Understanding pierced, scattering all confusion.
“She was talking about the one Father who won’t fail you,” Nancy confirmed. “Goldie always felt bad that you didn’t get to church more. She would have taken you, were she well enough. When she said, ‘Redeem this,’ she was praying. I must have heard her say that prayer a thousand times over the years. She wasn’t giving you an order. She’d never tell you to fix what wasn’t yours to solve. She only wanted you to know your true Father’s love.”
A guilt she didn’t know she still carried took flight from Lauren’s shoulders, leaving her unbalanced. Joe’s arm came around her waist, holding her steady. “Thank you, Nancy,” she breathed.
The old woman smiled with a kindness Lauren hadn’t seen from her before. “Come see me sometime.” She gave her address and telephone number. “Young man, you carry on guarding this girl’s well-being. You keep her heart safe, do you hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nancy walked away.
“I need to sit down,” Lauren whispered.
“Wait.” Joe took off his overcoat and spread it on the ground. He held her hand, and they sat.
“I put my faith in God early on,” Lauren said. “But in my teenage years, I grew angrier with Lawrence’s distance. His absence. Somewhere along the way, I thought of God as remote and uninterested, too. It must have worried her that my view of God was dimmed by my view of my father.”
“Your mother might not have been able to take you to church, but she showed you God’s love nonetheless, didn’t she?”
“Better than anyone else.” Memories burst upon her with reborn clarity. When Lauren climbed the tree, pretending to be a bird while she watched for someone else, Mother had stayed, promising to be her nest when she landed. When Lauren hid beneath her father’sdesk, pretending to be a sleeping bear, Mother had let her, but said she would be there when Lauren woke up.
When Mother found Lauren sleeping on the hardwood floor, she forsook her own bed and came down to her.
When Lauren locked herself inside Lawrence’s office with emotions too big to handle, Mother knocked on the door and even tried to climb through the window.
“I felt so alone, but I didn’t have to be,” she said. “Mother let me chase after something else, but she loved me unconditionally the whole time. She was there. She waited for me to reach back to her.”
Joe’s deep baritone rumbled as he hummed, and she recognized the tune.“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love....”
“She wished you knew your heavenly Father,” Joe said. “She modeled His love with her own.”
“Yes, she did.” The pansies blurred into purple smudges against the tombstone. “The love I chased after was false. The love she offered was pure.”
“I’m sure she would be happy you know that now. She wouldn’t want you to spend one drop of energy feeling guilty for not understanding that until...” His voice trailed away.
“Until I was sitting before her grave?” Lauren’s smile wobbled.
“You were a child in an impossible situation. Your mother knew that.”
He was right.
“It’s never too late to feel a mother’s love.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “And it’s not too late to truly grasp how wide and deep is the love of my Father.”
CHAPTER
38
FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 1926
Lauren didn’t know if she could do this. Worse, she didn’t know if she should.
The curtain shielded the stage from a packed lecture hall in the Egyptian wing. Tonight was the opening of her special exhibition. Soon, the curtains would part, and she would face more patrons than she’d seen in months. Some had fallen prey to Lawrence. All of them had heard about it. None would want to see the forger’s daughter.
“Mr. Lythgoe or Mr. Winlock should be here.” Lauren stood offstage, nerves fraying. “We ought to have postponed the opening.” But the Met’s curator of Egyptian art and the expedition director had been delayed by weather and wouldn’t return for another three weeks.
“We’ve been over this.” Mr. Robinson smoothed the necktie behind his vest. “Delaying the opening would throw off the schedule for other events. More importantly, you can do this. You cataloged the art, interpreted it, designed the narrative, arranged loans from other museums, and managed a minutiae of details I’m sure I don’t even know about. This is your show, Dr. Westlake. It might as well be your night.”
She smiled that he’d remembered her doctorate degree. If Anitawas here instead of waiting in the front row, she’d dance a jig. But Lauren remained unconvinced. “I want the art to be the spectacle. Not me. It’s not too late to ask Mr. Clarke to give his standby lecture tonight instead. People would love it, and he would love their affirmation.”
