Hannah sat her milk gla.s.s down, her eyes silver dollar wide. "Your little-girl song with Grandma."

Grace's mouth opened and then closed like a blowfish. "You knew that?"

"Grandma told me," Hannah signed with a 'duh' look. "You know, like the one she and I have." And with the wisdom of one far beyond her years Hannah's next statement almost blew Grace off her barstool. "Maybe Grandma wants us to look through the boxes."

Sat.u.r.day afternoon Grace sat cross-legged on the game room floor and opened the first of the three boxes. She handed Hannah fine old linen tablecloths, matching napkins, and hand-made doilies. "These were my grandma's...my dad's mom."

"What about Grandma's mom? Hannah asked. "Your other grandmother."

"Never met her." Grace pulled out two flowery waist ap.r.o.ns her mother had made long ago. Both made with identical vintage print designs with over-sized flowers and pieces of fruit on a garden lattice. Only the colors varied. One lavender, the other yellow.

Hannah's head tilted. "You didn't know your grandma?"

Grace shook her head. "I don't know why, but she and your grandma didn't get along." She added the folded ap.r.o.ns to the pile of linens and reached for the second box.

"How can you not get along with your mother?" Hannah signed, her expression blank.

Thinking first of several on-again, off-again tumultuous times she'd had with her own mother Grace's thoughts jumped to Cherry and her mother. "It happens," she signed, then pulled two plastic containers of DMC thread and at least a dozen unopened packages of Aida cloth from the box.

"Wow. Grandma had a lot of stuff," Hannah signed before pulling out a large Ziploc bag. Its contents were concealed with layers of tissue paper.

Grace saw the curiosity in Hannah's eyes. "Go ahead, open it."

Hannah pulled apart the sealed edges and removed the contents, setting the tissue-wrapped prize in her lap. She brushed back the folds of thin paper to reveal a stack of starched, delicate, hand-made snowflakes. Hannah's eyes lit. "Beautiful!" she signed. "Crochet?"

"Macrame," Gracie fingerspelled. She remembered her mother had starting making the snowflakes long ago. She had somehow forgotten the hours her mother had labored making the delicate ornaments after her radiation treatments. She had preferred macrame to crocheting at that point, for whatever reason. The project helped fill the time while she waited for her strength to return...which of course, it never did. A small ache found its place in the middle of Grace's chest.

"Maybe I can have these?" Hannah signed.

Grace smiled and nodded, despite the heart pain. "I think Grandma would like that."

"My own special Christmas tree," Hannah signed. "Only for...." she pointed to the snowflakes. "Okay?"

"Okay." She felt a wave of love for her daughter, for the joy Hannah brought to this otherwise laborious and painful task of sorting through her mother's belongings.

"One more." Hannah pointed to the last box.

Pulling the remaining box closer, Grace noticed the word fragile printed in large black letters on each side. She peeled off the sealed tape and thought of all the other boxes upstairs. There are some things a person has to do for themselves, but packing up her mom's personal belongings hadn't been one of them. Luckily, her mom's close friend, Dorothy, had stepped up to the plate. So the contents of the box in front of her and those in the attic were a mystery.

She opened the box to large wads of crumbled newspaper, which they tossed aside before pulling out two cylinder shaped gallon apothecary jars with fitted lids and one large over-sized brandy snifter. All three jars were filled with seash.e.l.ls.

Hannah lifted one of the heavy apothecary jars to examine it and then excitedly tapped Grace's leg. "Look!" Pressed against the outside and nestled among the array of whitish-sand colored seash.e.l.ls lay a dark-brown, heart-shaped sea bean "Same as yours!"

Well, what do you know...Mom had a sea bean too. It looked identical to the one she had in the votive candleholder by the computer. She took the jar from Hannah, carefully pried open the lid and ever so gently freed the sea bean. "I'll keep this one," Grace signed.

Hannah nodded agreement and then dug down in the box, bringing out two flat-wrapped items. She released the paper from the first to uncover a regular-sized spiral notebook. She handed it to Grace. "What's this?"

Grace shrugged, flipped through the pages and found the entire spiral filled with notes in her mother's handwriting. She lowered the notebook to her lap to read one of the entries when Hannah grabbed her arm.

