- Christina Rossetti

The day I died, I imagined there were sighs of relief heard from all around me. I was sure that the eternal sleeps of my sister and of my first husband, Win, became more peaceful with my passing, and Win’s long lost friend, though he couldn’t know what secrets I kept, also sensed he was better off without me in this life. There was no supposing the relief of Clayton Jones, my current husband; that Clayton was free from the burden of my presence was clearly evident on his face. However, I also imagined a great sigh of relief from Win’s uncle who, no longer fearing me, at last could have what he wanted: my son.

I suppose it was really rather ironic. After years of my resistance, what I now prayed and hoped for most before I died was Mr. Frayne to come get my son, to take him away . . . to do what I could not do. But he did not come.

Instead, my son and I remained alone with Clayton Jones.

It was almost funny to see Clayton on his deathwatch sentry. Every morning, he’d open the door to my bedroom with a hopeful expectancy. Was this the morning that he would find his wife dead? But, when I breathed still, he would put a tragic look of pity on his face and say, "How is my Katie today?"

However, I’d say nothing as I lay upon the bed, trapped beneath his arms reaching around me to straighten my pillow. And then he would help me sit up to drink the tea that he so tenderly brought to me each morning. Yes, I had guessed there was something in the brew to hasten my demise, a poison carefully disguised between the chamomile and the tea leaves. One morning, our eyes met, and he knew that I tasted not only the tea, but also the bitterness of his betrayal. The look in my eyes caused his hands to tremble slightly, and I smiled. Somewhere in his depths, I think there was love for me, and there was a certain gratification to knowing that I still held some power over him.

But, in the end, after all, there was nothing else to do, but to drink the tea.

Perhaps, I should have kicked and scratched and clawed my way free, but I felt the justification of my sins and the weight of a broken heart holding me captive and bearing me down. If accepting death was my penitence, then I figured the tea scorching my throat was my hell.

Yet, as I lay dying, I contemplated how frightfully easy it was becoming for me to close my eyes to this life and let every breath take me further from my son. Although I had done it before, one would think that, when faced with leaving one’s child with a monster, one would grasp her life as tightly as she could, regardless of any past sin, and hold on. In the days of my death, though, I didn’t. With every heartbeat, I was simply letting go. I knew that my death would release the dangerously grasping madman inside of Clayton. But, in the end, the temptation of giving in to the night and blanketing myself with eternal rest was easier than staying.

I would go quietly.

However, the very human part of me that was afraid of dying whispered inside my soul, "What if I cannot find peace?" I thought of Win, my first husband, and wondered if he would greet me with open arms. What we didn’t have on earth, because of our human pride and mistakes, could we have in Heaven with the angels? Was the afterlife too late to finally acknowledge and surrender to his unconditional love? Perhaps, I thought, it was too late for me. Sometimes, our second chances do run out. But I still yearned to find Win again. I needed to say thank you. I needed to tell him . . . I love you. Yet, too, I needed to scream at him for leaving me. I wanted to pound at him with my fists and rage against his misplaced honor. How could he go away and leave me alone with a child and facing the wrath of his uncle by myself? I was not strong. I was not independent. Though I had charted the desperate course of my life on my own, there had always been someone else taking care of the ship. Yet Win had jumped overboard and left me adrift . . . floating on a sea of angry sadness and fear without anywhere to come ashore. I had wrecked, and now I was sinking.

I found myself coming to a reckoning. Although Win had promised that he would always be with me, in the end, what is a promise? I too had faithfully sworn that I would always take care of my child, but here I lay, waving the white flag of surrender.

And, finally, my thoughts stayed upon Jim, my son. He had changed me in that way that only a child can change a woman. He was my heart and my salvation, and I felt the urge to crow at the world: "See, there must have been some good inside of me. Look at my son!" True, Jim was the product of Win as well, and he was so much like Win that it sometimes took my breath away. But I had given birth to him, and he shared my blood. I had rocked my baby in the quiet darkness of many nights and shared untold secrets with him. Only Jim had stilled the restlessness within me and turned me into a mother. When Jim looked at me, he didn’t see Katje, the woman; he saw his mother, the light and anchor of his life. It was a dizzying, heady feeling to look into his emerald eyes and see the unqualified adoration.

