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“Hi, honey!” Julia called anyway. “Where are you off to so quickly?”
“I’ll be right back,” Anna returned just before she disappeared up the staircase, hurrying toward the bathroom nearest her bedroom.
Once there, Anna latched the door behind her and gasped at her reflection in the mirror. She looked half-panicked, and the May breeze had tangled her black hair into wild proportion.
“Come on, Anna. Just take the test,” she muttered to herself, unwilling to wait around a moment longer, stirring in nerves.
Anna followed the instructions on the test and then waited with her back to the test for a full three minutes. Throughout, she shifted her weight from foot to foot, her anxiety mounting.
When the alarm blared on her phone, Anna turned to blink down at the little test, where, incredibly, two very pink lines had appeared. At first, Anna freaked out, thinking that two lines meant “not pregnant,” but when she checked the box, she realized she had it backward. Two lines meant pregnant. It meant that she was carrying Dean’s baby in her womb— so many weeks after Dean had left the earth forever.
It was nearly too much to bear.
Anna fell to her knees and pressed her hands over her eyes. Tears welled behind her hands, and she felt herself shaking with a mix of sorrow and gratefulness. This seemed like a gift from the heavens.
When Anna did finally collect herself enough to gather the pregnancy test and leave the bathroom, she was still red-faced with shock. She hadn’t heard anyone in the hallway and hadn’t assumed anyone was near, but when she opened the door to find Eloise staring at her from the other end of the hallway, her eyes were wide with surprise.
Of course, wherever you went in The Copperfield House, there was someone there, ready to comfort you.
“Anna? Are you all right?” Eloise took a delicate step forward, her eyes glistening.
Anna let out a single sob.What was the use of keeping this secret to herself? Hadn’t there been enough secrets in the Copperfield Family so far?
Slowly, Anna lifted the pregnancy test in the air and shrugged. “Apparently, I’m pregnant.” Her voice was hardly a whisper.
Eloise picked up speed after that, clearing the space along the hallway until she stood before her, peering at the pregnancy test. “My gosh.” She shook her head. “It’s a miracle. Anna. It really is a miracle.” She repeated it, as though the weight of this moment needed another confirmation.
Suddenly, Eloise’s arms were around her, and Anna felt her body shake with sobs. Eloise consoled her, wrapping her arms tighter as she whispered, “This is such a gift, Anna. It truly is. And we’ll be here throughout the entire process. We won’t let you go through this alone.”
Anna sniffed and closed her eyes, allowing herself to imagine the baby growing in her womb— perhaps a little boy who looked so much like Dean. In every way, she knew that this baby would serve as a forever reminder of the love she had for Dean. She’d always known that their love was powerful, that it was meant to withstand the test of time. With Dean’s death, she’d questioned that. She hadn’t known where to put all her love for him, now that he was gone.
As usual, life had its way of stringing her around and altering her best-laid plans.
With this baby, she knew how her love for Dean would continue. And although it was sorrowful, a tragedy that Dean couldn’t be there for the birth of his child, it was, in every way, a miracle. She had to remember that.
ChapterTwenty-One
The little cabin on Nantucket was approximately half as big as the farmhouse Eloise had shared with Liam. This, she told Greta as they walked through the door, made it the perfect size for “just her.” She removed the keys from the front door and jangled them as she slipped them into her overalls pocket, walking through the kitchen with its gleaming countertops and its view of the rolling hills and forest just outside.
“It’s perfect, Eloise.” Greta splayed her hand over her chest as her eyes scanned the hills and the daffodils that swayed gently in the breeze.
“I never imagined I’d have my own place in Nantucket,” Eloise breathed. “It was almost like I didn’t think Dad would allow me to have it.” After another beat, she laughed gently and said, “I can’t believe how long I let him dictate how I lived. Even so many years after his death.”
“He did cast a long shadow,” Greta said, eyeing Eloise.
Over and over again, Greta had apologized for not pestering their parents for more information about what “horrible thing” Eloise had done back in the seventies, the act that had gotten her kicked out of the house. And over and over again, Eloise had told Greta it was in the past. She couldn’t blame Greta for what had happened— she hadn’t been in the country at the time.
And besides, she was so grateful for their newly built friendship that she found herself living in the beauty of the present rather than falling into the shadows of the past. The therapist she’d recently begun to see on Nantucket had told her that was the healthiest way to live. She’d also said that she’d met with many women in their fifties, sixties, and seventies, all of whom had gone through traumatic experiences many years ago— experiences that had been brushed under the rug during a time when mental health wasn’t talked about. “It’s so good that women are finding the strength to come forward and talk about what has happened to them,” the therapist had said.
“This is the first place I’ve ever chosen for myself,” Eloise said, brimming with excitement. “I was always either at Aunt Maude’s, or in that sad apartment Aunt Maude picked out for me after I left her house, or with Liam in the farmhouse. But here? This cabin already feels like home.”
Very soon afterward, Greta had to head back to The Copperfield House to prepare for Danny and James’ baseball game, which she planned to attend with several other members of the Copperfield crew. “Would you like to come along?” Greta asked Eloise as she slipped on her spring jacket.
“I would. But I have plans with Harriet, Jack, Margot, Cassie, and Herb.”
Greta’s eyes widened with surprise. “Your own family.”
“I suppose so.” Eloise could hardly believe it herself.
