Twelve Days (29 page)

He was going to say something else. She could see it in his eyes, but Grace started making a racket and the service was starting. They concentrated instead on quieting her and keeping her entertained, and then it seemed they'd lost the moment to talk.

Rachel sat there with Sam's arm around her and let herself rest against him, let the music and the beauty of the place settle over her once more, calming her, giving her strength.

It wasn't over yet, this battle she faced to keep her husband and maybe these children. She was ready to fight, and she wasn't afraid anymore. She wasn't afraid of anything.

* * *

Emma used to go to church with her mother but she hadn't been in a long, long time. This one was especially nice. It was big and crowded tonight, but she liked the way it felt in here—warm and hopeful. She liked the Christmas music, the candles, and the fancy windows, like the ones in Sam and Rachel's house. They seemed to glow tonight. She liked Sam and Rachel, too, felt safe with them and trusted them. Honestly, she did.

It was just that the world was such a mixed-up place right now. At least, hers was. When Sam said he'd go look for her mother, she'd been so sure this would be the day she'd have her mother back. But he hadn't found her.

Emma was scared now.

She'd trusted Sam to find her, but she was afraid he was keeping something from her, something bad.

And tomorrow was Christmas.

She sat there as still as possible in the crowded church, wishing and praying as hard as she could and feeling more lonely and more miserable with each passing moment, and still her mother was nowhere to be found.

They went back to Sam and Rachel's house. Emma picked at her dinner, not caring a thing for anything like food. She got out of her church clothes, the prettiest dress she'd ever owned. She wished her mother were here to see her in it. Then she put on her pajamas and went back downstairs.

Sam read
The Night Before Christmas,
the one with his and Rachel's house on the cover, and Emma thought about that some more, about being in the Christmas house at Christmas.

Where was the magic? she wondered. Where was her mother?

Grace was asleep by the time Sam finished the story. Emma gave her a kiss and then Rachel took her upstairs. Sam took Zach, telling her that she should go on up to bed, too, because they'd all be up early in the morning.

Emma slowly climbed the stairs and sat down on her bed in the unfamiliar room missing her mother so bad it hurt to breathe. Rachel came in a moment later and sat down beside her. She didn't say anything at first, just pulled Emma against her side and held on to her.

"What's wrong, Emma?"

"It's almost Christmas. I was sure that if I could just hang on until Christmas, my mom would be back."

"And now you don't think she's coming?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

"You know she loves you," Rachel reminded her.

"Yes." She was sure of that. She could hold on to that.

"And Zach and Grace love you," Rachel said. "I love you, too."

She gave her a big squeeze and Emma thought about that. About having Rachel love her. Rachel was a good person. She was kind and nice and she'd taken such good care of all of them. Sam, too. She thought Sam might love them a little bit, too. And this was a good place to be. She didn't want them to think she was ungrateful.

"I like you and Sam a lot," she said. "I do. It's just..."

"You still miss your mother. I understand that. And how much you want her back. I know it's hard, but sometimes we just have to hope, Emma. Sometimes that's all we have to hold on to. Hope. Do you think you can hold out just a little longer? Can you find just a little bit of hope and a smidgen of faith? And believe that everything's going to be okay?"

Emma nodded, too upset to even say a single word. She just leaned into Rachel and let Rachel hold her, which was almost as good as having her mom's arms around her.

She thought she had just enough hope and faith left to hang on until Christmas, but that was it.

Tomorrow... She didn't know what she'd do tomorrow if her mother wasn't back.

* * *

Rachel went back downstairs to sit in front of the fire, brushing away a few stray tears. She didn't want Sam to see them, had promised herself she wouldn't cry at all. But Emma was so sad, and Rachel knew what her Christmas wishes were all about, Zach's too.

Not tonight,
she told herself firmly. Not tomorrow, either. They would take the day and all it had to offer, worry later about what came after.

She looked up and saw Sam standing in the doorway looking so handsome in the gentle light of the fire. She forgot sometimes; she'd been looking at him for so long, but he was a truly handsome man. There was still a hint of that bad boy she'd fallen in love with so long ago, the slightly dangerous one. But there was so much more, too. So much more she loved about him.

Which made her think about what
she
wanted for Christmas. She wanted him to stay.

"What in the world are you thinking?" he asked.

"About what I want for Christmas," she said, way too seriously, then, determined to lighten the mood, imagined what he'd do if she walked over to him, tied a red ribbon around him, and said she'd picked out her own present, thank you very much. She'd take
him.

He arched a brow at that and looked puzzled. She remembered Christmas mornings they'd spent snuggling in bed, hiding from the cold in what was once this drafty, old house. Christmases spent laughing and playing in the snow. Christmases spent missing all the people they'd lost. So many Christmases. So many years with Sam.

"I can't imagine my life without you," she said, remembering courage, faith, hope, a vow she'd made to do her best to salvage this marriage.

"Why would you be thinking of your life without me, Rachel?"

She gathered up all her courage and knew it was time. It was long past time. "I think you know why, Sam."

He shook his head back and forth, but she saw the tension coming into his entire body. She hadn't meant to do this on Christmas Eve, but she was all out of time. In a day and a half, he was supposed to go, and the hardest thing of all to admit was that she would let him go, if that's what he had to do.

"I told you I want you, and I'll never ask you to leave, but, Sam, if
you
want to go... If you don't think you can be happy here with me. If I haven't loved you enough or made you feel like you belong here with me. If it takes leaving me for you to be happy, then go, Sam. Because I want you to be happy."

She did it without a single tear falling, did it looking him straight in the eye, and thought he looked as miserable as she'd ever seen him.

"You know?" he whispered.

"I heard you talking to Rick on the phone the day the children came."