He thought I was perfect.

Like any child, Jim had never looked beyond the idyllic existence Win and I had tried so hard to create for him, and I wondered if he would grow to hate me for shattering his world and abandoning him, like Win had left me. To my everlasting shame, I was glad that I wouldn’t be around to see the disillusionment cloud those green eyes.

With the uncanny perception so often seen in the young, Jim did not like Clayton and had early on pleaded with me not to marry him. The morning of the day I was to marry Clayton, and we were to leave Rochester for Clayton’s home in Albany, Jim joined me in the kitchen as I was packing the final box with various leftover odds and ends.

For a moment, Jim just watched me tape the box shut as if considering something; he then said, "Mom, you don’t have to do this. We could go somewhere else. I could maybe get a job – "

"Jim, you silly boy!" I laughed. "You can’t get a job; you’re only eleven! Your job is to go to school and enjoy life. My job is take care of you."

"But what about Dad? What would he say?" Jim asked as if this alone could make me stop and rewind the actions that had put this wedding in motion.

I stopped what I was doing and turned to face him. "Your father is gone, Jim. And we’re still here. Besides, I think Clayton loves me. And he likes you too, you know." And then I added, with all the carefree attitude I could muster, "Won’t it be fun to help him on his truck farm? It’ll be like a grand adventure!"

"I don’t want a grand adventure!" Jim stormed, his redheaded temper ablaze. "I want to stay here. This is our home, Mom! You’re Katje Frayne – not Katie Jones."

I sighed as I looked at him. From previous experience, I knew that my words alone could never convince this stubborn, idealistic young man that I was raising. "Follow me," I said simply as I left the kitchen and headed back to the bedroom. Clayton had told me that he didn’t have room for any more furniture, so mine and Win’s bed was still in the middle of the room centered underneath the window. We would take with us only what we could fit in my car. On the bed, I had laid the dress into which I was to change for our courthouse ceremony. Beside the dress, were my purse and another bag, and it was into this bag that I reached, found what I was looking for, and turned to Jim who I knew had followed me.

I handed him the heavy antique mug from the bag and said, "I was going to give this to you later, but I think now is the right time."

"What is it?" he asked me, turning the silver mug over in his hands.

"It’s your christening mug," I stated. "See – there’s your name and your birth date. What does it say in the script above your name?"

" ‘I know the plans I have for you . . .’ " he responded. "But what does it mean?"

I took the mug from him and, before setting it down, I traced his name with my finger. I then looked deep into Jim’s eyes and answered him, "It means that you are James Winthrop Frayne the Second for always. No matter who I am, no matter what I do or who I become, nothing can change who you are. Do you understand what I’m saying?"

Jim looked at the mug sitting on the dresser. In the light from the window, it seemed to have an almost unearthly glow. "I think so," he slowly replied, and I could see the truth burning in his eyes.

"And, Jim," I continued, "you have to realize that wherever we go, our home will always be with each other." It was time to tell him about Ten Acres, I knew, but I couldn’t. Instead, I hugged him and briskly changed the subject, "Now, why don’t you take that last box out to the car while I hurry and change so that we can start our new adventure?"

However, Jim had been right. Albany never became our home, and Clayton did not like Jim. Yet, while I was alive, the two had declared a wary truce, carefully circling around each other like two prizefighters waiting for the bell.

My death was tolling the bell.

After I became so sick that I couldn’t leave the bedroom in Clayton’s house, Jim would come and sit with me each day after school, the rays of the late autumn sunshine making a red, fiery halo of his hair. He was my angel, this boy who picked flowers for me and, simply by his life, could cause the sun to shine brighter and warmer for me. Every time Jim brought me flowers, I’d smile and remember that first bouquet of dandelions clutched tightly in his freckled little boy hands –

"Daddy told me that a gentleman always brings his lady flowers."

I remembered everything - the daisy chain crowns we wore, hunts for four-leaf clovers, pony rides through golden meadows, giggles in the kitchen over a plate of cookies, innocent bedtime prayers . . . His life had brought me a sweet joy and wild happiness, and, as he carefully arranged his daily offering of wildflowers in the vase on the nightstand, I could see the sadness and despair that my death was bringing him in exchange. But, by the strength of his character alone, Jim would will himself to hide the tears from me. Instead, he would try to make me laugh with stories from school while he coaxed me to eat something off the dinner tray he’d brought.

