Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
T hat evening, after everyone at the Coleman place finished eating, Margot, Lillian, Estelle, Sam, Hilary, and Charlie’s wife, Sheila, brought the dishes to the kitchen and proceeded to do what most women do across the world: clean up after their families. It was a ritual, Margot knew; a rite of passage, proof that you had people to love and people who loved and appreciated you back. But it felt particularly beautiful for Margot, who’d hardly ever attended a dinner party since leaving Nantucket. She was up to her elbows in suds and laughing at Sam’s jokes and Hilary’s stories. She knew these sisters hadn’t gotten along until recently, which made their reunion and laughter all the more powerful. Lillian, too, told a handful of stories—most of them about her husband, Frank, and her children, Daniel, Henry, Melissa, and even Margot.
Margot was surprised that even the happy memories Lillian spoke of were real. She was surprised to remember that, in actuality and for a brief time, the Earnhearts had loved and supported each other.
How had she forgotten that?
“Four children!” Estelle cried, shaking her head. “I stopped at three.”
Margot expected Lillian to say, We wanted to stop at three.
Instead, Lillian said, “I had just three children for years and years. Three was all I needed. But my husband wanted another one. I hesitated. Margot knows; I’ve told her. But there was such tremendous love between Frank and me. What could I do but say yes to whatever he asked? And it was the best thing I ever did, I think. Margot completed our family.”
“Isn’t that lovely?” Estelle said.
“She was so much younger than the others. I was worried they wouldn’t take to her,” Lillian said, drying a plate. “I was surprised when Daniel first carried her. He looked at her like she was his entire world.”
A knot formed in Margot’s throat. She couldn’t turn around to look at her mother.
She knew this time of joy and friendship wouldn’t last for long. She knew her mother would have more difficult days going forward; she knew the medication wouldn’t stick.
Alzheimer’s was a disease that took and took.
At the mention of Daniel as a young boy, Sam began to cry. Everyone looked at her, understanding that she was thinking about Daniel holding their first child, Darcy, so many years ago. She sniffed and used her sleeve to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling. “It’s just so nice to remember.”
Margot understood sometimes memory was like barbed wire. But other times, memories were soft and sunny reminders of the gorgeous journeys we’d been on along the way.
Later, after the dishes were finished and Lillian was in the front room, dozing in a recliner as the Colemans watched sports on television, Sam pulled up a chair alongside Margot and tapped a glass of wine in front of her. There was a camaraderie between them. It was hard to believe that only recently Sam had pulled Margot out of the depths of lonely Boston. Everything had changed in an instant.
“Lillian seems to be having a really good day,” Sam offered.
Margot laughed. “She’s being nicer to me than she ever has been.”
Sam winced. “I wondered about that. Earlier, she told me that she always thought Daniel and I made a really cute couple.” Sam shook with laughter. “She didn’t say anything like that on our wedding day. She hardly looked at me! I was stealing her firstborn son away.”
“The doctor said Alzheimer’s is all about personality changes,” Margot said. “I guess I have to prepare myself for a lot more!”
Sam raised her eyebrows. Across the room, Noah and Avery were looking at something on Avery’s cell phone and laughing together. From here, the two of them looked alike—almost as though Noah was a much older brother and Avery was his little sister.
It reminded Margot of something.
“You remember when Mom went missing? And Vic Rondell dropped her off?”
Sam nodded. “How could I forget? What an awful day.”
Margot told her about Vic Rondell snooping through her mother’s diaries.
“Why would he do that?” Sam demanded.
“I have a hunch that he’s my father’s son,” Margot said. It was the first time she’d said it aloud. Her words rang through her ears.
She knew that the sooner she accepted this possibility, the sooner she could get over it.
“Wow.” Sam’s eyes stirred with questions.
Margot explained her reasoning. He was approximately five years older than she was, and he’d been reading the portions of her mother’s diary that spoke of her father’s affair.
“I thought he was after my mother’s money or her property or something,” Margot said. “But I think he’s after something much more personal.”
“What’s that?” Sam asked.
Margot raised her shoulders. “Closure. Understanding.”
She knew this because it was the same reason she’d been reading her mother’s diaries. She’d wanted to understand a woman who had mystified and terrified Margot for the majority of her life. She wanted to open her heart to the woman behind Alzheimer’s, behind the anger and blame Lillian had always lent Margot. She wanted to know if Lillian had always been so cruel or if it had been something she’d picked up over time.
“Do you know how I can track Vic down?” Margot asked.
“I don’t know him, but I know people who probably do,” Sam said. “Let me text a few people and get back to you.”
“I appreciate it,” Margot said. “He hasn’t been by the house, and Mom’s been upset, asking about him almost every day.”
Sam winced. “She’s attached to him.”
“And all this time, he was using her to learn more about our dad,” Margot said.
Sam hesitated. “Maybe it isn’t such a bad thing.”
Margot tilted her head.
“All Lillian wants to talk about is Frank,” Sam said. “And if you’re right, all Vic wanted to hear about was Frank.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Margot breathed. “Maybe they needed each other.”
But she still wanted to talk to him. She wanted to understand everything her mother had always left out of the story.
When it was dark, Margot hugged the Colemans goodbye and gathered her things. Noah was ready, too. They left to a chorus of goodbyes and demanded they see each other soon.
“We’ll be back,” Margot promised. “It was so lovely to spend the evening with all of you.”
