a twist of pain stabbed her abdomen.
She reached out to grab the shelf to steady
herself
.

"What happened?"

"Are you all right?" Mrs. MacDonald frowned
anxiously. "You look very pale."

"The shock," she whispered.
"My
baby."
She flattened her hand against her stomach. "I need to
sit down." She trundled over to the rocker, and lowered herself carefully.

She stared at Mrs. MacDonald. "I feel
heartbroken," she whispered, "and I don't even know what
happened."

"Oh, dear."
Mrs. M.
clasped her hands together. "I didn't think about you getting into the
children's section. I should have."

"Please don't blame yourself." Amanda tried to
control her breathing. In. Out. A vise seemed to be squeezing the middle of her
body. She needed a distraction. "Tell me why you hid them."

 "I couldn't eliminate all trace of—" Mrs. M.
hesitated, and tears sprang into her eyes, magnified by her thick glasses.

"Logan's family," Amanda breathed.

"Yes." Mrs. MacDonald took off her glasses and
blotted her eyes with the bottom of her apron. "I knew this moment would
arrive someday."

"That's why you saved the photos."

"Of course," Mrs. M. answered. "The time to
tell about the family would be when a child came along. That's when someone
would look at the children's books in here. They'd find the photographs. Until
there was a child—" She shrugged sadly. "What difference did it make?
Who would care?"

Amanda shifted uncomfortably on the chair. The emotion in
the room seemed to take up all the oxygen. She struggled to draw a deep breath.
"I always knew there was something—odd—about his refusal to speak of a
family."

"It's not odd." Mrs. MacDonald's shoulders
slumped. "It's tragic."

Amanda clutched the photo. "They're all dead."

The housekeeper nodded, her face suddenly sagging, as if
she'd given up the effort to remain stoic. She sank down onto the leather chair
at the right of the door.

"Mrs. MacDonald," Amanda whispered. "I've
changed my mind. I don't want to know. Nothing can be done. I have enough to
worry about."

"Someone needs to know," Mrs. MacDonald said in a
suddenly fierce voice. "Someone needs to help that man with his pain and
loneliness."

Someone who loved him would care.
Amanda closed her eyes as the words echoed in her head, momentarily pushing aside
her pain and her worry about her baby. Love didn't hide behind denial. It
didn't wait for a convenient time. It didn't run away when the going got tough.

Love survived, no matter what happened. A glimpse of her
father flashed in her mind. He was bending over the bassinet in the kitchen
where Julie lay. Even then, she'd been sickly.

Her father straightened up and looked at her mother. His
eyes were sad, but his voice strong when he said, "We will find a cure for
her. Don't worry."

Then he seemed to notice Amanda standing there by the back
door, waiting to say goodbye to him as she did every day. He slung a comforting
arm around her. "You, pumpkin, are the best big sister anyone could have.
Right?"

She'd nodded, although she wasn't sure he was right. What was
she able to do for Julie?

Her father lifted his heavy briefcase, kissed all three of
them in turn, the baby, Amanda, and then her mom. He walked out the door.

He died that day.

After that, Amanda never had any hope that they'd find a
cure for Julie. Her father had promised—and then he hadn't fulfilled his
promise. They hadn't been able to depend on him.

But she'd been wrong about that. In the intervening years,
medical science had made a lot of progress in treating lung disease. Amanda and
her mother had never stopped looking for better treatment.

Her father would have continued to look also. She could
finally admit it. Maybe she'd also been wrong to be so unforgiving of him for
leaving them.

Today, looking at the photo of Logan's family, Amanda began
to see things in a different light. Parents did the best they could. But
tragedies still happened. She was able to see that clearly with respect to
Logan's family, but she'd never given her father the same latitude.

Now, for the first time, Amanda admitted that her father
would have also done his best for his kids. Fate had intervened, but what
happened wasn't his fault.

Thinking about her own child, Amanda could glimpse how her
father might have felt on that long ago day. He'd been doing what he could to
provide for his family. Just as she would do for the baby she now had to
protect.

She might not succeed. Her father hadn't succeeded. Logan's
parents hadn't prevented their son from experiencing a tragic loss.

But it was time for her to forgive her father.

He'd left them, but his love survived in the love the three
of them still shared for each other. And yes, in the love they had for his
memory.

Now she needed to provide a family for her child. Even if
Logan's side of the family could only be remembered in photos and in stories,
those memories would be better than nothing.

She opened her eyes and looked directly at the housekeeper.
"You're right," she said. "Please tell me what happened."

Mrs.
M.'s
lips trembled. "The
family was visiting my house, where I lived with my husband, Bob. We used to
live on the
Winter's
estate in the suburbs of Boston.
I was the housekeeper, of course, and Bob handled all the outdoor
responsibilities."

Amanda nodded, clutching her stomach, as if she could at
least prevent the baby from hearing the awful tale which was about to unfold.

