Lynn had been heartbroken, confiding in Quincy that she felt that William blamed her somehow. But the big man had only taken her hands in his own. “Don’t you see it, Lynn? He’s afraid. He’s afraid that somehow, he’ll awaken whatever’s in you.”
“But it’s not there anymore,” she’d said. “He changed us. Changed us all back to what we were. It’s gone.”
Anne and Chris had returned with the boys two weeks later. Lynn tried to show a brave face. “The baby is so beautiful. But he’s not coming back, Mom. He said he never will.”
A year later, Quincy had sent his plane with a simple message for her: “William wants his grandmother to meet his son.”
So Lynn and Roxy had boarded Quincy’s luxury plane and headed for, of all places, the eastern Caribbean. He warned her again that this was no tropical paradise.
She’d understood William’s reasoning: He wanted a place so remote that no one, especially the world’s press, desperate to understand the return of the missing and the disasters, could ever find him. Or his new family.
Lynn looked at the woman driving the Jeep. “You work as a doctor here? Who takes care of the baby?”
She gave Lynn an amused smile. “William does, of course. It takes a village is a way of life here. You’ll see.”
They drove on rough dirt roads, the branches of trees sometimes smacking the sides of the Jeep. The sight of butterflies weaving among the leaves helped to calm Lynn’s racing heart.
“There are paved roads that lead to the resorts, and I’m sorry we can’t take them,” Jane yelled.
“Where do you live?” Roxy asked from the back seat.
“We’re not far now,” she said, pulling onto an even rougher road, blanketed by shadows. Navigating the potholes, apologizing profusely to Lynn for the bumping, she took another turn and stopped.
William had forbidden his father and brothers from taking pictures, but they’d described the home. A shack, Brian had complained.
But it wasn’t. In fact, Lynn could tell it was sturdy. William had always taken to manual labor.
“I’ll admit, it’s not much to look at,” Jane said, sliding out.
It seemed to be made of reclaimed wood, with a dark blue paint. “It can be challenging at times, getting around. But the resorts and hotels need doctors all the time, so they often just bring a boat for me,” Jane said.
She helped Lynn step out of the Jeep. “I understood most of your work is with the indigenous people?”
“It is. It took us awhile to earn their trust. But after William helped rebuild so many of their homes, they started allowing me to help treat whatever ailments would arise. They built most of this home. And when Will is working on homes and I’m at the resorts, they come here to watch the baby.”
Lynn forced a smile, trying to swallow her jealousy of other people caring for the great-grandson she’d never met.
“You’ll meet them, Lynn, we want you to meet them all… well, look who’s up.”
The screen on the front door opened. William stepped through, carrying a large toddler with a shock of red hair.
Lynn couldn’t stop the tears. Jane reached out and touched her arm, Roxy resting her hand on the small of her back as William walked off the porch.
“Nanna, Roxy,” he said, lifting the boy a bit higher. “I want you to meet Tommy Christopher Chance.”
Lynn covered her mouth; the boy smiled. It was like looking at William at one year old. She stepped forward and embraced them both, kissing the boy’s face and then William’s.
“I have missed you so much,” William said.
“He looks so much like your mother,” Lynn said, wiping her eyes.
“I think he looks just like you,” William said.
“Let’s go inside, have some lunch,” Jane said. “Will, let your grandmother carry Tommy.”
Lynn held her breath, taking the boy. She waited for tears, maybe a cry of unfamiliarity. But he just looked at her with interest and smiled.
After the dishes were washed, and Jane and Roxy were deep in a conversation about how to survive without pizza, William asked Lynn to take a walk. It was time for Tommy’s nap, but he was all laughter and showing off in full force. So William had scooped him up, slathered him with sunscreen and bug spray.
They’d taken a trail from the house to the beach, which opened up to a breathtaking sight of white sand and stunning hues of green and blue. “I know it looks like paradise, but it wasn’t at first. I pretty much expected Jane to leave every day for about six months. But you’d be surprised at how quickly you get to know someone when there’s no TV, no internet, and no phones. And the pregnancy was not planned.”
“She seems really wonderful. But surely her family is upset about this….”
He took a deep breath. “Don’t be angry, but they’ve been here twice now. And they’re not happy. But her parents understand as much as they can. Even with everything that’s public now, it’s hard to believe that your daughter was caught up in it.”
“It’s been hard for a lot of people. My phone doesn’t stop ringing. All those families reunited. And new families formed. You know the adoption was finalized.”
William smiled. “To think of Aunt Kate with a seventeen-year-old son. I guess she really took a liking to Ryan.”
“He’s a really good boy. He fits in nicely into the family.”
“I’d like to get them here one day. Stella too. Strange to think of Kate as a mother.”
“She’s a great one, too. Ryan had nowhere to go, and Kate just made it very clear that she’d promised to come back for him. Stella told me about the other man. Juan was his name?”
“Back in California. She found out he has his own farm now. He obviously doesn’t keep in touch, given that he still thinks I’m the devil.”
“Well, he’s wrong about that. I’m so proud. You ended it. For all of us.”
“No, Nanna. You did. It was always you. No one else but you even figured out about the ladybugs. If the government had, I don’t know if they would have even allowed us to live. I still get a bit nervous when I see a bunch of them crawling together. But at least they don’t swarm into the sky.”
Lynn shook her head. “I remember thinking it simply couldn’t be. But I saw it above the trees. At first, I thought it was how they marked the locations of abductions. But now I think… it’s how they communicated what they had done to us. How they had altered us.”
“I saw the same above that formation in North Dakota. I knew then and there that nothing would ever save all of us. We’d changed. In the end, it was how I knew, when I was trapped in that… thing…, that perhaps I could change everyone back.”
Lynn stopped, the breeze blowing her hair. “I know that’s why you stay here. Why you always will. Because you reversed what they did to all of us, but you didn’t do it to yourself, did you?”
William looked out over the beach. “I failed. I couldn’t do it in the end. My plan was to alter what they’d done to us, and then remove myself, to make sure no one could ever be switched back. But I saw the chance for revenge, and I took it. It died, and I was out of bullets.”
Lynn exhaled, leaning into his shoulder. “I’m glad. We all are.”
He shook his head. “We all live with the mistakes we make, don’t we, Nanna?”
“Yes we do,” she said softly.