Truth and Solace

by Jana Richards

  She followed Paula into the living room where Abby was in her wheelchair with the red and black plaid blanket once more covering her lap. Despite her tired appearance, her smile was radiant. “Maggie! I’m so glad you could come.”

  She reached for her hand. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  A moment later, Paula brought in a tray with a pretty flowered teapot and two matching cups. After pouring the tea, she laid her hand on Abby’s shoulder. “I’ll leave you two ladies while I run some errands. Enjoy your visit.” She put on her jacket and quietly left.

  “She didn’t have to leave on my account,” Maggie said.

  Abby delicately sipped her tea. “I asked her to give us some privacy. I want to continue the story about your mother.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Abby set down her teacup. “When we last spoke, I told you about Miranda’s first love, a boy from high school who was five years older. Her parents disapproved and threatened to have him arrested for rape, so he went away. Miranda was heartbroken, but she was also very young and naïve. She believed if he really loved her he would have stayed and waited until she turned eighteen. And this is where we pick up the story.”

  “Did she meet him again?”

  Abby smiled. “You’re getting ahead of me. You have to be patient, Maggie.”

  “Sorry. Patience is not one of my virtues. Please, continue.” She’d have to let Abby tell the story in her own way, as difficult as that was for her.

  “Miranda continued high school. She was busy with different sports like track and volleyball and basketball, and all kinds of high school experiences and clubs. She was a popular girl, and very pretty. Everyone wanted to be her friend. She had a special light inside her that everyone wanted to be close to.”

  “Did she date much in high school?”

  “Some, but never seriously. However much she wanted to fall in love with another boy, her heart belonged to her first boyfriend.”

  “How did she meet my father?”

  “She met Robert at the University of Minnesota while she was pursuing a degree in interior design and he was at law school. He was immediately smitten with her. She once told me he fell in love with her the minute he spied her across the room at a sorority party.”

  “Did she fall in love with him at first sight, too?”

  Abby’s smile was sad. “No. She liked Robert, and I think eventually she came to love him, but she wasn’t in love with him. He was handsome and smart, and he came from a prominent, wealthy family. He was the kind of man she thought she should marry, the kind of man she thought her parents would approve of. And he was crazy about her. So, when he asked her to marry him, she said yes.”

  The idea that her mother didn’t love her father, at least not in the way a wife should love the man she was about to spend the rest of her life with, came as a shock. “I don’t understand. Harper and Scarlet have happy memories of our family.”

  “They were happy, Maggie, for a lot of years. Miranda finished school and went to work for an interior design company, and Robert worked for a very prestigious law firm in Minneapolis. Harper came along in a couple of years and Scarlet two years after her. They were happy together and if Miranda wasn’t passionately in love with her husband, that was all right with her. She’d been passionately in love once before and it had only brought her pain.”

  “When did things start to go wrong?”

  “The summer Scarlet was five and Harper seven, Miranda was the lead designer on the renovation of a mansion in Minneapolis. Robert was working on a very important case, as he often was. This one took him to New York for the summer. Because they were both so busy, she brought the girls to the lodge to stay with her parents.”

  “And then?”

  “Her old boyfriend came to work at the mansion. He was a carpenter now. Miranda found she was still madly, passionately in love with him, and he hadn’t stopped loving her either. They were together every possible minute that summer.”

  Maggie sat back in her chair, stunned. “Scarlet was right. It was Miranda. Harper thought our father might have had an affair because he was away so often, but Scarlet heard them talking on the day they died.” A thought occurred to her. “But Miranda must have gone back to Robert. They were still married when they died, even though they were on the verge of divorce. They must have patched things up, or at least tried, because they had me.”

  “Yes, they tried, but—”

  A sudden coughing fit cut off her words. Her body shook as if she would break in half. Maggie jumped to her feet, terrified and unsure what to do. She ran to the kitchen to get a glass of water. By the time she returned Abby was gasping for breath, struggling to get air into her damaged lungs. She tried to drink the water Maggie gave her, but the cough wracking her body left her too shaky to even hold the glass. Desperate, Maggie patted her back. Should she call Reese? An ambulance?

  She almost cried with relief when Paula entered the house with a couple of bags of groceries. She immediately set the bags on the floor and ran to Abby’s bedroom, returning a moment later with a machine on a table with rolling wheels. Maggie stepped back. Paula plugged in the machine and turned it on, then put a mask over Abby’s mouth and nose and gently encouraged her to breathe. “Let the nebulizer do its work, Abby,” Paula said quietly. She held the mask because Abby couldn’t. Gradually, Abby’s coughing subsided. She slumped in her chair, her head bowed.

  “There, that’s much better, isn’t it?” Paula removed the mask from Abby’s face, and Maggie was relieved when the coughing didn’t resume. “Let’s get you into your room so you can rest.”

  Abby lifted her head and looked up at Maggie, her eyes panicked, beseeching. She had to be frightened by what was happening to her. Maggie stuffed down her fear and anguish to smile at her. For Abby, she’d suck it up and do what needed to be done. “If you like, I can stay with you until you fall asleep.”

  Abby gave a faint nod and bowed her head once more. Paula rolled the wheelchair into the bedroom and, together, she and Maggie helped her out of the chair and settled her into the bed. Maggie sat in the chair next to the bed and held Abby’s hand in hers.

  “I’ll be right here till you fall asleep,” she whispered.

  The panic entered Abby’s eyes again. “But you’ll come back, won’t you?”

  “Of course.” She willed herself to smile and not to cry. “Whenever you want me to.”

  “Okay.”