"Here, Mother, have a bite of this cookie. Remember the cookies we used to bake together? You need to eat so you can get well and strong,"

Then, Clayton would come into the room to remind Jim of the chores that still needed to be done, and Jim would kiss me good-night and go do whatever it was Clayton had demanded. As Jim left, I’d watch the night shadows fall across the bed.

I remember once when Jim fell as a little boy and I rushed to pick him up and gather him in my arms. What a humbling experience to realize how my kisses could soothe his hurt and that, no matter what had transpired in the past, Jim had made me worthy again. In those days, I was his buffer against the silly injustices of a child’s world that could sometimes knock him to his knees. However, my little boy was strong. And determined. He always got back up ready to tackle the adventures of his young life once more. But could he get back up when I was no longer in his corner and when Clayton would do more than knock him to his knees?

After I died, I knew many would wonder how I could have been so fragile-minded as to have married a man like Clayton and then, worse still, to have left Jim at his mercy. No mother ever wants to leave her child unprotected, and, even as I was quietly giving in, I was cursing myself for my utter weakness. The "stay and fight" voice within me just wasn’t strong enough to overcome the letting go.

In the end, I wasn’t enough.

My heart wept for my son. How do you tell your child that you’re dying? That you won’t be there for all the moments of his life? As it turned out, I didn’t have to. With a wisdom beyond his years, he knew. One afternoon, Jim quietly placed the spoon in the soup bowl and set it aside.

With his finger idly tracing the wedding ring pattern of the quilt and unable to quite look me in the eyes, he asked, "You’re not going to get well, are you?"

My voice caught in my throat as I answered him, "No, I’m not."

He could have cried and hugged me and begged me to stay. He could have been angry and shaken me and yelled at me for leaving. But Jim did neither of these things. Not wanting to cause me any upset, he straightened his shoulders and nodded his head once. "That’s okay, Mama. I’ll be okay."

Mama . . . He hadn’t called me Mama since he was a small child. My eyes filled with tears, and I reached out to take his hand.

"Yes, you will be," I told him. "You are smart and strong and . . ." My voice trailed away. It had come down to this, and I didn’t know what to say. I had no last words of wisdom to leave with my son.

Jim looked at me then, and I saw the sheen of tears in his eyes.

"I’ll miss you," he said simply.

"Oh, Jim!" I gathered him to me and held him close. How utterly dear he felt in my arms!

Once when he was a very little boy, he had come running into the kitchen after playing outside. "I love you, Mama!" he chanted happily while helping himself to a cookie.

"I love you too, you little scamp!" I laughingly replied, tousling his red hair.

He then had asked, "Did you miss me, Mama?"

"Of course I missed my favorite little boy!"

"That’s why I came back! I’ll always come back, Mama," he responded with childish innocence.

That day, I had swung him up and held him in my arms, inhaling the precious smell of baby shampoo and sunshine, his little arms hugging my neck tightly. Moments . . . I wanted to package up the moment and keep it with me forever. I never wanted to let go.

And, there, in my bedroom, as I hugged my son to me once again, I remembered that happy little boy. This time, he was as big as I, and I selfishly let myself cling to his strength. This time, there were so many things to which I was letting go. I would not be there to watch this boy grow into a man. I would never meet the girl who would steal his heart. I would never dance at his wedding or rock his babies.

"I’ll miss you too," I whispered, letting my fingers run through his hair, remembering. "But I’ll . . . I’ll always . . ."

I’ll always what? I wasn’t coming back. And, what if, when he learned all our secrets, he didn’t even want my memory?

"If you want me, I’ll be there. I’ll be there in your memories and in your dreams and always in your heart, Jim."

I was so very afraid for him, but, at the same time, I knew – I knew – my son was stronger than we had been. And whatever broken road he had to follow, I sensed he would somehow come out whole and unbroken. And, while I had lost my faith, I needed for him to believe.

"You have a wonderful life ahead of you. And I’ll always be proud of you and so happy for you . . . always, Jim."

