Page 120 of The Story Between Us

“Like who?” Livvie asked. Her voice came out small.

“Like God.” Lila smiled. “There’s a verse I think about often. Zephaniah 3:17. ‘The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.’”

She stood and crossed to the windowsill, where a small cross-stitch hung in a simple wooden frame. Livvie had noticed it before but never read it closely. Now she saw the words, stitched in delicate blue thread:

He will rejoice over you with singing.

“Your mother made that,” Lila said quietly. “Did you know?”

Livvie’s throat closed. “No.”

“She gave it to me right after you were born.” Lila touched the frame gently. “She said she wanted me to remember it. Because she’d finally learned it was true.”

“Finally learned?”

Lila turned back to face her. Her expression was complicated—sad and tender and something else Livvie couldn’t name.

“Did your parents ever tell you about the separation?”

Livvie went still. “What separation?”

“Before you were born. About a year before.” Lila sat back down at the table. “Your mother and father—they almost didn’t make it. He was working too much, she was pulling away, they’d stopped talking about anything that mattered. They separated for six months.”

Livvie couldn’t speak. Her parents—her distant, workaholic, achievement-obsessed parents—had almost divorced?

“Your mother came to stay with me during that time,” Lila continued. “Right here, actually. In this cottage. And somewhere in those six months, she found her way back to faith. Real faith, not just Sunday-morning faith. The kind that changes you.”

Lila touched her fox ring. “She went back to your father with a different heart. And things were hard for a while—healing always is—but they worked through it. Together.” Lila’s eyes were bright. “And then they found out she was pregnant. With you.”

The room felt very quiet.

“You were their reconciliation, Livvie. Their peace offering. Their proof that broken things could be made new.” Lila reached out and touched her hand. “Do you know what Olivia means?”

Livvie shook her head. She’d never thought to look it up.

“Peace. It comes from the olive branch—the symbol of reconciliation, of new beginnings.” Lila smiled. “Your parents chose that name on purpose. Because you were their new beginning.”

Something gave way behind Livvie’s ribs.

All these years. All this time thinking she wasn’t enough. Thinking her father’s distance meant she’d failed to earn his love. Thinking she had to prove herself, over and over, to deserve a place in her own family.

And she’d been wrong.

“Why didn’t she ever tell me that she had faith?”

“Your mother tried, Livvie. Every summer she brought you here, that was her trying. She didn’t know how to be soft—she’d never learned—but she kept showing up.”

Yeah, she could see that, maybe. Livvie sighed. “Dad pulled away after Mom died,” she said slowly, working it out. “I thought it was because I wasn’t enough. Because I couldn’t fill the space she left.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Lila’s voice was thick. “Your father pulled away because he was drowning. Not because of anything you did or didn’t do. He’d lost the woman who taught him how to love again. He’s been grieving ever since—badly, clumsily, in all the wrong ways. But it was never about you not being enough.”

People do things that don’t make sense when they’re grieving.

“Just like Nate,” she whispered.

“Just like Nate.” Lila squeezed her hand. “You can’t fix grief, Livvie. Not for your father, not for Nate, not for anyone. All you can do is love them through it. And trust that eventually—eventually—the storm will pass.”

He will rejoice over you with singing.