When Shadows Fall (34 page)

He reached across the bed and put his hand on his mother's wrist as Molly moved her fingers. The action was unmistakable this time.

"Mom," he said. "I'm here with you. And…" He looked at Olivia. "And I'm with Francine's daughter. We need you to come back to us."

Olivia held her breath as Molly's eyelids began to flicker and then finally her eyes opened, and Olivia was looking at eyes as green as hers.

"Mom," Peter said with excitement. "You're awake. I can't believe you're awake." He looked back at Olivia. "Can you get the nurse? I don't want to leave her."

She reluctantly let go of Molly's hand long enough to wheel herself into the hall and motion for the nurse to come. "She woke up," she said, still not sure she could believe it was true.

But it was true and thirty minutes later after being examined by two doctors, Molly's breathing tube was removed and she was breathing on her own again. Her eyes were also open and aware, although she had yet to speak, and the doctor had told them all to go slow, that her speech and brain might need time to recover.

As the doctor left the room, Peter and Olivia moved back to the bed, this time side-by-side.

"Hello, Molly," she said quietly. "I'm Olivia, your granddaughter."

"Olivia," Molly's response was hoarse but clear.

"Don't try to talk, Mom," Peter said quickly, putting his hand on his mother's arm. "We've got time. Olivia isn't going anywhere." He looked back at her. "Are you?"

"Not anytime soon."

Molly's eyes fluttered closed, and Olivia wondered if they'd already lost her again, but the nurse who had been hovering nearby said, "It's okay. She's just sleeping."

"But she's going to wake up again, right?" Olivia asked.

"I think so," the nurse said.

"I think so, too," Peter said confidently.

"What's going on?" Colton asked, as he entered the room.

"Molly woke up, Colton. She looked right at me and said my name."

"That's great," he said with surprise in his eyes.

"My eyes are just like hers."

He gave her a smile. "That's what my grandmother said."

"We have to tell your grandmother that Molly woke up."

"We will."

Olivia looked back at Peter, who was quietly watching their exchange. "I know you don't like me, but do you think we could call a truce, at least when we're with your mother? I don't know how much time we'll have with her, but I don't want to waste it in tension and anger."

"I agree," he said.

"Good."

"I'm going to make a call," Peter said.

As Peter left, she turned back to Colton. "It feels like a miracle just happened."

He nodded. "It does feel that way. I know you're convinced that you're Molly's granddaughter, but I want you to know that I just spoke to Shayla, and the DNA test confirms that fact."

"I knew it would. From the first minute I read Molly's letter to me, I felt an irresistible pull to her. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I knew I had to come to San Francisco."

"I'm certainly glad you did."

"Have you spoken to your grandparents again?"

"No, but I will—soon. Are you ready to get out of here?"

"I'd like to stay with Molly for a while. I hate to leave her now that I've met her."

"Then I'll stay with you," he said, pulling over a chair so he could sit next to her.

She smiled, her heart overflowing with love for him. "You're a good man, Colton Callaway."

"I am, and when we eventually get out of here and get away from our family problems, I'm going to show you just how good I can be."

Her nerves tingled at his words. "I'm going to hold you to that."

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The next day the Callaway family gathered in the lounge at the Sunset Senior Center just after five o'clock on Friday. Seated on the couches were Eleanor and Patrick Callaway along with Eleanor's friends Ginnie, Constance and Tom. Peter Harper and the rest of the Callaway family were sitting in chairs brought over from the card tables.

Peter looked awkward and uncomfortable, Olivia thought, but she was beginning to think that was just his natural demeanor. He'd obviously put up a wall a very long time ago, probably when he was a small child and had begun to witness the violence between his mother and father. She didn't know if they would ever be close or even friends, but in the past twenty-four hours they'd managed to keep a quiet truce between them, and on a few occasions he'd even let something positive slip about Francine. With Olivia's presence, he was starting to remember some of the good times that had come before Francine's tragic death.