There was more I could say, but I didn’t have the words. How do you fill a lifetime in a few short moments? I love you seemed too simple, but it was all I had.

"I love you. I always will. You are the light of my life."

I hugged him to me once more, loathe to let go, memorizing the feel of him. And I willed whatever life I had left into my son.

"Stay strong and courageous and honorable, my son," I whispered.

On our honeymoon, Win and I had stayed at a little inn situated conveniently next to a lighthouse and cozily perched high on a cliff overlooking the ocean. One night, on impulse, Win had rented a sailboat to take me for a moonlit cruise. However, neither of us really knew anything about sailing, and, had it not been for the lighthouse, we would have been lost on the ocean waters. Like a cliché, the beacon of the lighthouse had reached out and guided us safely back to the shore.

After Win died, there had been no lighthouse to find me, no guiding light to save me from drowning. And, so, because I could do nothing else, I prayed for a lighthouse for Jim. Sinner that I was, I had no right to my prayers, but I hoped that maybe God would look beyond me and heed the pleadings of a desperate mother. I thought He would send Mr. Frayne, so I finally told Jim about his great uncle and Ten Acres, his estate. I finished my journal and put it away so that it could be found . . . later. And I made sure Jim knew where his silver christening mug was. Jim was my legacy; Ten Acres was his destiny. And, in the end, all I could do to protect my son was to tell him of the man who had once been my enemy.

I prayed for a lighthouse for Jim. I thought Mr. Frayne would be his rescuer. I didn’t know that an altogether different beacon would come to light his way.

The day I died, Jim was at school. When he came home, he was greeted by Clayton.

"She’s dead, boy."

If I had thought my hell was to placidly accept death, I was wrong. Hell was watching my little boy get hit by angry fists over and over again. Hell was watching my little boy’s back turn black and blue and bloody from unforgiving whiplashes. Hell was watching my little boy, tied to a bed, finally succumbing to lonely tears that no one would hear. Hell was watching and not doing anything to stop it. Hell was watching and knowing that it was I who had started it.

In the two years following my death, I became acquainted with Hell, and his name was Clayton Jones.

I would have given up Paradise to come back and trade places with Jim. I would have given up Win for the chance to kill Clayton. Instead, I could only watch the events play out like some mad tragedy; the words "you left him alone" replaying over and over again like a guilty refrain.

Once, after Clayton had passed out drunk, I watched Jim as he staggered out to the barn to hide for the night. Wrapped in my old quilt, he quietly hummed a lullaby that I had sung to him in sweeter years, and, through a crack in the roof, soft rain like teardrops fell on his face.

Jim had never been one to run away from anything; he was too stubborn, too honorable, too idealistic. But I knew that he must get away. He could not stay and live.

Perhaps, he felt my frantic pleas, because one day, after a particularly violent argument, he finally ran away from Clayton’s truck farm. And he ran to Ten Acres. Mr. Frayne had been my last hope for Jim. But, Ten Acres was a devastated mess, and his uncle was gone. I wanted to weep as I watched Jim collapse in exhaustion onto a dirty mattress and fall into a weary, hopeless sleep. I had failed my son in this one last thing.

The Bible says that joy comes in the morning. Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten, but I was reminded later that day. I saw the evidence. So did Jim.

In fact, he almost shot joy.

The two girls discovered Jim asleep on the mattress, and, when the curly-headed blonde toppled some books over, my son was awake and had his shotgun pointed at the girl before she could blink her bright blue eyes.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded sullenly. "You have no business in this house."

There was a part of me that wondered how and when my Jim had become so surly. The honey-haired girl was frightened, but the smaller blonde stood her ground, her stubborn chin matching my son’s.

"Neither have you," she said hotly in response to Jim. "This place belongs to Mr. James Winthrop Frayne, our neighbor. My father took him to the hospital this morning. We were just checking to be sure all the doors and windows were locked. But you," she finished, "seem to have moved right in."

She had spunk, I thought as Jim got slowly to his feet, still clutching his gun, clearly taken aback by the girl.

"To the hospital?" he repeated dazedly. "Where and why? What are you talking about?"

"The Sleepyside Hospital," she told him. "He’s got pneumonia, and he’s half-starved too. Not," she added with a toss of her blonde curls, "that it’s any of your business, but the doctors don’t think he’ll get well."

