Hearts at Home by Lori Copeland Page A

Shots in younger days.
    Annie whistled with a new appreciation for the family history. Olympia had always said her marriage caused a scandal in the family, and now Annie could understand why. The age difference was noticeable.
    The scrapbook held other pictures—the young couple with their new baby boy, that same boy in a baseball uniform, then in a cap, gown, and honors regalia, graduating from Yale Law School. Sprinkled among the boy pictures, Annie found photos of a skinny little girl peering around the corner of the house, one arm wrapped around a scrawny kitten, the other clinging tight to Caleb’s hand. Several pictures featured Olympia standing or sitting beside the little girl, but never touching her.
    Annie felt her heart contract as grief rose within her, black and cold. In every picture of her and Olympia, concern and care were etched into the older woman’s face, while the little girl just looked . . . lost.
    â€œYou shouldn’t blame yourself, Annie.”
    She jumped when Caleb’s voice broke the silence. Turning, she saw him standing in the doorway, a look of compassion on his face.
    â€œI just—I was looking for something to help the pastor.”
    â€œI know. But I saw your expression just now. You must never feel guilty for coming into Olympia’s and Edmund’s life. They loved you, dear heart, even if your arrival was a surprise.”
    As Caleb came into the room, Annie turned another page and found herself staring at several faded real estate brochures. “Live in Sunny Bradenton,” one of them proclaimed, while another advertised a development on Captiva Island.
    â€œWhat are these?” She picked one up and smiled at the dated drawing of a little girl in pigtails on the beach. “I never knew Aunt Olympia liked Florida.”
    Caleb sat on the edge of the bed. “In the fall of ’80 or ’81, when Edmund Junior went away to school, Olympia and Edmund toyed with the idea of selling the house and moving south. Edmund was going to work in a bank down there, and Olympia was looking forward to the sunshine. If I remember correctly, they even put Frenchman’s Fairest on the market. The place was in better shape then—they would have made a tidy profit. They were all set to move.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    Before the words finished echoing in the room, Annie knew the answer. Her parents had died in ’82, killed in a plane crash as her father attempted to land on the Ogunquit airstrip. Shortly after the accident, she had arrived at Frenchman’s Fairest.
    Caleb’s eyes warmed slightly, and the hint of a smile acknowledged the success of her reasoning. “Your mother and father were coming to pay Olympia and Edmund a farewell visit when the plane went down. After that, Olympia said she couldn’t leave. She always said Heavenly Daze was the best place on earth to raise a child, and she didn’t want to raise Ferrell’s daughter in Floridy. She said you’d be freckled as a guinea hen if you grew up down there.”
    Annie lifted the brochure again, regarding it in a new light. “They gave up their dream . . . for me?”
    â€œThey were happy to do it, especially when they fell in love with you. So you shouldn’t feel at all guilty about it.”
    Annie closed her eyes as a fresh onslaught of tears threatened to destroy her makeup. Seems all she’d done over the last twenty-four hours was cry. The island women had done their best to comfort her, but they’d wept, too, all of them boo-hooing over things they wished they’d told Olympia and things they regretted having said.
    Edith Wickam had been the most helpful. With Annie’s input, she’d outlined a dignified procedure for the funeral. Knowing Olympia’s fondness for history and her place in the Heavenly Daze lineage, Edith planned to summon all the townspeople to the ferry dock at 3 PM, just as the sun would begin to dip