As Olivia looked around the room, she felt as if the whole scene was somewhat surreal. A week ago the family had been celebrating Eleanor's birthday in this very same room, and she'd just arrived in San Francisco, eager to meet a group of women who could possibly jumpstart her writing career.

But how quickly her goals had moved beyond a book and had turned toward unraveling an old mystery, and a series of secrets that had made her the center of a story she had never expected to hear.

"Ready?" Colton murmured, leaning in close to whisper in her ear.

She shivered a little as his breath grazed her cheek. Colton had been another unexpected but wonderful surprise. "I think so," she said. She and Colton were sitting on the couch next to Eleanor and Patrick and while she had an idea about what his grandparents might say, she wasn't completely sure. Colton had tried to speak to his grandparents several times the day before, but Patrick had always cut him off, saying they would talk when they were ready. Apparently, they were ready.

She slipped her hand into Colton's, knowing he was feeling stressed about what might come, but the truth needed to be told, no matter how difficult it would be for everyone to hear it.

Glancing over at the elderly couple, Olivia saw that Eleanor and Patrick were also holding hands. They'd been together more than sixty years. Theirs was an amazing love story. She couldn't help but hope she'd have that same story to tell sixty years from now.

Eleanor gave her a steady smile, her bright blue eyes alert, with the light of battle clearly evident. She was definitely ready to speak, and Olivia smiled back at her encouragingly.

Patrick cleared his throat. "Thank you all for coming. I wasn't going to do this here, because I thought it was a family matter, but Eleanor insists that you are all family, especially when it comes to what happened a very long time ago—to Molly and her husband." His gaze drifted to Peter. "And her children," he added.

Peter inclined his head in acknowledgment.

As Patrick paused, Olivia saw Ginnie and Constance exchange a look. She couldn't help wondering what the others in the theater group had known. Perhaps the secret hadn't been as well kept as everyone thought.

Patrick looked at Eleanor. "Shall I do the honors?"

"No, I want to tell the story, Patrick, because I know what Molly would want me to say. First, before I go back to the very distant past, I want you all to know that I spoke to Molly yesterday. She's doing a lot better. She's going to need some help getting full control over her speech and some of her movements, but she's very aware and alert and quite happy to have her long-lost granddaughter here in San Francisco." She smiled again at Olivia. "None of us had any idea that you were Molly's granddaughter when she told us about a writer she wanted to invite to hear our story. Now, it makes perfect sense.

Eleanor looked back at the group. "I told Molly yesterday that I was going to tell the truth about what happened to her husband Stan. It was a secret that we kept for forty years, not just to protect ourselves, but also to protect Molly's children." Eleanor took a deep breath and lifted her chin as if she were about to go into battle, and perhaps she was.

"Molly was very much in love with her husband, but Stan had a terrible temper, and he drank too much," Eleanor said. "When he drank, he got violent, and his target was always Molly. She tried to do everything she could to prevent him from going into a rage, but her efforts were rarely good enough. Some of you may wonder why Molly stayed with Stan. Her parents had died when she was a teenager. She was left to live with an uncaring aunt. She felt very alone in the world, and when she fell in love with Stan and had her children, she felt like she had a family again, and she didn't want to break that family up."

Eleanor moistened her lips with her tongue, her gaze moving to Peter. "Molly told me that one day she saw Stan grab Peter and shove him against the wall and that she knew then she was going to have to do something, because she couldn't let him hurt her children. She started sending the kids to sleepovers on the weekends when Stan was more likely to be drinking. She tried contacting the police at a station where her husband didn't work, but the man she spoke to, Keith Fletcher, was unwilling to help her."

"After one particularly violent night, Molly asked me to photograph her bruises. She wanted to have proof of what Stan was doing to her, so the next time she went back she would have evidence. Unfortunately, before she could do that, Stan came home in a rage one night. Molly was making Stan a special dinner. He'd been in a bad mood all week, and she wanted to do everything right. She probably had every burner on the stove turned on as she was making all his favorites. She was trying so hard to please him."

