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Grace looked into his eyes and saw the truth of his words. He wanted to go to his daughter, and she wanted him to go. Despite her hurt and her fear of how this child would change their lives, she wanted him to go to his little girl. She wanted the little girl to have all the support and understanding possible. But Grace could not go there with him. Couldn’t act as if nothing had happened, as if her life hadn’t been tossed in the garbage by the man who claimed to love her.
Yet, he had a point; there was a child who needed all the support she could give. “Why do you need me? There must be other people to help out. People she already knows. People who love her. What about Deidre’s friends?”
“I don’t know who Deidre’s friends are, but the only way I can find out is to go back to Spartanburg.”
That he would be unfaithful to her after all they’d been through, after all the time they’d loved each other—it still was inconceivable that he would have been with someone else.
And he had the audacity to expect her to be supportive of him while he went to visit his daughter.
“Everything I thought we were working toward, every dream we’d had about a family ended last evening. I’m the one who can’t conceive. I am the one who is infertile. Even if we could reconcile, I would never be able to give you a child.” She struggled to keep the ugly tears in check. “You can’t expect me to go along as if nothing has changed between us.”
Aidan sighed deeply. “I promise you, Grace, that if you go with me, I will do whatever you ask where we are concerned. I don’t pretend to understand how you feel, but I will respect any decision you make once you’ve seen Emma. It’s clear we need time to work on our problems. I won’t deny that. But I also want you to see this little girl.”
“Why are you so fixated on this, Aidan? A few days won’t matter. You’re a complete stranger to this child. You could simply upset her. What good would that do?”
“I hope that doesn’t happen, but if it does, I’ll find a way to deal with it,” Aidan said, his eyes not meeting hers.
Suddenly she felt a cold sensation around her heart. She was alone in all this misery. Aidan didn’t understand what he was asking of her or he would never have asked it. He would have known how painful it would be for her to face the child he’d conceived with another woman.
But, most of all, she felt alone because he had a whole new focus in his life. He had a daughter, and his eagerness to see her made Grace feel invisible…unimportant.
Yet deep down, a part of her longed to see this child—a little girl who, through no fault of her own, had been thrust into their lives. What would it be like if, somehow, they could work things out between them and Aidan took over his little girl’s life? How would holidays, like Christmas or Easter, be if Emma was with them, was an integral part of their lives? It was so easy to imagine those moments, moments Grace had already dreamed of, lived for all these years.
She’d dreamed of feeling moments of pure joy with her child. With Emma in their lives, there would be wonderful events—the miracle of Christmas and the Christ child being real and present in their lives.
There was a little girl who, regardless of how it had come about, would become a part of their lives…if only they could resolve their differences. Grace struggled with fear and so many other emotions. How could she mother another woman’s child when that child would trigger suspicions about her husband’s behavior? Grace would always wonder what he was doing, what he was really feeling, whenever she looked at the child he’d had with someone else. Grace had been living that way these past few weeks, and it had been unbearable. “Aidan, if we are going together to see Emma, I need you to tell me that that you aren’t hiding anything more from me.”
