Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Margo found Fiona on the porch in the afternoon, staring at nothing in particular.
She looked different. Not softer exactly—that would take time—but quieter. The sharp edges worn down by exhaustion and two AM conversations and whatever she’d been turning over in her mind all day.
“I’m making a cheese plate,” Margo said from the doorway. “Want to help?”
Fiona blinked, pulled out of wherever she’d been. “A cheese plate?”
“For Circle. My friends come every Friday. Wine, cheese, gossip.” Margo shrugged. “It’s been happening for thirty years. I’m not about to stop now.”
“I don’t want to intrude—”
“You’re not intruding. You’re helping me slice brie.” Margo turned back toward the kitchen. “Come on. The crackers won’t arrange themselves.”
Fiona followed, still uncertain, but she followed. That was something.
They worked side by side at the kitchen counter — Margo slicing cheese, Fiona arranging crackers in the overlapping pattern Margo showed her. The late afternoon light came through the window, warm and golden. Neither of them mentioned last night. Neither of them needed to.
“What are they like?” Fiona asked. “Your friends.”
“Opinionated. Loud. Occasionally inappropriate.” Margo smiled. “You’ll either love them or want to flee within ten minutes.”
“They sound interesting,” Fiona said, with a hint of a smile.
“Eleanor’s an artist—she’ll ask about your creative pursuits, and ‘I don’t have any’ is not an acceptable answer.
Vivian owns the vintage shop on Forest—she’ll compliment something you’re wearing and then tell you how to wear it better.
Letty will flirt with anything that moves.
And Nadine will pretend to disapprove of all of it while secretly enjoying every minute.
” Margo arranged the cheese on the board.
“I’d like you to join us. If you’re willing. ”
“Why?”
The question was genuine, not defensive. Margo considered it.
“Because you’ve been in that guest room for days, dealing with hard things. And sometimes what you need isn’t more processing. It’s just... people. Being normal. Laughing about nothing important.” She met Fiona’s eyes. “You’re welcome at my table, Fiona. That’s all.”
Fiona was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded and actually smiled.
“Okay. I’ll stay.”
“Good. Now hand me those grapes.”
The Circle arrived at seven with their usual flair.
Eleanor came first, juggling wine bottles and a canvas she’d forgotten to drop at the gallery. Vivian’s bracelets announced her presence before she’d even reached the porch. Letty trailed perfume that probably violated some EPA regulation.
“Smells like a department store exploded,” Nadine said, waving her hand in front of her nose.
“It’s called glamour, Nadine. You should try it sometime.”
“I tried it in 1987. Didn’t take.”
Margo smiled from the kitchen doorway as they settled into their spots — Eleanor by the window, Vivian claiming the good end of the couch, Letty and Nadine bickering their way to the armchairs they’d occupied for thirty years.
Fiona emerged from the hallway looking uncertain. “Should I—”
“Sit.” Vivian patted the cushion beside her. “We don’t bite. Well, Nadine does, but only after midnight.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“We have witnesses.”
Fiona sat, accepting the wine glass Eleanor pressed into her hand. Margo watched her take a sip, then another. Good. The girl needed to relax.
The first hour passed the way Circle hours always did. Vivian reported that her nephew had finally proposed to his girlfriend — “Only took him eleven years and my explicit threat to write him out of my will.” Letty shared that the new owner of the Cypress Gallery had asked her on a date.
“How’d that go?” Margo asked, settling into her chair with the cheese plate.
“He took me to a restaurant where they serve the bread in a tiny shopping cart.”
“A what?”
“A tiny. Shopping. Cart.” Letty reached for more wine. “I told him I don’t date men who can’t hand me bread like a normal person.”
“Reasonable boundary,” Eleanor said.
“I thought so.”
Fiona laughed. Margo caught Eleanor’s eye. Progress.
The conversation drifted to town gossip, to grandchildren updates, to Nadine’s ongoing war with the HOA about her garden gnomes. Fiona listened, occasionally smiled, slowly unclenched.
By nine, she was stifling yawns.
“Go to bed, dear,” Eleanor said. “Sleep’s no joke at our age.”
Fiona stood, smoothing her shirt. “Thank you. For including me.”
“It’s been a pleasure to meet you.” Vivian raised her glass. “And you’ve raised a wonderful daughter.”
“Hear, hear.”
“Absolutely.”
“To Fiona.”
Fiona smiled, small but noticeable, and disappeared down the hallway.
The room settled into a different quiet. Margo felt four sets of eyes drift toward her.
“So.” Vivian tucked her feet underneath her. “How’s it really going?”
Margo reached for her wine, then set it down without drinking. The brie was getting soft in the evening warmth. Outside, she could hear the neighbor’s wind chimes—the annoying ones she’d been meaning to complain about for three years.
“I don’t know what to tell her,” Margo said finally.
“About Stella?”
“About any of it.” She picked at a thread on her armchair. “She keeps asking how I managed. How I let my grandchildren find their own way. Like I have answers.”
“You did let them find their way,” Eleanor said gently. “Tyler travels. Meg built her career. Anna—”
“I know.” Margo’s voice came out rougher than she intended. “I know what I did with them.”
Silence.
“But Sam—” She stopped. Started again. “With Sam, I didn’t know how to do it right. And I still don’t know what I would have changed.”
The wind chimes filled the quiet.
“And now Fiona’s looking at me like I have wisdom.” Margo shook her head. “I don’t have wisdom. I have regret I can’t even figure out.”
Letty reached over and squeezed her hand. Didn’t say anything. Just held on.
“I’m scared I’m watching her make the same mistake,” Margo said, very quietly. “And I don’t know what the mistake was. Just that I made it.”
Eleanor set down her wine glass, and her voice was gentle.
“Let me stop you right there. We all had a front row seat to all of that too, Margo. And Stella is a teenager, doing what teenagers do. What they’re supposed to do.
Becoming an individual.” She cleared her throat, her voice firmer now.
“Sam was not a teenager. She left when she was an adult. And left again as an adult. And yet again.”
Margo turned to look at her oldest, dearest friends and felt her eyes sting. “I suppose that’s true. I really did what I could. All I knew how to do.”
Nadine leaned forward. “Eleanor’s right. And I’m sorry if this hurts, but Sam didn’t just leave you. She left her own children.”
Margo took in a quick breath, feeling as if she’d been punched.
Letty started to say something—something about toward and away, about what Stella was choosing—but Eleanor held up a hand.
“She’s not Sam.” Eleanor’s voice was firm. “That’s what matters. She’s not Sam. We can tie ourselves in knots about all of it, but at the end of the day? Sam left her children. Repeatedly. Stella is a teenager choosing where to grow up. Those aren’t the same thing. They’re not even close.”
“And you stayed,” Nadine added quietly. “You always stayed. That wasn’t nothing, Margo. That was everything.”
Margo sat with that for a moment. The wine in her glass caught the porch light, glowing amber.
“Maybe that’s enough,” she said finally. “Knowing it was different. Even if it’s still messy.”
“Is it enough?”
“I don’t know.” Eleanor smiled, sad and honest. “But it’s what we have.”
Vivian cleared her throat. “Well. On that note—anyone want to hear about my colonoscopy?”
Letty threw a pillow at her.
“What? The mood needed lightening. I have stories.”
“We absolutely do not want to hear your colonoscopy stories.”
“Your loss. The anesthesiologist was very handsome.”
And just like that, the Circle shifted back to normal—Vivian’s inappropriate medical tales, Nadine’s commentary, Eleanor’s patient sighs. Margo laughed, the weight on her chest not gone but... shared. Lighter.
Some things couldn’t be solved. Only held.