Eleanor's voice turned grim. "But Stan came home early and drunk. Dinner wasn't ready, and he was furious. He started hitting Molly. I happened to call during the attack, and she managed to get to the phone. She had barely said my name when he disconnected the call. I knew she was in trouble. Patrick wasn't home from work yet, and I thought about calling the police, but after what they'd told Molly, I didn't think I could wait for them to come."

"What did you do, Grandma?" Emma asked as Eleanor paused to take a sip of water.

"I ran down to Molly's house and barreled into the kitchen. Molly screamed at me to get the kids out. She was bleeding badly from her nose, and one eye was already swelling. Stan had a bottle in his hand, and I was pretty sure he was about to hit her over the head with it. I didn't know what to do. Molly yelled at me again to get the kids. So I ran up the stairs."

Eleanor's gaze turned to Peter.

Olivia followed that look, seeing her uncle turn pale as Eleanor took them all back to probably the worst night of his life.

"We were in Francine's closet," Peter said. "Francine was crying. She was terrified. She had her arms around her favorite stuffed rabbit, and I had my arms around her," he said slowly. "It was the worst fight I'd ever heard. My mom's screams rang through the house. My dad sounded like an angry bear. I kept hearing things break. I couldn't imagine what the house was going to look like when they finally stopped."

Olivia was shocked at how much Peter had to say. He'd been so reticent about the past until now.

Peter shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't think I remembered any of that until just this second."

"You were so young," Eleanor said sympathetically. "I grabbed your hands and took you both down the stairs."

"And you told us to run to your house," Peter finished. "Then you went back inside."

"What happened then?" Emma asked, always the impatient one.

"The kitchen was in shambles," Eleanor said. "Stan must have tossed the pans around the kitchen, because there were little sparks starting to flame all over the room. He couldn't even see that he was setting fire to his own house. He was too focused on Molly. He had his hands around her throat, his big, red, beefy hands," she added. "He was choking her to death, and I really believed in that moment she was going to die. I grabbed an iron skillet. It was the closest thing to me, and I hit him over the head. He immediately fell to the ground."

Eleanor paused, her gaze back on Peter. "Your mother was shaking and gasping for breath. I knew I had to get her out of the house. So I took her to my house."

Peter stared back at her. "All these years, I thought my mother killed my father and was just afraid to admit it."

"But the story doesn’t end there," Colton interrupted. "Tell the rest of the story, Grandma."

"Let her get to it in her own time," Patrick snapped at Colton. "Don't push her."

Eleanor hushed her husband. "It's okay, Patrick. I can do this. When I got Molly back to my house, Patrick was home. I told him what had happened, and he ran down the street. About ten minutes later, I heard the sirens. I didn't know what was happening at Molly's house. I was tending to her injuries and trying to comfort the kids." She looked at her husband. "I guess this is where you take over."

Patrick nodded. "When I got to the house, Stan was back on his feet, stumbling around the kitchen. We fought as the kitchen burned around us. When I finally knocked him out, the fire was huge. I looked at him on the ground, and I thought about saving him…" His voice trailed away as he took a deep breath. "But I didn't."

"That's not what the fire report said," Emma interrupted. "You told the investigators when you got to the house the fire was too big. You couldn't get to Stan. You burned your hands trying to save him."

"I made that up," Patrick said. "But I didn't try to save him. I let him die."

"No, you didn't," Jack said, stepping forward to face his father. "That's not what happened. I've never believed that."

"You knew about this, Dad?" Colton challenged, rising to his feet as he looked at Jack.

"I was at the house when Mom came back with Molly and the kids. I knew that Stan died in the fire." Jack looked at Patrick. "But I don't believe you let him die."

"Well, I did," Patrick said, also rising.

The air bristled between the men. Some of Colton's brothers also stood up. Burke seemed particularly shocked. "I don't believe it, either," Burke said. "You're a firefighter. You don't leave people behind."

"Everyone sit down and stop talking," Eleanor said sharply. "I mean it," she added, when no one moved. "Look, I may not have more than a few minutes before I forget who I am and why I'm here. While I still have my wits about me, I want to come clean about everything."