In a brief, unguarded moment, Jim allowed his broad shoulders to droop as he laid the gun down on the mattress. "I thought he was dead," he said quietly. "When I got here this morning and found the place deserted and filled with junk, I figured Uncle James must have died a long time ago."

"Uncle James!" The two girls stared at Jim in wide-eyed wonder. "Was – is – Mr. Frayne your uncle?"

And, in answer, my son reached down and picked up the silver cup that I had given to him on that long ago day in our apartment. He held it out so that the blonde could see the engraving.

"James Winthrop Frayne the Second," she read in an astonished voice. The sound of my son’s name on her lips seemed to echo like a prayer in the ramshackled room.

As they stood there, surrounded by dust and cobwebs, Jim told the girls who he was and how he had come to be at Ten Acres. And he told them about Clayton. Clasping his mug tightly in his hands, he fiercely stated, "I tell you, I won’t go back, and nobody’s going to make me. See?"

The honey-haired girl who seemed vaguely familiar timidly offered, "Of course you don’t have to go back. You can come home and live with my family. My father’ll adopt you. I’ve always wanted a brother, and Daddy’s got lots of money, so you can have a horse and a dog and anything else you want. Nobody’ll ever beat you again."

"Don’t be silly," the pert blonde interrupted. "He can stay at our house, where he’ll have brothers about the same age. I’ve got three of them." She grinned at him. "The youngest one is an awful pest, but Brian and Mart are swell. And my mother and father are simply wonderful."

But my son only laughed sarcastically.

He sneered at them, "Gee, you two are funny – arguing about who’s going to have me. Stop your kidding! One would think you really meant it."

"I do mean it," the two girls cried out at the same time, and then they laughed, the sound washing over my son like a healing balm.

"I believe you do," Jim said slowly, and all the tense stubbornness began to ebb out of him. "Nobody’s been nice to me since my mother died two years ago, and I guess I’ve forgotten how to act with decent people."

Jim held out his right hand to the blonde. "Shake," he said. "My name’s Jim. What’s yours?"

"I’m Trixie Belden, and I live down there at Crabapple Farm."

My son clasped her hand, and the bond was formed. His somber emerald gaze met her sparkling sapphire one, and, although he wasn’t quite aware of it, what he found there in her eyes was hope and solace and . . . joy.

Jim then turned to the other girl who said, "And I’m Honey Wheeler, and I just moved into the large house on the hill."

As the summer sunlight poured into the old room, he told the two girls about his inheritance. And the girls asked him about Clayton; in their sheltered worlds, they couldn’t fathom someone as terrible as Jim’s "Simon Legree".

"He sounds like an awful person," Honey said, tears of sympathy welling up in her hazel eyes. "Did he really beat you Jim?"

"Sure," Jim said nonchalantly, as if his spirit hadn’t almost been broken, "but I didn’t mind that so much."

"Of course, he never did while Mother was alive. He really loved her, and I guess she loved him."

"She was never very strong," my son continued, his green eyes dark with sorrow, "and Jonesy was always gentle with her."

"I hated him from the beginning, and I know he felt the same way about me. But we never let Mother know how we felt. It would have broken her heart."

"Is your father dead, too, Jim?" the girl named Trixie asked him quietly.

"Yes." Jim stared out of the dirty, cracked window for a minute, the sun glinting in the gold lights of his bright red hair. "You know what?" he asked suddenly looking back at the two girls. "Someday, I’m going to own a great big all-year-round camp for kids who haven’t any father of their own. I’m going to run it so they can study lessons and learn a trade at the same time that I teach them how to swim and box and shoot and ride and skate. They’re going to know how to live in the woods and understand all kinds of wild animals. My dad taught me to – " He stopped, his freckled face flushed with embarrassment. "I guess this sounds pretty funny to you. Me shooting off like this in a broken-down old house without even a cent to my name!"

"It doesn’t sound funny at all!" Trixie broke in. "It sounds great. I bet you will do it someday too, Jim."

And, with Trixie, my son’s adventures began.

In those next days, while Mr. Frayne took his last breaths, the girls learned about life and each other, and my son learned anew about hope and trust. Together, the three searched Ten Acres for Mr. Frayne’s treasure, not yet realizing that they had found a treasure within themselves.