"Bob had retired, so I did as well. His health wasn't
good, and we moved to a home in a nearby town." She clutched her apron,
smoothing it between her fingers, as if looking for comfort in the cloth.

Amanda began to rock back and forth in the slider. There was
nothing she could say.

"It was Bob's birthday. The family—Logan, his mom and
dad, and his sister, Lauren—came to celebrate the birthday with us. It may
sound odd, but that's the type of people they were. We'd been with them for a
long time, and Bob was in a wheelchair and we didn't go out much." She
lifted her shoulders in a weary shrug. "For some reason, who knows why,
I'd run out of milk. I was embarrassed."

She bowed her head. "It was my job to be prepared for
such things. But they made light of it. Logan immediately said he'd run out to
the store. I went with him to show him the way."

Tears ran down her wrinkled face like needles of pain.

Amanda laid a hand on hers. "You don't have to go on.
Please don't distress yourself further."

Mrs. MacDonald looked up, her blue eyes swimming. "They
were going to play music for us after we had the cake. Mrs. Winter was a
violinist, her husband was a clarinet player, and Lauren was a singer."

I'm the son of two musicians. I know
how to maintain a rhythm.
The words rang in Amanda's ears. She
swayed with sudden dizziness.

"We returned from the store." Mrs. MacDonald
closed her eyes. "The house was gone."

"Gone?" Amanda choked on the word. The rocking
chair began to tilt, and the pain in her mid-section intensified.

Mrs. MacDonald opened her tear-filled eyes. "Logan let
out a roar, a cry of agony I can hear to this day. He ran forward, although I
tried to stop him."

Amanda could picture him, an eager young man thrown into
horror, confused, but hoping against hope that he could find something that
would deny the truth of what he was looking at.

"How old was he?"

"Twenty-two," Mrs. M said heavily. "He was
twenty-two years old when he saw his sister's
foot,
still clad in the red cowboy boots he'd given her for eighteenth birthday,
sticking up out of the rubble." She dropped her head into her hands, and
her shoulders shook with sobs.

Amanda rocked back and forth, silently, her arms wrapped
around herself. She pictured Logan, his cool gray eyes, his ever-present
composure. She heard him say, "It's not in me to love someone,
Amanda."

Now she knew how he'd reached that point.

"He dug into the rubble," the housekeeper
continued, "flinging it everywhere." She waved her arms about, as if
demonstrating Logan's desperation. "But nothing," she said, "was
attached to Lauren's foot."

"That's enough, Mrs. M!" Amanda couldn't bear to
hear any more. She pushed herself to her feet and wrapped her arms around the
older woman.

"It was a gas explosion," Mrs. MacDonald said, as
if, having started, she was unable to stop. "They were doing construction
without a permit on the house next door."

"Oh, my God."
Four people dead out of carelessness.

"He never said another word about his family."

"Who can blame him?" Amanda whispered.

"We had the funerals. He never shed a tear that I know
of. I thought he was in was shock."

She shook her head. "The day after the funerals, he returned
to college. I tried to keep in touch, and he told me to wait. When he finished
his exams, he came to see me." She paused in her recital. Her eyes became
unfocused, as if she were looking into the past. "I tried to get him to
talk. I thought the shock might have…settled a bit."

"'There's nothing to be said,'" he told me.
"'I'm moving to New York. I could use a housekeeper.'"

"You were already retired!" Amanda knew that was
not the point, but she was shocked that Logan would expect Mrs. MacDonald to return
to work.

"He was right." Mrs. M. nodded. "I needed
something to do, just as he did. And, although neither one of us ever said a
word about it, I think we needed each other. We weren't related by blood, but
we were all the family either of us had left."

"Then why did he send you here with me? I'm not family
to either one of you."

"I think he cares for you more than you realize,"
Mrs. M said simply. "Maybe more than he realizes. I don't know how things
will work out, but if he is to have any future, it must involve you, or at
least the baby."

"That's not true," Amanda whispered. "He
could marry and start a family with anyone."

"But would he? Is he capable of taking positive action
like that? When he's buried himself behind his wall of pain, and refuses to let
anyone breach it?"

"Mrs. M., you must not allow yourself these
hopes." Amanda tried to take a deep breath, but her lungs seemed squeezed
by the enormity of the baby.

Mrs. MacDonald broke down in noisy sobs, hiding her face.
"They were such a happy family. I loved those two children as if they were
my own."

 Amanda looked at the old woman, bowed and defeated.
The photos had reminded her too well of the tragedy. Maybe they never should
have been unearthed. But a new life was coming, and there was always hope in
the renewal of birth. In that moment, Amanda knew she'd just taken on another
responsibility.

"Mrs. MacDonald," she said softly. "I hope
you have a name for my baby to call you.
Something
appropriate for a grandmother."

Mrs. MacDonald stared down at her clasped hands. "We
never had children," she said. "I don't know why."

A sudden release burst out of Amanda. She looked down at the
water dumped on the floor.

"Mrs. MacDonald," she gasped. "I think you're
going to become a grandmother today."