At Last (The Idle Point, Maine Stories) - By Barbara Bretton Page 0,114

mother after you were married, didn't he?" Noah asked. His emotions weren't in suspended animation; they were there on his sleeve for the world to see.

"A love affair," Ruth said. "Yes, he did."

"So it's possible—"

"No," Ruth said with great certainty. "It isn't possible."

Gracie was almost afraid to breathe deeply for fear she might pop this wonderful soap bubble of hope. She reached for Noah's hand and held on tight. "How can you be sure?"

Ruth's eyes darted toward Noah and a prickle of alarm ran up Gracie's spine. "Because, you see, Simon was sterile." A childhood case of mumps had left him unable to father a child, something he had neglected to tell his wife.

Noah flinched but he didn't look away or let go of Gracie's hand. "So I'm adopted." A statement, not a question.

Ruth shook her head, looking older and more tired than Gracie had ever seen her.

"You're my child," she said. "Simon and I separated for awhile a long time ago. I left Idle Point and went to live in New York. I was seeing a wonderful man, an artist named Michael Shanahan. He was the friend of a friend of mine and he swept me off my feet. He was everything Simon wasn't: warm and considerate and focused solely on me. I wasn't careful about birth control. All those years I had believe our childlessness was my fault but it wasn't. I called Simon when I found out I was pregnant and I asked for a divorce. He refused. He told me that he loved me, and that he wanted me back. He would raise my child as his own. What I didn't know was that Mona had just told him she was pregnant with Gracie and determined to make her marriage work. She loved your father, Gracie, and in the end, it was your father she chose to be with."

She was quiet for a minute or two. "I was always Simon's second choice, but he was the love of my life. I knew he would never love me the way I loved him but it didn't matter. Our lives were bound together and always would be." She left Michael and went back to Simon and they picked up their life together where they had left off.

"What about Michael Shanahan?" Noah's voice was thick with emotion. "What happened to him?"

"Michael is a dear friend," Ruth said softly. "Little did I know that our lives would remain bound together as well." She motioned toward a fabric-covered box resting on the lamp table to her right. "Everything you need to know is in there," she said. Years of letters and notes, newspaper clippings, gallery reviews, wedding and birth announcements. Michael Shanahan married two years after Ruth left him and was now the father of three daughters who shared his love of art and music. She saw the question in Noah's eyes. "He knows all about you, your years at St. Luke's, Sophie—" She stopped for a moment. "He told me that you deserved the whole story. It was something I already knew, but hearing him say it—and seeing you and Gracie with Sophie—gave me the courage at last."

She reached into the pocket of her heavy hand-knit sweater and removed a small white card. "This is Michael's address and phone number. He would like nothing more than to hear from you, Noah. If you choose not to, he'll understand, but I know how much you mean to him."

"If I mean so much, why didn't he ever get in touch with me?"

"Because I asked him not to," Ruth said, her voice heavy. "For Simon's sake, as well as for my own."

For almost thirty years Michael Shanahan had followed his son's life from a distance. In time, he fell in love again and started a family, but a part of his heart would always belong to his first child, the son he had never met.

Simon was the only father Noah had ever known, but it was Michael's blood that flowed through his veins. Who could say which connection was more important? Both men had had the right to claim Noah as their son, but neither had been able to love the child the way he deserved to be loved, openly and unconditionally. That loss had left shadows on Noah's soul that Ruth could never erase.

Next to Noah, Gracie cried softly. Ruth wished she could. Anything would be better than the heavy ache of regret inside her chest. But she pushed forward. The time