Buffy Andrews - Our Fragile Hearts

Three lives. Three broken hearts…

Piper loved her mommy. So when she loses her, her world is confused and sad. But she has Rachel now. She won’t leave her as well, will she?

Rachel finds out she has a five-year-old sister on the same day that she is told her mother has died. Having been in foster care for years, she never really knew her mom, but she knows for sure she doesn’t want the same thing for Piper. She knows she has to take care of her – but how?

Mary never even got to see her baby. They took it away as soon as she gave birth. And the hole in her heart has never healed. So when she meets Rachel and Piper, two lost girls looking for a family, her broken heart skips a beat…

Also by Buffy Andrews

The Christmas Violin

The Moment Keeper

It’s in the Stars

Our Fragile Hearts

Buffy Andrews

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © Buffy Andrews 2016

Buffy Andrews asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © May 2016 ISBN: 9781474054881

Version date: 2018-07-02

BUFFY ANDREWS

is an author, blogger and journalist.

She leads an award-winning staff at the York Daily Record / Sunday News , where she is Assistant Managing Editor of Social Media and Engagement.

In addition to her writing blog, Buffy’s Write Zone, she maintains a social media blog, Buffy’s World.

She is also a newspaper and magazine columnist and writes middle-grade, young adult and women’s fiction.

She lives in southcentral Pennsylvania with her husband, Tom; two sons, Zach and Micah; and wheaten cairn terrier, Kakita. She is grateful for their love and support and for reminding her of what’s most important in life.

Sometimes our heart breaks into a million pieces and we think it will never be whole again. But then a hand reaches out and steadies us and we know with all certainty that our fragile heart will heal.

I thank the hands that have steadied me during my darkest hours, the arms that have carried me when I was too weak to walk and the hearts that have saved me from brokenness and despair.

To wonderful friends who fill my life with love and laughter: Stacey Zambito, Shonna Cardello, Laura Schreiber, Renee Maderitz and Lilli Horn.

I love you girls!

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Epilogue

Extract

Endpages

About the Publisher

Prologue

Mary

June 30, 1957

I hate Mother. I hate Father. They’re sending me away. They said I brought shame to the family, that no decent man will want me. They have forbidden me to see Teddy. He doesn’t know I’m carrying his child. He thinks I don’t love him. My life is over.

Love, Mary Katherine

***

I lay in my hospital bed trying to remember. I remembered the cold, sterile delivery room and the doctors and nurses dressed in white and wearing masks. I remembered seeing the delivery table and the bassinet, the sterile towels and drapes and rubber gloves. I even remembered seeing the scissors and string the doctor would use to tie my baby’s umbilical cord.

But I didn’t remember seeing my baby.

I didn’t even know if I’d had a boy or a girl. The nurse had given me something for my pain, and when I woke up I was in this hospital room with another mother who had given birth to a stillborn. I listened to her cry for the child she’d lost. And she listened to me cry for the child I had but would never see.

My baby was in someone else’s arms. My father, who was an attorney, had arranged a private adoption. “You shamed our family,” he’d said. “Your baby is a bastard.”

So he sent me away to a strange place in a strange town where no one knew me and few, except for the other “troubled girls,” cared.

I was alone and sad and I wondered if I’d ever see Teddy again. Probably not after writing the letter my father had forced me to write. Father even read the letter afterward to make sure it said what he’d dictated. I was certain Teddy would hate me forever.

I heard my mother’s voice before I saw her. She was coming to take me home. I’d been in the hospital for days waiting for her.

“How’s Mary Katherine today?” She walked over and kissed my cheek as if she were greeting me after a week at church camp.

My chin wobbled and I could feel tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. “How could you?”

A flurry of emotion ripped through my broken body and I shook uncontrollably as I sobbed.

Mother patted my back, but her hand felt as hard as the wooden paddle she used on me when I misbehaved as a child. “It’s all over now. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Nothing will ever be fine, Mother. I wish I was dead.”

“Oh, now, Mary Katherine. You don’t mean that.”

I slammed my hand into the bed. “Stop telling me how I feel. You have no idea how I feel. You made me give up my baby.”

Mother sighed. “You can always have another one.”

I felt my anger boil in the pit of my stomach and it inched its way up and exploded in fits and bursts from my mouth. “I don’t want another one. I wanted this one.”

“Well, she’s gone.”

Tears stung my eyes and my mouth dropped open. “I had a daughter?”

Mother mashed her ruby lips together. “I don’t know if the baby was a boy or a girl.”