Blessings

In the early hours of a June morning, a young couple drives down the long driveway of Blessings, a sprawling white clapboard estate in the small town of Mount Mason. The young woman is visibly unwell. The young man places a cardboard box on the flagstone steps of the garage apartment, despite the girl's insistence that he leave it at the main house. They drive away, the girl weeping. The box shudders, then is still.

The estate's eighty-year-old owner, Lydia Blessing, stirs in bed but drifts back to sleep. The next morning, Skip Cuddy, the property's new caretaker, finds the box. Inside is a newborn baby girl, wrapped in a flannel shirt with her umbilical cord clamped by a blue enamel butterfly hair clip. Raised by an aunt and uncle after his mother died and his father abandoned him, Skip recently served ten months in county jail: His childhood friend Chris robbed a convenience store while Skip waited outside as the getaway driver. Skip refused to implicate Chris or their friend Joe.

Skip buys formula and supplies. The first days are grueling, but around the tenth day the baby settles into a regular pattern. Skip resolves to raise her, rejecting the idea of turning her over to authorities, which he associates with impermanence and foster care. He straps her to his chest and works hunched over to hide her from Mrs. Blessing, who watches the property through binoculars.

The narrative alternates between Skip's struggles and Mrs. Blessing's perspective, layered with memory. Her housekeeper, Nadine, a Korean woman who married into the local Foster family, warns that Skip has been in jail, but Mrs. Blessing dismisses the concern. Lydia's memories reveal a life shaped by secrets: Her mother, Ethel, was secretly Jewish and had changed her family name to Simpson, and Ethel's wealth from the textile business funded the family's lifestyle. Lydia's brother, Sunny, was witty and melancholy, dismissed by their father as "a disappointment."

On the Fourth of July, a violent thunderstorm knocks out the power and triggers the alarm. Mrs. Blessing makes her way to the garage apartment and discovers the baby sleeping in a bureau drawer. When Skip returns, he explains that the baby was likely left at Blessings because the mother assumed the wealthy estate owner would raise her, and that in a small town, word would spread and authorities would intervene. Mrs. Blessing does not fire him and begins to soften. Skip admits he has not named the baby; he cannot bear to name a child he might not keep.

Lydia's memories reveal a deeper secret. At nineteen, she became pregnant by Frank Askew, a married older man. Benny Carton, the gentle best friend of her brother Sunny, offered to marry her. They wed hastily before Benny shipped overseas during World War II. Benny was killed, and Lydia received the telegram the day their daughter, Meredith, took her first steps. Meredith's red hair and widow's peak came from Askew, not Benny. Lydia's mother sold the family's New York apartment and gave Lydia an allowance, making clear she knew about the affair. Lydia never returned to New York.

Skip names the baby Faith. Mrs. Blessing becomes increasingly involved, listening through a baby monitor and feeding Faith while Skip works. She brings Jennifer Foster, Nadine's eighteen-year-old daughter and a nursing student she has mentored since childhood, into the secret. Jennifer becomes a regular helper. Skip argues that motherhood is earned through daily care, not biology. Mrs. Blessing says she will consult her lawyer about securing Faith's future.

During a rainy September lunch on the porch, Faith rolls over for the first time, and all three celebrate. Jennifer calls her "Faith Cuddy," and Mrs. Blessing laughs for what seems like the first time in years. Afterward, Mrs. Blessing imagines the Park Avenue life she might have had and realizes it would have been no better. The great grievance she has carried, the sense of exile engineered by her mother, loses its power. She calls Meredith, struggling to express feelings of regret and love.

One October night, while Skip is out buying medicine for Faith, Chris orchestrates a break-in at the big house, enlisting Joe and another accomplice, Ed. Skip returns, sees the intruders, and enters with an old shotgun to confront them. Before they can leave, police arrive. Mrs. Blessing appears in the doorway. Seeing Skip holding the gun and a silver teapot, she tells the officers that the man with the gun is her caretaker, Charles Cuddy, implicating him as a burglar. The police discover Faith in the apartment, and a social worker takes the baby.

At the station, Joe and Ed confirm that Skip tried to stop the robbery. The sheriff clears him but reveals that a nineteen-year-old named Paula Benichek was hospitalized with postpartum bleeding in June. Authorities found no trace of her infant and had been investigating a possible homicide. The baby must legally be returned to her mother. Mrs. Blessing, realizing her mistake, tries to find a legal avenue to let Skip keep Faith, but Skip himself believes the child should go back.

The sheriff arranges the handoff at Blessings. Skip drives Faith from foster care, stopping at a playground to watch her laugh. He considers driving away forever but turns back, knowing that being the kind of person who would care for an abandoned baby also means being the kind of person who would return her. He places Faith in Paula's lap and leaves a letter detailing the baby's daily care. Before leaving, he confronts Mrs. Blessing, telling her she knew what kind of person he was and yet judged him as a criminal at a glance. She says only, "I made a mistake." He drives away without looking back.

Going through boxes in the garage attic, Mrs. Blessing finds Sunny's wallet in the blood-stained suit he wore the day he shot himself in the barn. Inside is a photograph of Sunny and Benny together, deliberately folded to hide Lydia, and a wartime letter: "Ben and Sun to the end, just like in Newport. You know." Lydia realizes Sunny and Benny were in love. Her marriage to Benny was not only her rescue but a screen for their relationship. She wonders whether, by marrying Benny, she contributed to Sunny's suicide.

After Skip's departure, Mrs. Blessing's ordered life collapses. One October night, hearing a loon's persistent cry, she puts on her father's old shooting jacket and walks slowly around the pond. She sits in an Adirondack chair where her father used to fish and tilts her head back to look at the full moon. An hour later, the loon flies over her chair, but she can no longer see it. She has died.

Meredith returns for the funeral and the settling of the estate. Mrs. Blessing's will leaves Jennifer enough money for college and medical school and grants Skip lifetime use of the garage apartment and its contents. Cleaning out the attic, Skip discovers seventeen sealed boxes labeled "Simpson's Fine Textiles," each containing fabric concealing bundles of old twenty-dollar bills, roughly seventy thousand dollars total, sent by Lydia's father over the years. Meredith tells Skip the money is meant for him. Paula visits Skip at the garage apartment during the cleanout and mentions wanting to name the child Samantha. Skip tells her firmly that the baby's name is Faith.

Skip decides to buy a house and start a landscaping business. Meredith prepares to sell Blessings. A real estate agent arrives, and Meredith asks whether the sign reading "Blessings" at the end of the driveway should be removed. The agent says to leave it: People love the idea of a place with a name.