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So when he held her hand and pulled her toward the car, she followed.
Love can get us through the hardest times.
Please, God, she thought, let it be true.
NINETEEN
ANGIES DREAMS THAT NIGHT CAME IN BLACK AND white; faded images from some forgotten family album of the has-been and never-were moments. She was in Searle Park, at the merry-go-round, waving at a small dark-haired girl who had her fathers blue eyes . . .
Slowly, the girl faded to gray and disappeared; it was as if a mist had swept in and veiled the world.
Then she saw Conlan on the ball field, coaching Little League.
The images were watery and uncertain because shed never really been there in the stands, watching her husband coach his friends sons, clapping when Billy Van-Derbeek hit a line drive up the middle. Shed been at home on those days, curled in a fetal position on her bed. It hurts too much, shed told her husband when he begged her to come along.
Why hadnt she thought about what he needed?
"Im sorry, Con," her dream self whispered, reaching out for him.
She woke with a gasp. For the next few hours she lay in her bed, curled on her side, trying to put it all back in storage. She shouldnt have tried to go back in time; it hurt too much. Some things were simply lost. She should have known that.
Every now and again she realized that she was crying. By the time she heard a knock at the front door, her pillow was damp.
Thank God, she thought. Someone to keep her mind off the past.
She sat up, shoved the hair from her eyes. Throwing the covers aside, she climbed out of bed and stumbled downstairs. "Im coming. Dont leave," she yelled.
The door swung open. Mama and Mira and Livvy stood there, all dressed in their Sunday best.
"Its Advent," Mama said. "Youre coming to church with us. "
"Maybe next Sunday," Angie said tiredly. "I was up late last night. I didnt sleep well. "
"Of course you didnt sleep well," Mama said.
Angie knew when shed hit a wall, and the DeSaria women with their minds made up were solid brick. "Fine. "
It took her fifteen minutes to shower and dress and towel dry her hair. Another three minutes for makeup, and she was ready to go.
By ten oclock, they were pulling into the church lot.
Angie stepped out into the cold December morning and felt as if she were going back in time. She was a girl again, dressed in white for her first communion . . . then a woman in white on her wedding day . . . then a woman in black, crying for her father. So much of her life had happened beneath these stained glass windows.
They went to the third row, where Vince and Sal had the children lined up by height. Angie sat next to Mama.
For the next hour, she went through the motions of her youth: rising and kneeling and rising again.
By the closing prayer, she realized that something had changed in her, shifted suddenly back into place, though she hadnt known it was out of alignment until now.
Her faith had been there all along, flowing in her veins, waiting for her return. A kind of peace overcame her, made her feel stronger, safer. When the service was over, she walked outside into the crisp, freezing air and looked across the street.
There it was: Searle Park. The merry-go-round from her dream glittered in the sharp sunlight. Shed grown up playing in this park. Her children would have loved it, too.
She walked across the street, hearing laughter that had never been: Push me, Mommy.
She sat down on the cold, corrugated steel and closed her eyes, thinking about the adoption that had failed, the babies whod never been, the daughter whod been taken too soon, and the marriage that had been broken.
She cried for it. Great heaving sobs that seemed to crack her chest and bruise her heart, but when it was over, she was dry inside. At last.
