Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
M argot cleaned the kitchen and made herself and her mother steaming cups of green tea. Together—as though it were a far different and earlier year, they sat in front of the television and watched the slender blond woman on The Cooking Channel start a soufflé. Maybe because Lillian had decided to trust Margot, even if she wasn’t fully sure who she was right now, Lillian said, “That little girl doesn’t know what she’s up against. There’s no way she can make a soufflé.”
“You don’t think so?” Margot asked.
“She’s nothing but skin and bones. You have to have grit to make a soufflé.”
It was a funny quote , Margot thought. It was amusing enough for a cooking show. Maybe Lillian—with all her personality and hot-headedness—had been meant to be famous. Instead, she’d been the mother of four children (although she’d only set out to mother three). Instead, she was a widow and losing herself to Alzheimer’s.
Life is never what we plan for , Margot thought. Then she reminded herself that the life she’d built—owning her own flower shop—was one she was rather proud of. No, she didn’t have a romantic partner or any real close friends. But nothing was perfect.
At least she wasn’t her mother.
Suddenly, during a commercial break, it was as though the light in Lillian’s mind flipped back on again. She turned and gave Margot a shadowy smile. “Margot, are you going to tell me why you’re here or what?”
Margot gaped at her. It was almost like her mother was playing a game with her—testing her to see what she knew and what she didn’t.
An advertisement for a cotton candy machine played on the television, and two cartoon children were eating as much as they could at once. The music was sugary sweet.
“You haven’t been here in years, Margot,” Lillian said. “You could have called beforehand. I would have put something on the stove.”
Margot remembered what she’d read about Alzheimer’s—that in the early days of it, it was a little like turning on and off the switch of the mind. But now that her mother’s eyes glinted with ferocity again, just as they always had, Margot was even more terrified. There had been a comfort with that other version of Lillian—the Lillian who didn’t remember her.
“Are you going to say something? Or are you going to sit there, staring at me?” Lillian continued.
The knock on the front door nearly made Margot leap out of her skin.
“What is that racket?” Lillian demanded. “Margot, what is going on?”
Margot hopped to her feet, nearly spilling her green tea. “A friend is coming by.”
“A friend? You have all these friends coming and going all the time. I’ve had enough.”
But now the blond woman was back on television with her soufflé, and Lillian was distracted again. “Here we go,” Lillian said. “Let’s see what you’re made of,” she said to the blond woman.
It was, incidentally, what Lillian had previously said to Margot when she was growing up. “Let’s see what you’re made of” when it came to everything from riding a bike to baking cookies to cleaning the bathroom.
Margot swept across the room and into the foyer. Sam was on the front stoop, wearing a strained smile and shivering. As soon as she was inside, Margot hugged her harder than she’d hugged anyone in years. Sam seemed to sense how much she needed it.
Their hug broke as Lillian yelled at the blond woman on television. “Give me a break! You did not make that yourself! It’s all a big lie!”
Sam gave Margot a confused smile.
“She’s angry at The Cooking Channel. I’m just glad she isn’t angry with me,” Margot said.
Sam grimaced. “This isn’t how I imagined you coming back. What a mess! I’m sorry it’s been like this.”
Margot raised her shoulders and bit her tongue to keep from crying. She suddenly remembered how, yesterday, Estelle had told her that Sam’s daughter Rachelle had been on The Cooking Channel last year. She wondered if Lillian had watched Rachelle; she wondered if she’d rooted for her or yelled at her from this side of the television screen.
“I’m sorry. You should come in,” Margot beckoned. “I have tea and, um, pudding?”
“Listen,” Sam said, looking nervous. “I need to talk to the girl.”
For a split second, Margot couldn’t remember what Sam was talking about. Her brain was overcrowded.
“Oh. She ran off, I guess.”
Sam looked deflated.
“I don’t know her,” Margot said, feeling defensive, as though it was up to her to take care of the girl and she’d failed. “She came into my life and left just as quickly.”
Sam rubbed the back of her neck. Margot’s instinct was to offer her pudding again, but she’d already done that. They stood stupidly in the foyer until Lillian called out to them, “Margot? Are you going to do the dishes like you said you would?”
Margot’s stomach ached with hunger and confusion.
“I don’t think she fully knows what’s going on right now,” Margot said.
“I imagine not,” Sam said. “It’s good you’re here.”
Margot sighed. “You think you know the girl?”
“Hmm?” Sam seemed distracted.
“The teenager. Why do you want to talk to her?”
Sam was hesitant. It was increasingly clear that something was going on, something Sam didn’t want to tell Margot about. Margot couldn’t take it.
“Come on, Sam. I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”
Sam looked down. “You’re going to be angry with me.”
“I’m not. I’m too exhausted to be angry.”
“Someone else was helping us look for Lillian today,” Sam said. “I ran into him the other night and told him you were coming back. He knows the island so well. I figured he could help.”
Margot’s heart dropped into her stomach. She immediately knew who Sam meant.
