she hadn’t said anything more about finding his family, but she, too, clearly believed that they were the missing part of his heart. If he hadn’t known it before, he couldn’t mistake it once he’d finally opened her Christmas present—a frame with his picture and room for five more. He’d known those empty spaces were meant for photos of his brothers and parents.
Despite all that, Ryan couldn’t seem to bring himself to do anything about initiating a search. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was so terrified to try. Was he afraid of being disappointed? Or afraid of another rejection?
Whenever his head was filled with questions and no answers, he always headed for the shelter. There were people there with worse problems than his, people who survived despite whatever tragedies had befallen them.
When he arrived at midmorning, he was surprised to find Letitia at work in the kitchen preparing lunch for the children. She was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at a rapid clip, but her expression was distracted.
“Everything okay?” Ryan inquired after watching her for several minutes.
She looked up from her task, and her face broke into a smile. “Mr. Devaney, what are you doing here?”
“I came by to spend some time with the kids. They usually need a distraction during the holidays. With no school and some of the parents out looking for jobs, they can get a little rambunctious. What are you doing here? I thought you’d be at the hospital.”
“Jamal’s with Lamar.” Her eyes lit up. “Did you know he’s getting out of the hospital later this week? The doctors say he’s making fantastic progress. Looks like my boy has a bright future ahead of him.”
“That’s wonderful. Will you be coming back here?”
She shook her head, her smile widening. “Jamal went back to his old boss and explained what had happened. He agreed to take him back after the first of the year. He even gave him an advance on his salary, so we could make a deposit on an apartment. We move in tomorrow so we can get it all fixed up before Lamar comes home.”
She put down the jar of jelly and crossed the room to hug him. “I have my life back, and it’s all because of you.”
Ryan was growing more comfortable with the impulsive show of affection, but not with the praise. “Letitia—” he began.
She cut off his protest. “I won’t hear none of that,” she scolded. “You did a good thing. Now accept my thanks.”
He grinned. “You’re welcome.”
She studied him intently. “Is there something else on your mind? You’ve got the look of a man with troubles. Is it Maggie?”
“Maggie’s fine,” he said.
“You treating her right?”
He grinned at the protective note in her voice. “As right as I know how.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s a long story. I won’t bore you with it.”
She frowned at that. “Let me get these sandwiches out to my babies out there, and you tell me the story.”
Oddly, Ryan couldn’t seem to make himself turn down the offer. Maybe what he needed was an entirely fresh perspective. For so long now he’d simply tuned out Father Francis’s advice and, more recently, even Maggie’s, because he hadn’t wanted to deal with the past at all.
Letitia made short work of delivering lunch to the children in the dining room, then came back and poured them each a cup of coffee. “Now sit down over here and tell me what’s on your mind,” she instructed him in a no-nonsense tone.
Ryan began the story with the day his parents left and he was separated from his brothers. Tears welled up in Letitia’s eyes as he talked, but she didn’t say a word. She just listened until he had told her everything, right on up to Maggie’s belief that he needed to find his family if he was ever to have any real peace.
“I’m beginning to think she’s right,” he admitted. “I’ve been living in some sort of emotional limbo for too long now.”
“Seems that way to me, too,” Letitia said. “And there’s one more thing you’re not considering.”
“What’s that?”
“Just think for a minute about what happened to Lamar because his daddy and I didn’t know Jamal’s medical history and what it could mean for our boy. You haven’t said if you’re thinking of marrying Maggie, but if that thought has crossed your mind, you need to know something about this whole genetics thing.”
Ryan seized on that as if he’d been presented with a lifeline. “You’re absolutely right,” he told Letitia. For