Blessings
BLESSINGS is a novel which has very few antagonists but three strong protagonists. Lydia, an 80-year-old widow who still lives on the Blessings farm is one. Another is Skip, a young man who has spent time in jail but is later hired to keep up the farm. The third is an abandoned baby girl that Skip finds and "mothers".
The baby becomes a link between Lydia, Skip, and Jennifer, the daughter of Lydia’s housemaid. Their only fear was that someone, either the biological mother or the law, might come some day to claim her.
But having a baby at the farm helps Lydia recall her own past life, which is more or less the theme of the novel. She remembers when her father first bought the farm and how she and brother Sunny spent precious time together before his mysterious death in the barn. She had married Sunny’s friend Benny, but she was pregnant with another man’s child. After Benny was killed in WW II and her daughter Meredith grew up and married, Lydia had the Blessings farm all to herself. She admitted in her last days that "The past dances with the present in your mind."
Skip had gotten in trouble with another fellow he didn’t really care for. He enjoyed leaving the town of Mount Mason and working on the Blessings farm, and when he found an abandoned baby to take care of, it seemed to give him a purpose in life.
The baby was seldom a problem, and in time it gave Lydia a purpose in life, too. The author expertly lets the child remind the 80-year-old woman of the mistakes in her own life. She remembers being told, "There is a secret in the heart of any family." She, Skip, Jennifer and the child have their own secret, now, and adjust their lives to protect it.
BLESSINGS was first published in 2002.