As Sam continued to speak, explaining herself, Margot’s mind’s eye filled with images of him: Noah Carson leaning forward to kiss her on the Ferris wheel; Noah Carson holding her hand on the boardwalk; Noah Carson standing up for her when her mother screamed and screamed at her; and Noah Carson falling asleep with his head in her lap.
Noah Carson, the only man she’d ever loved. Of course, he hadn’t really been a man the last time she’d seen him—twenty years ago.
“I’m sorry, Margot,” Sam finished. “But there’s something bigger at stake now.”
Margot blinked at her. She was in a daze. In the next room, Lillian cackled at the blond woman and said, “Fat chance!”
“Mona died a couple of weeks ago,” Sam said.
Margot gasped and threw her hands over her mouth. Mona Carson! Noah’s cool, beautiful, sleek, sophisticated older sister! Mona Carson, who snuck them beers when they weren’t old enough to buy them and who’d told them funny jokes and teased them about how “in love” they were. “It’s gross how much you love each other,” she’d said. “It’s like you’re fifty years old.”
It was impossible that Mona was dead.
“Oh. Poor Noah,” Margot whispered. “I’m so sorry to hear it.”
“That isn’t all,” Sam said softly. “Mona had a daughter. She’s been in a bit of trouble since her mother died. Today, she started school and ran away at lunchtime.”
Slowly, everything clicked into place. Margot’s mouth hung open. My goodness.
“That girl was Noah’s niece?” Margot whispered.
“I mean, probably,” Sam said.
“Do you have a picture of her?” Margot asked.
Sam shook her head. “I could ask Noah for one?”
“She’s like sixteen, right? I’m sure she has social media.” Margot grabbed her phone to search and promptly realized she didn’t know the girl’s name. She’d avoided every question Margot had thrown at her.
“Avery,” Sam supplied. “Avery Carson.”
“She doesn’t have her dad’s last name?”
“There never was a dad,” Sam offered.
Margot took a breath.
“She said she was born here but spent the past few years in Boston?”
“Yeah. Mona left the island to follow some loser,” Sam said. “Noah was broken up about it. The relationship didn’t work out. I think Mona was too embarrassed to come back after that.”
Margot’s heart thumped. Suddenly, all she wanted was to ask what she knew she couldn’t ask. How had Mona died?
But she sensed knowing that wouldn’t help anything. It might just make everything worse.
“Is anyone going to get me a pudding?” Lillian called from the sofa.
Feeling out of her mind, Margot stumbled out of the foyer, through the living room, and into the kitchen. Sam greeted Lillian gently, and Lillian said, “There’s the floozy who dumped my son. What’s she doing here?”
Sam came into the kitchen, laughing behind her hand. Margot had to hand it to her. Sam was too powerful, too comfortable in her own skin to let Lillian get to her. Margot wished she was the same.
Margot brought her mother some pudding, remembering how eagerly Avery—if that was really Avery—had eaten her share.
As her mother ate pudding slowly, her eyes on the television, Margot searched online for Avery Carson. It didn’t take long until she found an Instagram account wherein Avery Carson had posted only five photos: three selfies of herself and a woman who looked very much like Mona Carson, just a bit older than her high school self, plus one of a four-leaf clover, and another of a sad-eyed poodle.
There was no denying it. The girl was the same teen who’d broken into her mother’s house.
“That’s her, all right,” Margot breathed.
Sam tugged her blond hair. She looked world-weary. “I’m going to head out and start looking for her.”
Margot gasped. “I’ll come with you.”
“You have to stay here,” Sam reminded her. “This is why you’re here. To be with Lillian. She needs you.” Sam winced. “I know this isn’t easy. None of it is.”
Margot couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for Avery’s status as missing. As Sam got ready, drinking a glass of water and washing it in the sink, Margot crossed her arms tightly over her chest.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to her.
“Avery knew my name,” she said, her eyes widening.
Sam gave her a curious look.
“What do you think it means?” Margot asked.
Sam pulled on her gloves. “Honestly? I don’t know,” she said finally.
“Are you going to tell, um, Noah that she was here?” Margot asked.
Margot had lost the feeling in her feet.
Sam hesitated. “I have to.” She sounded like she didn’t want to.
“She left about twenty minutes ago. Maybe twenty-five,” Margot said. “It means she can’t have gotten far. Maybe she hitchhiked home?”
Sam shivered. “I hate the thought of that girl out there by herself, hitchhiking.”
Margot remembered the teenager who’d sat there at the kitchen table, eating food that didn’t belong to her. She’d seemed tough as nails. But Margot knew it was an act.
“I hope I get to see her again,” Margot said, her voice wavering.
Sam squeezed her shoulder. “Take care of yourself. Take care of Lillian. I’ll call you tonight.”
But it was already tonight. Outside, the sky was velvet black. From the foyer, Margot watched Sam run through the cold and start her engine. Inside the house, the same house in which Margot had grown up, Margot stood, listening as her mother ridiculed The Cooking Channel lady, knowing her insults would soon find her again instead.
She was terrified.
She wanted to be back in her flower shop again.
She wanted to call Noah on the phone and say, Let’s go back to the beginning of time.