Finding Ashley - Danielle Steel Page 0,80

ice skating, and seeing their new grandmother again. Michaela hadn’t told them she had more presents for them. She didn’t want that to be the main event, so they had surprises in store. Melissa was wide awake in her bed that night too, thinking about them.

* * *

—

Hattie had been at the retreat house in Vermont for a week by then. The silence felt peaceful and was a relief at first. So much had happened, and retelling the rape had brought back terrible nightmares and memories. She thought a silent retreat would help them recede again. But as the days wore on, with no one to speak to, the voices in her head got louder and more strident every day, voices about what had brought her into the convent in the first place, reminding her that she had lied about having a vocation. She kept thinking of Fiona Eckles’s words in Dublin about how disillusioned she was with the Church. She felt as though she was spinning in circles with a thousand echoes in her head telling her that she didn’t belong in the Church, that she wasn’t good enough or pure enough. She was a liar, a fraud. All the good she had done in the past eighteen years faded away and the only thing left were her doubts, about the Church, herself, and what direction to take now. She felt frozen in place, and nothing in her life made sense anymore. The only thing that did was having found Melissa’s daughter for her. She had no regrets about that, and was thrilled with how it had worked out. She was sorry she wouldn’t see them over New Year’s at Melissa’s house, but she would have had to work anyway.

Hattie suspected that the public revelations about the sex offenders in Hollywood were continuing. They weren’t allowed to read the newspapers or watch television during the retreat, so nothing would intrude on them, so Hattie didn’t know what was going on, or if the press had said anything about her, which was just as well. In fact, her story had been added to the others, but the police had kept her name out of it, and said only that she had been a young actress raped and brutalized by him twenty years ago. Melissa had been relieved to see that it had been kept anonymous, but she had no contact with Hattie so she couldn’t tell her. No one could. The whole purpose of the retreat was for Hattie to clear her mind and come back stronger, more at peace, and feeling whole again. For now, she felt fragmented and broken in a million pieces, pulled in all directions. She had reached no conclusions while there. They had said she could stay as long as she wanted and needed to. She didn’t even know what day it was. The nuns who ran the retreat told her it didn’t matter, and she suspected they were right. A relief nurse was covering her shifts at the hospital. It made her feel that she was replaceable, which was liberating.

* * *

—

The morning that Michaela and her family were due to arrive, Melissa had gotten up at six and checked everything, the room that the children would share with twin beds and antique quilts handmade by local women, the large, airy bedroom with floral prints and matching wallpaper from England for David and Michaela. It had a big bathroom, with a large antique tub that Norm had found and installed, and it had a little sitting room next to it that was bright and sunny, overlooking the garden and the mountains. They were far down the hall from Melissa’s bedroom so they didn’t have to worry about disturbing her if the children got up early. The house was well laid out for family and guests. The family who had built it had five children, and all the bedrooms were big and airy with peaceful views, with the parents’ quarters separate.

She had rented bicycles for them to use when the ground wasn’t icy. They were going to rent the ski equipment once the children were there and could be measured for it. Michaela wanted to ski too. David had been a downhill racer in college, and was bringing his own equipment. If the weather held up and they didn’t get buried in snow, Melissa had a lot of activities planned for them. And Norm had promised to give Andy a ride on one