Mr. Caleb sat across from them both. He was quiet for a moment. Then he looked at Grace directly.
“When you recommended Rebecca to me,” he said, “you did something you could not have known the full weight of.”
He paused.
“Rebecca is my daughter, Grace. I did not know it when she arrived. She did not know it when she arrived. But it is the truth, and it has been confirmed, and I want you to hear it from me.”
Grace stared at him.
She looked at Rebecca.
Rebecca looked back at her, steady and calm.
“Your…” Grace started, then stopped. Her eyes went wide. She pressed 1 hand over her mouth and sat there for a long moment with her eyes moving back and forth between the 2 of them. “Your daughter?”
“Yes,” Mr. Caleb said.
“Rebecca,” Grace breathed. She turned to her. “Did you know? Did you, when I brought you here? Did you?”
“No,” Rebecca said. “I had no idea. Not when I came. Not for the first 2 weeks.” She held Grace’s gaze. “I found out the same way you’re finding out now. 1 piece at a time until there was enough to be certain.”
Grace took her hand slowly from her mouth. She looked at the container of food she had set on the table. She looked at the ceiling. She made a sound that was not quite a laugh and not quite a cry, but something between the 2.
“Grace,” Mr. Caleb said, and there was something in his voice Grace had never heard before, something gentle and unhidden. “I want you to know that the reason any of this is possible, the reason she came through that door at all, is because of you.”
He looked at her steadily.
“You brought her here. You trusted me with her. You did not know what you were doing, but you did it.” He paused. “I don’t know how to properly thank you for that.”
Grace pressed her lips together very tightly. She was not going to cry. She had never cried in this house in 5 years, and she was not about to start now.
She almost managed it.
“Oh,” she said in a very small voice.
Then she picked up her container and set it back down again and looked at Rebecca and said, “I brought groundnut soup. I didn’t know we were celebrating. I just came to check on you.”
She waved her hand at the container. “But it’s enough for 3.”
Rebecca smiled.
It was the most complete smile she had shown in that house, full and warm and reaching her eyes.
“Then we’ll eat together,” she said.