One hot, dusty day after searching through endless piles of Mr. Frayne’s clutter, Jim was ready to surrender. After my death, Jim had stopped believing in fairy tale endings. But Trixie wouldn’t allow him to quit.

"I won’t give up," she told Jim stubbornly.

Trixie persisted, and they continued their hunt. When Jim opened the door to one of the many bedrooms, the house seemed to hold its breath, as if it had been suddenly awakened and was waiting to see what would happen next. Everything in the room was just the way I remembered it. A dark cherry four-poster bed was positioned along the back wall; Mrs. Frayne’s cabbage rose wallpaper was faded and ripped in some places. The floor creaked ominously as Jim walked over to peer out the window, carefully moving aside the tattered lace curtains that hung limply in the still, hot air.

Turning, he brushed against the antique Tiffany lamp, the beads tinkling softly in the silence. And, as Jim reached out to steady the lamp sitting on the nightstand, he found the Bible.

Climbing out the window and down the ladder to the girls waiting for him, he said, "I thought I might as well bring this old Bible along. I haven’t any other family possessions except my mug, so I don’t think Uncle James would mind my having it for a keepsake."

At that moment, he dropped the heavy, black book, and a yellow piece of paper flew out and landed at Trixie’s feet.

"Golly, golly!" she shouted. "It’s a will, Jim! The will!" Trixie handed the paper to Jim and begged, "Read it quickly! Are you the heir? The sole heir?"

He silently and carefully read the will and, then, looking back up at the two girls, said, "Yes, I am, if this is the latest will. It’s only a copy. It says here that a Mr. George Rainsford is the executor, so I imagine he has the original. Do you know who he is, Trixie?"

"Never heard of him," Trixie replied.

But Mr. Rainsford was the least of their worries. Mr. Frayne soon breathed his last, never knowing that his grand-nephew had, at last, come to Ten Acres. And, when reporters found out that the old man had left an heir, Clayton Jones came too.

He came back to Ten Acres the same day that Trixie found the diamond ring. But, as Jim, Trixie, and Honey took a last moonlit ride on their horses, they weren’t aware how close he was until it was too late. While they rode, innocently enjoying the coolness of the night, my son spoke about his father.

"I guess that’s why I hated Jonesy from the beginning. I didn’t think anyone could take Dad’s place. I knew Mother needed someone to take care of her, but I wanted to do it. I was too young, of course."

"Sometimes, I think if I’d behaved better at first, Jonesy might have been kinder to me."

"It’s too late now, though. He hates me as much as I hate him. Once I looked up suddenly from my homework and caught him staring at me. There was such a mean look in his eyes that I was honestly scared to death for a minute."

Trixie got her first look at Jim’s stepfather that evening. And I knew that, while she might not have questioned it then, there would be times in her life when she would wonder about me. How I could have married Clayton Jones . . . How I could have put my child within reach of Clayton Jones. In the dark hours of the night, Clayton burned down Ten Acres, and it was Trixie who saved my son. As the mansion fell, she stood watching while Clayton ranted and raved. In the days and years to follow, he would come back to threaten them often, and I regretted to the depths of my soul that my memory would forever be linked with him.

The next day, Jim was gone. He had said that he wasn’t going back to Clayton’s farm, and he wasn’t. Jim had run again but left the ring and a note for the curly-headed blonde which read, ". . . Please don’t you and Honey forget me. I’ll see you sometime."

The two girls discovered the note in the old summerhouse, and, as they discussed it, they were interrupted by George Rainsford, who had come to Ten Acres to find Jim. He looked exactly how he had years ago when he had come to my door on a hot, sunny day when Jim had been just a baby.

"Excuse me," he had said as I opened our front door. "Is Winthrop Frayne available?"

"I’m his wife," I tentatively responded, not sure of the well-dressed man in front of me and his superior tones.

"Oh, I know who you are, but I need to speak with Winthrop. I have a package for him."

"Well, he’s not here, but, you’re welcome to leave the package with me, Mr.-?"

"George Rainsford, I’m James Frayne’s solicitor." His smile hadn’t quite reached his gray eyes, and he left me with the impression that he felt I was rather beneath his dignity.

