Page 174 of The Seven Rings
Sonya lowered her head for a kiss of her own.
“She’s going to sleep. Just like that! She’s sleeping.”
“We’re going to take advantage of that, since she’s proven she prefers awake. I’ll put her down.”
Anna took the baby, settled her in the bassinet by the couch.
“And while she’s sleeping, there’s iced tea and shortbread cookies.” Corrine gestured toward the banquette. “Mine are nearly as good as Anna’s.”
“They’re wonderful. Fiona has the most wonderful grandparents in the history of grandparents.” Anna walked over to hug her mother.
“I can confirm that,” Seth said. “They cook, they do laundry, runerrands, give us some nap time when we need it. They taught us the essential threes’s.”
“Swaddle, sway, and shh.”
Corrine grinned at Cleo. “You have been around before. Let’s sit down.”
Sonya detoured to pick up the basket. “Some welcome-home gifts from the manor.”
“I’m going to say you didn’t have to do that, which you already know. And add, we love presents. Seth, Mom, look! A plush pink dragon. Oh, and a onesie with pink dragons.”
“The sisters of Baby Mine tell me you can never have too many onesies.”
“They’re not wrong.”
When Anna reached for the wrapped package in the basket, Cleo tapped her hand. “That’s the finale.”
She oohed her way through the basket.
“This is all so thoughtful, so soft, charming, sweet. I can’t even imagine the finale.”
Grinning, she rubbed her hands together, then unwrapped the box. She lifted the lid, removed the padding.
Then her eyes filled. Shaking her head, she reached for Seth’s hand on one side, her mother’s on the other.
“I… can’t. I can’t even… Seth.”
“Not sure I can either.” As carefully as he’d held his daughter, he lifted out the double frame with its pastels of the newborn, and the facing one of the new family.
“This is… it’s a treasure. I can look at these, and I feel exactly the way I did when… It’s a treasure.”
“We wanted to do something that captured the moment,” Cleo told them, “and with the softness, the sweetness of that moment. So we worked on them together.”
“We did have wonderful subjects to work with,” Sonya added as Corrine pulled out tissues for her daughter and herself, then a third for Seth. “Couldn’t go wrong.”
“A treasure, just as Seth said.” Corrine took a long breath. “Thetreasure of that beautiful new life, the treasure of a new family just begun, and the treasure of good friends who understand.”
September held on to summer, but Sonya felt fall pushing it aside. Not just by the cooler, longer nights, but the tonal change of the light.
For now, the leaves stayed lush and green with only a hint or two of the color to come. But they basked in light that took on a golden hue. Even working at her desk, she sensed it in the way the sun slanted through the windows.
Determined to continue with her quest, she carved out a few hours during the week to work solo in the ballroom. That determination included showing Hester Dobbs she wouldn’t be cowed.
She stood in the ballroom, turning a circle, looking at the notes she’d put in place. And realized she’d not only started, but finished.
She’d been through every piece.
Understanding, Clover offered U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
