A Daughter's Trust

“I think it’s a good idea for you to keep it, Sue,” Luke explained. “Sam won’t be able to get it from your mother, and he won’t know to come to you.”

“And even if he did, he’d never, ever get it from me,” Sue said. She was a strong woman. She could count on herself.

But she needed people, too.

“What does Sam want with this?” Rick asked, indicating the box.

“Probably to sell it,” Sue said. “It’s been in our family for generations. Losing it to my uncle’s avariciousness would be criminal. Horrible.”

“I think he wants it to solidify his right to it,” Jenny said. “Being the only child of Robert and Sarah, being ruler of the family, seems to be his driving force. I’ve just never been able to figure out why.”

Sue wished her mother would quit trying. And yet she took an odd comfort in the fact that she knew Jenny wouldn’t. Because that was who she was.

The woman who’d given Sue life. Who’d always been her champion. Her support. Whose greatest sin was in wanting Sue to always know that she was loved.

Thinking of Carrie asleep in her crib, Sue hoped that someday she could be half the mother Jenny Bookman was.

The four of them talked long into the night. About Adam and Joe. Sarah, Robert and Jo. About Daniel—Jo’s child with her second husband—so set apart. About Nancy. And Christy. And about Hannah. Sue cried as her husband-to-be told her parents about the daughter he’d lost.

And she loved her parents so much when they asked if they could visit the girl’s grave with them before they flew home the next day.

Trying to understand, they talked about Jo giving Jenny away. About Robert continuing his affair with Jo after Adam was born. About Rick’s mom unable to sign away her rights to her son so he could be adopted. And Christy, who’d ended her own life. They wondered, in the quiet safety of their small circle, if things might have been different, better, had one person done one thing differently.

And in the end, they could only find one answer. Love. Love brought understanding. It brought forgiveness. It held families together, brought them together. And as long as there was family, there would be love.

Rick slid the box on his lap between Sue’s hand and his, pushing it into her palm. “You haven’t looked at this.”

“I know.”

“Maybe you should.”

She stared at the box. Wanted to hide it in a bottom drawer and forget about it. Just as she’d tried to forget that bathroom floor so many years ago.

Sue opened the box. And stared at the marvelously intricate gold chain with the heart-shaped diamond surrounded by sapphires of the purest blue.

“That’s magnificent,” Rick said in a near whisper. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It belongs in a museum,” Luke agreed. “Except that in this family, it’s not a jewel, or a piece of art. It’s the heart that holds us all together.”

Through a blur of tears, Sue continued to look at the heirloom that had been at her grandmother’s throat for every important family event she could remember. Graduations. Robert’s retirement. Luke’s retirement. Sue’s mom and dad’s going-away party when they moved to Florida.

Whatever else Grandma had done, whatever secrets she’d kept, she’d loved them all with her whole heart. She’d given them her whole life.

And Sarah Sue Carson was going to continue the legacy.