In my mind, there was no good reason for Mr. Frayne’s solicitor to be at my doorstep, and I had wanted him gone.

"I’m sorry – "

"James told me of the new baby," he had smoothly interjected, "and asked that I see him so that I could report back."

An ugly fear had curled through my insides. "The baby’s asleep, and Win’s not here. So, if you can’t leave the package with me, you’ll have to come back. I’m sorry."

Two days later, Mr. Rainsford had returned. My husband was home this time, and he had showed him into our living room and then proudly brought our baby to him. As Mr. Rainsford bounced Jim on his suit-clad knee, he had informed Win that his uncle had made our son his sole heir. At the time, I had been consumed by the fear twisting its way into my mind, and, when he had given us the silver christening cup, I had wanted nothing to do with it.

And, now, here he was asking about my son again.

It was the sweet, golden-haired Honey who spoke to him first. "Why, I know you! I’m Honey Wheeler, Matthew Wheeler’s daughter. Didn’t you come to our apartment in New York for dinner one evening last winter?"

As they stood there in the summer heat with the smell of a smoldering Ten Acres still heavy in the air, Mr. Rainsford peppered the girls with questions about how they had come to know Jim.

"Do you mean to tell me you girls broke into the house? Didn’t you know you were breaking the law?"

But, perhaps, he was the lesser of two evils. After all, Mr. Frayne was gone, and Clayton was still very much alive. The girls took Mr. Rainsford into their confidence, and, led by the thirteen-year-old Trixie, the three made plans to go after Jim. My son became her first mystery, and I knew that Trixie would find him and bring him back. And I believed.

With loving determination and a single-minded dedication, Trixie and Honey did find my son. And brought him back to Honey’s parents. Matthew and Madeleine Wheeler were as poised and as elegant as I had never been. But there was an underlying kindness in both of them as well. The years had treated them both well.

When the tall, husky redhead saw Jim, he grinned and said, "I’d have known you anywhere, Jim. You look exactly as your dad did when I last saw him."

His lovely wife smiled up at her husband and remarked casually, "He doesn’t look unlike you, Matthew."

The group sat comfortably together, getting to know one another and discussing Jim’s inheritance and his guardianship. I remembered the evening after Jim was born. Win had curled up in the hospital bed with me and, together, we had counted our baby’s little fingers and little toes, whispering our dreams and hopes for him.

Matt Wheeler was laughing. "I’ll take good care of his money, but, as to having me as his guardian, why, I think that’s up to Jim."

Madeleine lightly touched my son’s hands with her long, tapering fingers. "You don’t have to answer now, Jim," she said to him quietly. "We’d like to take out adoptions papers right away, but it wouldn’t be fair not to give you a chance to get to know us better first."

And my son grinned back at her. "It isn’t that, Mrs. Wheeler. I know Honey, and there isn’t anyone I’d rather have for a sister. But you and Mr. Wheeler don’t anything about me."

"We know more than you think," Matthew’s wife said quickly.

I was looking at the woman who would take my place. Madeleine would be the one to dance at his wedding and rock his babies. I waited for a bitter jealousy to overtake me, but, instead, I only found . . . a bittersweet gratitude. And a strange sense of irony. That Matthew and Madeleine Wheeler would finish raising my son seemed sort of prophetic.

Apparently, Trixie didn’t think that Honey’s mother did know enough about Jim because impulsively she interjected, "Oh! He’s just great, Mrs. Wheeler!", and the wonderful girl then proceeded excitedly to tell the Wheelers all about my son.

At her effusive praise, Jim blushed. "Oh, heck, Trixie’s trying to make me out a hero. Don’t pay any attention to her!"

And then, there in the cafeteria of Autoville Park, it was soon settled. Jim had found a home and his destiny.

Amidst the happy hugs and laughter, Trixie stepped outside, but Jim, missing her, went to find her. In the bright afternoon sunshine, her blonde hair shone like a beacon. The two shared a smile, and, as they walked back inside together, she whispered, "Sometimes, dreams do come true."

I had prayed for a lighthouse for my son. I had thought Mr. Frayne would be his rescuer. But God had prepared an altogether different beacon to light his way. He sent Trixie.

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