Avery and Lillian led the charge outside. Lillian was wrapped in several layers of clothing plus a big coat, but still, she shivered until Margot got her in the car and turned the heat up. When she knew her mother was cozy, she got out to hug Noah and Avery goodbye. But when he wrapped his arms around her, Noah whispered in her ear, “Would you like to spend some more time together? Maybe tonight?”
The kiss they’d shared on the terrace still rang through her. She knew what Noah meant when he said more time. It meant he wanted to do much more of that kissing.
How could she resist him?
“What about Avery?” she asked.
Noah glanced back at the truck, where Avery was immersed in her cell phone. “She’s the one who told me to come over here and ask you.”
Margot laughed and touched his hair, scooping it behind his ear. Love shimmered through her. What she felt for Noah was night and day compared to what she’d felt for Pete or any of the other men she’d tried to date.
Was it too easy to fall back into Noah’s arms? Should she trust it?
Her lonely life in Boston had taught her to reject anything that felt too easy. But that didn’t seem right, either.
When Margot didn’t say anything else, Noah offered, “You’re probably right. We should take it slow.”
But, contrary to everything she was thinking, Margot suddenly wanted to say, We’ve wasted enough time as it is .
She was a mess of contradictions. She was a woman falling back in love.
“Give me an hour to help Mom get to bed,” Margot said, bringing herself up on her tiptoes to kiss him goodbye. “I’ll be waiting.”
Noah looked overjoyed. He remained in the driveway, watching as she backed out and drove them to her childhood home.
Beside her, Lillian sat in a sleepy silence. Margot marveled that this was one of the better days she’d ever spent with her mother. She thanked her lucky stars for it.
And then Lillian said, “I really hope Vic comes by soon.”
Margot felt the light in her heart dim. She adjusted her hands on the steering wheel. “What do you like about Vic, Mom?”
Lillian blushed. “He’s so handsome, isn’t he?”
Margot laughed. “I suppose he is.”
“You know, he looks just like your father when I first met him,” Lillian said conspiratorially. “He looks like he should be on a television show. Or featured in a painting. What is it about his face? I could stare at it all day.”
Margot blinked away tears.
Everything clicked into place after that. So many years after his death, Lillian still ached for Frank. Vic was practically Frank’s double, a son born out of wedlock in 1981 or 1982. At least, that was Margot’s theory.
“When did you first meet Vic, Mom?”
Lillian thought for a moment and rubbed her chest. “It must have been years and years ago.”
Margot wasn’t sure what to believe. Lillian didn’t have the best grasp of a timeline.
“Do you think he’ll visit me tomorrow? He’s got a good head for cards,” Lillian said. “And that’s a rare thing these days. Everyone is stuck in their cell phones!”
Margot laughed. “You’re right about that.”
Lillian sniffed. “You always had a pretty good head for cards, Margot.”
In Lillian’s world, this was a sensational compliment that she rarely gave out. Margot knew to hold it in her heart and always remember it.
Not fifteen minutes after Lillian fell asleep that night, Noah arrived. He carried a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, and a tiny bouquet. The bouquet was pathetic, made of grocery store flowers and baby’s breath. He apologized for it immediately.
“It’s beautiful,” Margot said, gushing with love for him.
“You don’t mean that.”
But Margot did. It was perhaps the worst bouquet she’d seen in years—far worse than anything the rival flower shop in Beacon Hill could put together—but it seemed to glow because it was from Noah. She hurried to put it in one of her mother’s vases and beckoned for Noah to come deeper into the house to make himself comfortable.
She bit her tongue to keep from saying, What’s mine is yours, you know that .
Don’t get carried away, Margot!
Noah poured two glasses of wine, and they sat on the sofa and smiled nervously at one another. Another gust of wintery wind blasted against the house.
“I feel like we’re teenagers, and I snuck you inside,” Margot breathed.
Noah touched her shoulder and wrapped his arm around her so that their noses were an inch away from each other. His breath was hot.
“I want to know everything that happened in your life since we last saw each other,” he breathed. “I want to understand who you are now.”
Margot’s heart felt heavy. She touched his chest and continued to breathe in his breath. It felt as though they were trying to morph into one person.
“I never should have left,” she said.
It was the first time she’d fully reckoned with this fact. But as soon as she said it, she knew it was true.
Noah’s eyes flickered. “I never should have let you go.”
“It’s strange how time passes,” Margot whispered. “One minute you’re fifteen and having your first kiss and saying things like I want to be an actress when I grow up. The next, you’re thirty-eight, and everyone around you has built a life you never understood you wanted.”
Margot remembered the Beacon Hill mothers and babies, the young couples who, under her watch, had gotten older, buying flowers for one another year after year. She remembered Andy Brennen, who’d sped into the flower shop on Valentine’s Day, out of his mind with fear because he’d forgotten to order flowers for his wife. She’d always assumed that other people were allowed beautiful things, long-lasting relationships, and joy. Not her. Never her.
“I was terrified when I learned that the teenager who’d broken in here was your niece,” Margot whispered. “But I shouldn’t have been.”
“I like to think she did it because she wanted to help me,” Noah said with a laugh. “But who am I kidding? She’s a curious teenager. She wants to make a mess of things just to see what will happen.”
Margot blinked. “Is this happening?” She meant her and Noah. She meant love.
Noah hesitated. “I want it to be happening.”
There wasn’t time for words after that.
Margot and Noah kissed in the dark shadows of the living room, listening as the wind howled outside and the waves crashed on the beach. They kissed as the world turned, drawing them deeper into a better, more beautiful, and softer life.
There would be difficult days ahead. There would be losses. There would be pain. But they’d attack all of it together.