Hannah hugged a book to her chest. "Now I remember!" She smiled a long moment before turning the book around. The familiar jacket cover came to life right before Grace's eyes. "I told you. Familiar," Hannah signed.

She took the book and smoothed her fingers across the well-known t.i.tle. Gift From The Sea. Opening the front cover she found a series of dates penciled in her mother's handwriting covering a fifteen-year span. How could I not have known about this? Grace held the book to her own chest, almost feeling the warmth of her mother's arms around her. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

Sadness painted Hannah's face. "Sorry," she signed.

"No. No." Grace smiled in spite of the tears. "They're good tears. Promise." Grace hugged the book closer. "I guess this is Grandma's special book. Yes?"

Hannah nodded. "But it makes you sad."

"Sometimes, yes." Grace wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "But that's okay."

Hannah thought for a moment. "Because we love her, right?"

"Right." Grace put an arm around her daughter and pulled her in for a hug. "Right," she whispered, catching another faint whiff of her mother's perfume. It didn't shock her as much this time.

CHAPTER 40.

QUINLAN AND GRACE.

Quinlan and Angela sat on top of the big screen TV in the game room watching Grace and Hannah finish sorting through the third box.

Angela crossed her legs. "Is this too high for you?"

She shook her head and blew her nose, again. Her eyes were puffy and her nose felt raw. She was down to her last Kleenex.

"So, what's going through your mind?" Angela asked. "Why the tears?"

Quinlan pointed to the middle of the room where Grace hugged Hannah. "Just look at them." She blew into the last Kleenex. "It's so emotional." Taking off her Catwoman gla.s.ses she used the edge of her jacket to wipe her watery eyes. "And the notebook...." A fresh round of tears surfaced.

"You're back on Earth now," Angela began. "You've had your life, for better or for worse. And even though you're no longer in your physical body you're tapping into all the human emotions. Good and bad, happy and sad...the full spectrum."

Quinlan blew out air, hoping to lessen the knot in her throat. "Does everyone have this much difficulty?"

Angela rubbed her chin before she answered. "You mean the ones we send back?" Angela paused. "No."

"No?" Quinlan watched Grace and Hannah place the sh.e.l.l-filled apothecary jars around the game room.

"In fact, hardly ever." Angela said.

"Then...why?" Quinlan asked. None of this made sense.

"You're on," Angela paused, "you know...special a.s.signment, remember?"

"But how am I going to help Gracie if I'm the one who's an emotional wreck?"

"Good question." Angela smiled. "What do you think?"

Quinlan scanned the game room. "I think that's a bad place to put those sh.e.l.ls."

Angela snapped her fingers and they glided down to the floor.

"In fact, they really need to be washed and set out in the sun for at least...." Quinlan turned and realized she was talking to an empty room. Angela had disappeared and Gracie and Hannah were heading down the stairs.

"Now that's just wrong," Quinlan huffed, hands planted on her hips. "I didn't raise my daughter to walk away from me like that."

Angela's voice piped through Quinlan's earpieces. "Meet me tomorrow at one o'clock. The Commons area."

"Meet here, do this, report to Ruby, blah-blah-blah." She tapped her chest with her finger. "I've got questions of my own, you know," she grumbled. "And I'm not getting any answers." She had moved downstairs to address Grace's mess of a centerpiece.

"Not altogether true." A man's voice seeped into her head through the earpieces.

Quinlan's spine straightened. "I beg your pardon?"

Silence.

"I beg your pardon?" Quinlan repeated, irritated.

Still silence.

"Now that's rude." Quinlan pulled the iPod out of her pocket and flipped the off switch. "There." She said and then remembered. She turned the switch back on, got herself back to her living quarters, then switched the dang thing off. Again.

Everyone had gone to bed early, including Grace. She no longer needed romance novels or crochet squares to fill up time and s.p.a.ce at the end of her day. Tonight she surrounded herself with her calendar and the two books she and Hannah had uncovered this afternoon. She penciled in "Cherry" on the calendar for Tuesday, having agreed to volunteer an extra day this coming week. She was anxious to try a new behavioral modification technique she had learned in her Special Needs cla.s.s. Both the school counselor and Cherry's teacher welcomed Grace's initiative.

