Selena Kitt - Grace

“What about Solie?” Leah asked again.

“Yes, yes, Solie was fine.” Gertie turned to Leah, looking down at Grace resting in her arms. “Shaken up, but she was okay. She said the fire was already out of control by the time she got there.”

“For pete’s sake!” Judge Solomon burst out. “You people wouldn’t have any luck if it wasn’t for bad luck, would you?”

Leah looked from Rob over to Erica and Clay holding hands, to her mother and back to Rob again in the stunned silence, and then down to the little baby in her arms, and she couldn’t help it-she burst out laughing.

The poor man had no idea!

“When it rains it pours, I guess!” the judge threw up his hands, and it just made Leah laugh even harder, and pretty soon, were all laughing, laughing and hugging and leaning on each other as they left Judge Solomon’s courtroom, headed back into God only knew what next.

But none of that mattered. Leah looked around at her crazy little family and down at the now sleeping baby filling her once empty arms and knew, in spite of everything, this was all that mattered-all that ever would matter. The wish she and Erica had made together on Christmas Eve, two sister angels in the snow, had come true.

Grace had returned to them all.

Erica poked her head into Father Michael’s office-his makeshift office, a supply closet they’d cleared out in the girls’ school that still smelled a little like paste, construction paper and bleach. He looked up from where he’d been sitting at his little desk, head down, eyes closed, hands folded, the epitome of a man in prayer. He smiled at the sight of her, motioning her in.

“Am I interrupting?” Erica hesitated. “There are a million people crowded in the chapel. It’s almost time.”

“They can’t get the new church built soon enough.”

“I’m just glad you’re going to be the one heading it.” She smiled, sitting in the chair across from him. “So any official word?”

“They’ve sent Father Patrick to a rehabilitation facility called Via Coeli in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.”

“They think he can be rehabilitated?” Erica scoffed. “He should be in jail!”

“The church felt it best to handle things internally. There was an investigation. My hands are tied.” Father Michael shrugged, turning his hands up. “Besides, what evidence did we have? Father Patrick had it all burned to the ground. There was nothing left.”

Nothing except the memories of all the Marys and the Magdalenes who had participated in Father Patrick’s sick, twisted rituals, Erica thought with a shiver, but she didn’t say anything. The man was, after all, Father Michael’s father.

“So I guess the Hitler scandal didn’t turn out to be that much of a big deal?” Father Michael asked.

“Nein. “

He laughed. “Who knew Robert Nolan would turn out to be a spy for the CIA-before there even was such a thing as the CIA?”

“I guess they figured it’s been long enough now since the war, they could declassify it,” Erica said. “Leah keeps teasing him, calling him Mein Fuhrer.”

“Sounds like fun at your house.”

“Speaking of houses… what about Magdalene House?” Erica asked. “How’s progress there?”

“Good!” He smiled. “Thanks to the leadership of Patty and Gertie, things are moving along. It should re-open again in a month or so.”

“But this time, they’re going to provide job training and child care for mothers who want to keep their babies, right? No more giving away babies for big donations to the church?”

“Right,” he agreed. “And thanks to your referral, your friend, Yvonne, is going to head up the social work team to make it all happen.”

“I’m glad she’s helping.” Erica had heard the rumor floating around that Yvonne had married Erica’s ex-boyfriend, Bobby, which turned out not to be true-but she had finished social work school and was looking for a job. “Thankfully there are some good social workers in the world.”

Father Michael nodded. “Not all of them are like Joan Goulden. Some of them really do want to help.”

“Thank God they took that woman’s license!” Erica exclaimed and then caught herself. “Oops, sorry about that.”

“I am thanking God for that, actually.” Father Michael grinned. “So, have you heard from USC?”

She smiled. “They accepted me for the fall. They accepted Clay too.”

“I’m really glad, Erica.” He smiled and she searched that smile for the truth, returning his smile when she found it. She thought he really was glad for her. Relieved, even, that she’d found Clay and moved on. “Please don’t think for a moment that I regret… anything. Not a minute of it. You’ve given me so much, I can’t tell you. Because of you, I’ve rediscovered my calling in the church again. That’s priceless to me and I thank you for that.”

“I don’t regret it either,” she murmured. “And I won’t ever forget it.”

She couldn’t help but feel her love for Father Michael in that moment, although it had been transformed, somehow, into something less desperate and more tranquil in the months that had passed. She knew now that she had fallen in love with Father Michael because he was safe, a man she couldn’t have, a man she could idolize and worship from afar, a man she could use to torture herself with until her penance felt it had been paid-around the twelfth of never.

It wasn’t until she met Clay that she realized how much she went around trying to punish herself, not for being a bad girl, which she’d been working hard at when she met him, just like she worked hard at everything she did, but just for existing in the first place, like she had no right to be here in this world at all.

Clay made her realize that she did belong here. She belonged here with him.

Clay lived and breathed and loved her in the real world, where it was dirty and painful and hard and that was good too. It was better than good. It was perfect. Perfectly messed up. That’s what they had, a perfectly messed up relationship, and she didn’t think she had ever been happier in her life.

“So no more Mary Magdalenes?” Erica asked.

He shook his head. “No. Father Patrick was the center of that wheel. The hub. Without him, it all just crumbled.”

“What about the women who worked in the laundry?” she asked, thinking about Father’s Michael’s mother-and sister-poor abused Marianne, and the girl Leah had roomed with, the slow one, Jean.

“They’ve been relocated to new jobs or new homes,” Father Michael replied. “My mother is living in the nunnery here, and she’s quite happy.”

“I’m so glad.” Erica was also glad the fire had been contained to the church and hadn’t spread to the nunnery or rectory or the schools. Just one corner of the square block had been damaged.

“Father Michael?” A knock came on the door. “Have you seen-?”

Erica pulled the door open and there was Leah, holding Grace propped up on her shoulder, the baby looking around with big dark eyes, wearing the same christening gown her mother had worn.

“There you are.” Leah laughed. “We’re ready, Father Michael.”

Father Michael stood, smiling as he reached his arms out for the baby. She was just three months old, but she held her head up and laughed when she saw him, holding her arms out and squealing with delight.

“Okay, but don’t run off with her,” Leah warned.

“Leah’s going to have Grace surgically attached to her hip next month,” Erica said, rolling her eyes, but she winked at her sister, letting her know she was just teasing. She couldn’t blame Leah for being a little paranoid about letting the baby out of her sight.