He looked away for a moment, looked as if the breath simply left his body. "Oh, God, Rachel," he said. "I'm sorry."

And then her tears wouldn't stay away. They rolled down her cheeks.

"Don't be sorry," she insisted, her head held high. "I know how unhappy you must have been for you to think you had to go, and I can't blame you for that, Sam. I know what it's been like between us for a long time. I know what
I've
been like."

"You've been so sad," he said.

She nodded.

"I never wanted to hurt you," he said, then took her face, her wet cheeks, between his hands, bent down, and touched his forehead to hers. "It seems like we've been sad forever."

"I know. I never wanted to make you miserable, Sam. I wanted you to be happy. I still do. Whatever it takes," she said. "Even if it's leaving me."

She let the words sit there between them, not liking at all the way it sounded, as if she were offering her permission for him to go, but not knowing how else to say it. She was going to think about what he needed now, what it would take for him to be happy.

She was setting him free and yet...

"Hey, it's not a hint," she said as lightly as she could. "I meant what I said yesterday. If it were up to me, you'd always be here. But I'm not going to try to hold you here if you believe you have to go."

"I don't know what I want." He shook his head back and forth and said, "I thought I did, but... Leaving you would be the hardest thing I've ever done. Harder than losing my parents, my brother, our baby. It would be the worst thing."

Rachel stood there, afraid to even breathe, wanting to plead her case and not sure if she had the right. Was that setting him free? Did that cross the line?

"I think things can be different," she said tentatively. "I think I've done so many things wrong for so long, and I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he insisted.

"A lot of it is. I couldn't control all the things that happened to us, but I had a say in how I dealt with them. Or didn't deal with them."

"It's been hard," he said. "All of it."

"And it shouldn't all have been hard. We still had each other. We have a whole lot of family left, more than most people ever have to start with, and we have this house. I know it's not what you wanted..."

"I've gotten attached to this old house," he said.

"But it's not what you wanted. I was happy to stay here, because I have so many happy memories here. I know it's always going to be my grandfather's house in a lot of ways, but it's ours, too, Sam. Do you remember how it looked when we first moved in? How much it's changed? We did that together, you and me. I can look in any corner of this house and remember you and me here. We made it what it is today, and that makes it special to me."

"The house is not the problem, Rachel."

"I know. It's just that... If you want something else, that's fine with me. If you want to go back to school, it's not too late, Sam. You could take classes at night at the community college right here in town. There are programs now where you take classes just on the weekends or over the internet. If you still want an architecture degree, it's not too late."

"Rachel, that was something I wanted a long time ago. When I wanted out of this town—"

"And we can go. If you want to go. If you want me with you."

He stood there, looking surprised and confused and at a loss. "I haven't thought about leaving this town in years. It's different now. It's where we live, Rachel."

"I thought I'd taken so many things away from you, and I wanted you to know that I'm ready to put you first and what you want. And I know that's something I haven't done before, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sam."

"Rachel, you didn't do this to us. Life just worked out this way. And maybe it's been more about what you wanted than what I thought I wanted, but mostly it's been what life did to us. I'm not sorry about ending up in this town, or in this house, or with the business. I like it. Maybe more than I ever would have liked being an architect. I don't know. All of those were things a teenage boy wanted a long time ago."

"And he wanted me," she said. "That boy wanted me."

"He still wants you." Sam reached out to take a strand of her hair between his fingertips. "He's always wanted you."

"But you were going to leave me. Why did you think you had to go, Sam?"

"I... It was Will, Rachel. I think it must have been losing Will. I... I know we didn't have him for long, but I loved him. I hadn't let myself love anyone but you in so long, and I thought things were finally going to be okay for us and that we'd have Will. And then when his mother came back and they took him away from us... It was like everyone I'd ever lost in my life, like losing them all, all over again. It was like life was showing me one more time that I always lost everything and everyone I'd ever dared to love, and I couldn't run anymore from the idea that no matter what I did, one day I'd lose you, too."

"You're not going to lose me," she promised.

"I thought I would. I was sure of it. We were both miserable, and I thought if I was going to lose you anyway, it was better to go ahead and go."

"You're not going to lose me," she said again. "Although I think maybe I deserve to lose you. All this time, I've been thinking about all the things I didn't have, instead of what was right here in front of me. I feel like I've been blind, like I've been so careless and so ungrateful—"

"No," he said. "You've just always known exactly what you wanted and where you belonged. It's one of the first things I loved about you. You had this place in the world that was absolutely yours, and you were always sure you could make my own place right beside you. I loved all of your dreams for us. I loved your vision of our life together."

"But, the children... Sam, I know—"

"I've always wanted to have children with you. Always. I wasn't sure what kind of father I was going to be, and I was for damned sure scared of having anything to call my own because I was so afraid of losing it. Think about it, Rachel. Until I met you, everything I'd ever loved I'd lost. Except for you, I've still lost everyone else."

She started to cry again. She'd never thought about it quite that way. "Is there any little bit of hope left inside of you where we're concerned? Any little part of you that thinks this could still work out?"

He looked as if she'd slugged him, as if he might double over in pain at any moment, but he didn't. He just stood there and looked as if she'd knocked the breath out of him, too.

"I think about that," he said, "and I come back to the children. What's going to happen to you and me if we lose them, too?"

"You think I'd fall apart if we lost them?" Rachel straightened her back, lifted her chin. "That I'd just shut down again and push you away? Like I did when we lost Will."

"I don't know," he said.

"I'm not going to do that, Sam," she said, although she couldn't blame him in the least for thinking it. "I'd be sad and I'd worry about them, but I'm through sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I've actually learned some things in the past few days. I don't know how to prove that to you. I know you've spent a lot of years taking care of me and trying to hold things together here. I'll understand if you can't do it anymore. I really do want you to be happy now."