Making a few quick notations on her calendar, she reached for her mother's Gift From The Sea. The copy looked just as frayed and yellowed as hers. She thumbed through the book and smiled. Her mother had highlighted many of the same quotes. Once again, she held the book to her chest...no tears tonight.

Next, she picked up the spiral notebook. The first two pages were family trees from both sides of the family, tracing back nearly four generations. The third page contained short paragraphs of historical information acquired over the years-date of births and deaths. Grace flipped to the middle of the notebook and read a page.

"What is this?" She scanned the pages for dates. None surfaced. She turned back to the beginning of the handwritten entries and read for the next hour and a half.

"My G.o.d," she whispered. "Who was this woman?" Why her mother had written this, she had no idea. What she did discover, however, was that almost every entry contained information and stories she'd never heard before.

Closing the book, Grace pulled a pillow tightly across her stomach. The pages explained why her mother pushed her so hard to become a teacher, her mother's own desire to teach, and why that never happened.

"No wonder I never knew my grandmother." Bitterness filled her mouth. "The woman sounded like a b.i.t.c.h." Grace drummed her fingers on her chin and thought of the "darkness" her mother referred to in her notes. "Guess that explains the control issues."

In some ways the words she read made her mother seem more real...fallible, but certainly more human. Grace flipped the switch on the bedside lamp and eased down into the covers. Tears filled her eyes and rolled onto the pillow as she thought of the sadness and pain her mother had kept to herself for so long. "I'm sorry, Mom. I really am. I wish I'd known." So much for no tears tonight.

CHAPTER 41.

QUINLAN AND MARY.

"I'm so frustrated!" And drained. She'd spent most of the afternoon depleting her Kleenex supply.

"How could she have found my journal?" Quinlan felt nauseous when she thought back on Gracie pulling the spiral notebook from the box. "She was never supposed to see that." Quinlan sat at the desk in her living quarters, her fists at her temples. She felt like pulling her hair, so she did; didn't help. "I threw that away years ago."

Dropping her head into her hands, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to refocus. Her breathing slowed after a few moments, quieting her mind. She flipped to a clean page in her notebook and wrote Questions & Comments in big bold letters across the top.

Where's Adam?

Why is Gracie going back to school?

Who is Cherry?

Hannah is too young to have a boyfriend Why can't I fix the dining room centerpiece?

Gracie needs to do something with her hair Gracie needs to start planning her Thanksgiving meal (a month away) Quinlan eased the pencil eraser along the edge of the notebook and read back over the list. Her pocket buzzed. She fished out her phone and saw she had a text message. Ruby had given her Cliffs Notes lessons on texting. Quinlan pushed the icon.

how r u? btw, rain 2mro. thot ud wnt 2 no... ltr, r Quinlan stared at the cryptic message. She figured out the how r u, didn't have a clue about the btw, and 2mro required three rounds of phonetics. Having no patience or interest in the rest, she snapped the phone shut and shook her head. Ruby.

The next day Quinlan arrived at the Commons a little after noon. She sat at one of the wrought iron tables, her fingers drumming the notebook in her lap.

At one o'clock Angela strolled in. "Waiting long?"

"No, not at all." Seemed like forever.

Angela's blonde curls were pulled back away from her face and clasped at the nape of her neck with a gold barrette. Her attire was winter white linen slacks and matching silk blouse. Her cheeks, brushed with faint peach highlights, blended well with the deep coral wide belt around her waist.

Impeccable taste, Quinlan thought. Her eyes moved to Angela's hands. And a fresh French manicure. She thought of her own nails and stuffed her fists into her jacket pockets.

Angela took a seat and pointed to the notebook. "What is that?"

A flush moved up Quinlan's neck and onto her face. She pulled her hands from her pockets to cover the notebook, feeling less adamant than when she hammered out the list the night before. She shrugged. "Just some things I wrote down, that's all."

"Let's take a look, shall we?" Angela asked.

Quinlan hesitated and then placed the notebook on the table.

Angela rotated the tablet and read the list. She raised her eyes to Quinlan. A long, uncomfortable moment pa.s.sed. "Let me ask you," Angela said. "Why are you here?"

Quinlan's throat felt like a dry creek bed. "Beg your pardon?"

Angela pursed her lips together, tapping them with her finger. "Why did you come back?"