The sidewalk was empty and there were only a few cars on the road. None of them were going slow enough to suggest the driver might be looking for a missing child. As cars zoomed by, they sloshed through newly formed puddles, and the beat of car wipers matched the thud, thud, thud of Grace’s heart.
“Do you know where your mommy is? Or your daddy?” Grace asked the girl, who shook her head forlornly.
She tried all the techniques she’d learned through years as a parent and teacher, but the girl refused to speak, not even to give her name. Soon the police and an ambulance were on the scene. Arthur came with Ryan and brought Jack home, but Grace wouldn’t leave the girl’s side, insisting that she accompany her to the hospital.
She was like a ghost, an apparition that had appeared one day out of the void. Grace had never been a believer in destiny, even though her name came from the Latin gratia, （meaning God’s favor,”）。 but she couldn’t help thinking that there’d been a touch of the divine in the timing of it all. The little girl could speak, she did speak eventually, but refused to say her name or explain how it was that she ended up alone in the park. She could not, would not, tell anyone who had left her there, or where she’d come from.
Doctors were quick to diagnose post-traumatic stress disorder, but thankfully found no signs of physical or sexual abuse. As for Grace, she couldn’t forget the profound look of sorrow and fright in this child’s eyes, the likes of which she had never seen before. Grace spent hours in the hospital, and told the girl, whose name she did not know, not to be frightened, that she’d be back in the morning to check on her. When the girl started to cry, Grace had a reclining chair brought in, got some blankets and a pillow, and spent a fitful night’s sleep in the girl’s room in the children’s wing of the North Shore Medical Center.
When daylight came, Grace went home, but returned later with a huge stuffed animal, a bear she’d bought at a local toy store. Spent hours reading to the girl, drawing with her, playing games, and hearing her sweet little laugh for the first time. Whoever this child was, whatever her name, she was perfect and sweet as could be. That was the day, in the hospital room, with just the two of them, playing their games, as a patter of rain from the slow-moving weather system continued to fall outside, that Grace’s heart burst wide open and love, profound love for this precious being, filled her from head to toe.
Tips came in soon, as the girl’s face appeared on the local news, which was how Grace learned the child’s name was Isabella Boyd. According to the many tipsters, the mother was a woman named Rachel Boyd, from Lynn, Massachusetts. Soon, police issued a warrant for Rachel’s arrest. Rachel turned herself in to the authorities, and confessed to having abandoned Isabella because she couldn’t care for both a child and her drug habit at the same time.
It was Rachel’s idea to give up her parental rights. In exchange, police would drop the child abandonment charges. On her own, she had come to the difficult decision that her daughter would have a brighter future with a mother who had more means and no addictions. She didn’t want to be an influence in her daughter’s new life, and agreed to a closed adoption should a willing family come forward.
Grace was more than willing. She had always wanted a daughter, and God had seen fit to send her one.
* * *
“You named her Penny? Why didn’t you keep her given name?”
“She refused to answer to the name Isabella, so Jack—my middle son, very creative and clever—came up with the idea of calling her Penny. We found her and picked her up, he said, so now she’s our good luck. The name just sort of stuck and eventually Penny started answering to it. When the adoption went through, we got the privilege of making that name permanent. Now she is officially Penny Isabella Francone.”
“The state didn’t give you any difficulty with the adoption?” Mitch asked.
“No, not really. We just followed the process,” Grace said. “Rachel was out of the picture early on. The Department of Children and Families told us she had moved to Rhode Island, but we weren’t in touch, for obvious reasons.”
“And the birth father?”
“According to Rachel it could have been any number of men. None of them wanted anything to do with raising a child. She was ours to love and care for.”
McHugh was writing something down in the folder when his cell phone rang. As he spoke, she watched his expression register a deepening concern. He ended the call and his eyes focused on Grace.