Linda, with tears in her eyes, remembered taking Eleanor to specialist after specialist when she was a baby, hoping someone could remove the mark. She said she thanked heaven that no doctor had agreed to do it, because otherwise the consequences might have been tragic.
Eleanor quietly agreed and saw no reason to darken the day by revisiting the worst parts of the past.
The conflicts had been resolved, tempers had cooled, and she had come to accept—with real gratitude—that she now had two fathers in her life.
She stayed in touch with Robert gladly, but the place of the most important man in her life would always belong to Daniel.
The man who had devoted himself to scholarship and raised her from infancy still met family complications with the same calm perspective he always had.
Even on that special day, he gave a conference presentation first and only later came by to congratulate his daughter on her new home and the beginning of a new chapter in her life.
