The girls broke her heart—Laila and Gitte. They’d worshipped their grandmother as much as they worshipped her son. Nora spent all evening with Gitte on her lap and Laila at her side. By nightfall Søren had to pry both unconscious girls off her. They’d fallen asleep after wearing themselves out with tears. Gitte she carried to bed. Laila had gotten so tall only her uncle could lift her. She woke up as he’d started to gather her in his arms.
“I can walk, you know,” she said into his shoulder.
“Are you going to?” he asked when she leaned her head sleepily against his chest.
“No.”
He laughed as he hefted the almost six-foot-tall girl off the sofa and into his arms.
“Want to trade?” Nora asked Søren. “This one’s a little more manageable.” Gitte was getting tall, too, but she still didn’t weigh much.
“Yes. I’ll toss you Laila. You throw me Gitte.”
“Terrible idea,” a half-asleep Laila murmured when they reached her bedroom. “Throw Gitte first.”
Søren tossed Laila onto her bed and ordered her to go to sleep immediately. She shut her eyes and started to feign snores.
“Good girl,” he said, pinching her nose before turning the lights off and shutting her door behind him. Nora watched from the door and smiled at them through her tears. In Gitte’s room, Søren pulled the covers down and left Nora alone with the little girl as she helped her into her pajamas.
“Mormor’s not coming back, is she?” Gitte asked, half in English, half in Danish.
“No, baby, she’s not. She’s in heaven with her mor and far. You’ll see her again someday.”Gitte had nodded, taking comfort in the promises of grown-ups even if she didn’t understand them.
“Are you coming back?”
Nora had swallowed hard against the rock in her throat.
“I never left,” she said, kissing the girl good-night and fleeing before more tears could fall.
Alone at last with Søren in the small but elegantly furnished guest room, Nora collapsed into his arms and set her tears free. It should be a simple thing to let go of someone so good. She believed in God, trusted Him...why was it so hard to let Him have Søren’s mother? She wanted Gisela back for her sake, for Søren’s sake. Her own mother didn’t understand her, didn’t trust her judgment, didn’t believe her when she said, despite appearances, Søren was the best man alive and that he would never hurt her, not in the way that mattered. But Søren’s mother had loved them together. From day one when Eleanor Schreiber had first set foot in this house, Gisela had embraced her, called her a daughter, told her she was happy her son had someone who loved him so much.
Every year, sometimes twice a year, she and Søren would sneak away to Denmark for a week. The church knew he had family in Europe and one of the priests at Saint Peter’s loved taking over Søren’s masses at Sacred Heart. No other congregation in the diocese was so devoted, so devout, so respectful of the priesthood as Søren’s. For her twenty-third birthday, Søren had brought her home again. Nowhere else had Nora ever felt such love, such ready acceptance. The family loved not only her and not only him, they loved them, loved her and Søren together. She’d carried Laila on her back and when Gitte was born carried her in her arms. She taught the girls songs she remembered from her own childhood days in Sunday school. She showered them with gifts of books.
Nora remembered standing in the doorway of the nursery and watching in awe as Søren paced back and forth with a colicky six-month-old Gitte on his shoulder, letting her cry it out for an hour until she finally slept. Even then he still held her, worried putting her in her crib would wake her back up again. It had hurt to see that, hurt more than she ever wanted to admit to. Most of the time, having children wasn’t even a blip on her radar. Her heart yearned for other types of creation than motherhood. Søren, though, would have been the best of fathers. Patient, fearless, kind and terrifyingly protective. She’d been afraid to ask him back then if he wanted her to have his children. He wouldn’t have been the first priest with a shadow family, after all. But she hadn’t asked because she feared the answer. A “yes” would have broken her spirit of independence. A “no” would have broken her heart.
This was her family, Søren’s family. They knew she and Søren weren’t allowed to be together. They no more cared what the pope said about their relationship than they cared what the weatherman said about a rainstorm in China. And so on her twenty-third birthday, after Freyja had put Gitte to bed and Søren had left with Laila for a bedtime story, Gisela had given her the white cloth.
Without explanation, Nora had known what the square of linen meant, where Gisela had gotten it.
“I can’t take this,” she said. “This belongs to you.”
“And I am giving it to you,” Gisela said, laying her hand gently on Nora’s face. “I know you and he can never marry. I would have loved to have seen that wedding, watched the church bless you both...but it’s only a dream. I want you to have it. Please do me the honor of letting me give it to the woman who should be my daughter-in-law. Even if the church can’t bless you, I can. This is my blessing.”
She’d taken the linen cloth and held it to her heart. She’d said nothing, could say nothing. There were no words.
* * *