  Abby relaxed and closed her eyes. In moments, her grip on Maggie’s hand slackened and she was asleep. Maggie watched her face, watched the slight up and down movement of her chest that told her she was breathing. Her face was ashen, pale to the point of ghostliness. Skin stretched over sharp cheekbones, swooping down to hollow, gaunt cheeks. For Abby’s sake, she wished she could have finished the story. It seemed to mean so much to her.

  She set Abby’s hand carefully on the bed, then leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Rest well, Abby,” she whispered.

  She and Paula left the room. Paula closed the bedroom door softly behind them and turned to her. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you two alone, but Abby was adamant she had to speak to you in private. I won’t be leaving her alone again.”

  “Thank goodness you came home when you did.”

  “Was she able to tell you what was so important to her?”

  “Partially, I think. But I believe there’s more she didn’t get a chance to say.” It occurred to her that she didn’t get an opportunity to ask how well Reese and her mother had known each other. But it didn’t matter. With Abby’s health so precarious, she wouldn’t burden her with more questions.

  “Come back in a day or two. I’ve found that my palliative patients need that final goodbye to say everything that needs to be said. It helps the people they love as much as it helps them. Perhaps more.”

  Maggie squeezed her eyes shut as tears threatened again. “Okay.”

  Whatever it took, she would hear what Ab
by needed to tell her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The work to make the Christmas open house a reality began in earnest the next day. Maggie and Celeste baked four different kinds of cookies – sugar, chocolate chip, shortbread and of course, gingerbread. While Maggie mixed the batter for the chocolate chip, Celeste began decorating the sugar and gingerbread that had already cooled.

  “Those look almost too cute to eat,” Maggie said.

  Celeste smiled as she piped an icing smile onto a gingerbread man’s face. “Not too cute, I hope. Just cute enough. This is my favorite part.”

  “You’re very good at it.”

  Actually, she was amazing at it. Each tiny Christmas tree was decorated with garlands and ornaments in a rainbow of colors. Each gingerbread man had a different collar and buttons down the front of his shirt. The candy canes were swirls of red and white goodness. Maggie wasn’t sure she’d have the patience for such intricate work.

  Hope and Tessa skipped into the kitchen and climbed onto the stools at the island. Celeste broke a candy cane cookie in two and gave them each a half. “We don’t want you to get too full before lunch.”

  Maggie poured them some milk and smiled at their matching milk mustaches. Hope swallowed another mouthful and set down her glass. “Miss Maggie, did you know I’m going to go to school on the bus tomorrow?”

  “Yes, and I heard you met your new teacher yesterday.”

  She nodded, making her pigtails bob up and down. “Yes. Her name is Mrs. Andrews.”

  “I know Mrs. Andrews,” Maggie said. “She was my teacher in kindergarten and grade one.”

  Hope’s eyes widened. “She must be old!”

  Both Maggie and Celeste laughed. Celeste admonished her gently. “Don’t you go calling Mrs. Andrews old to her face. That wouldn’t be very nice.”

  “Mrs. Andrews was a brand-new teacher when I was in kindergarten. She was Miss Jones back then. She was one of my favorite teachers. I’m sure you’ll feel the same way.”

  She’d probably been something of a handful in those days. Because she’d been the youngest, and motherless, her grandparents and her older sisters had spoiled and coddled and sheltered her. Once she started school, she was shocked to discover the world didn’t revolve around her. The other children all got their fair share of attention from Miss Jones, too. Her teacher had been patient and kind, even after Maggie had thrown a tantrum because she didn’t get her way in some game or other. Maggie remembered being taken aside and gently told that everyone deserved a turn. Her turn would come around again, she promised.

  And it had. Maggie had been devoted to Miss Jones the two years she’d been her teacher. She’d taught her how to fit in with the other children and how to make friends, and she’d do the same for Hope.

  “Mama says I’m going to have my own room soon.”

  “I have my own room,” Tessa said. “It’s purple.”

  “That sounds very pretty.” Maggie dropped spoonfuls of chocolate chip batter onto the cookie sheet. “What color do you want your room to be, Hope?”

  “Pink,” she said without hesitation. “It’s my favorite color.”

  “Pink it is then.” She’d make sure Hope’s room was painted pink even if she had to do the job herself. “Pink’s the perfect color for your room, the same way purple is the perfect color for Tessa’s room.”

  “Are my Mommy and Daddy coming home soon?” Tessa asked.

  Maggie’s heart gave a little kick to hear her call Scarlet her mommy. “Yes, sweetheart. Two more sleeps and they’ll be home.”

  She seemed satisfied with her answer. “Okay.”

  The girls finished their cookies and milk and slid off their stools, ready to find adventure elsewhere in the lodge. Celeste looked up from the cookie she was decorating. “Is Mrs. Andrews really as nice as you told Hope? We met her the other day, and she seemed all right, but it’s hard to tell.”

  She understood Celeste’s apprehension. Hope was starting a new school in a new state. She wouldn’t know any other child except for Tessa, but because she was a year older, she was in another classroom. “I wasn’t making that up for Hope’s benefit, or yours. I really do remember Mrs. Andrews as a kind and patient teacher. Lucky for me she was. I was a brat.”

  “I can’t imagine that.” Celeste chuckled as she filled a piping bag with pink icing. “I don’t know if I’ve ever properly thanked you for everything you’ve done for us. And I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you why you’ve done so much.”

  “Your story resonated with me. Not so long ago, I was where you were – scared, broke, and a little desperate. My family gave me a chance to prove myself, and I want to give you that chance, too. I know it sounds crazy, but ever since I met you on that Skype interview, I’ve felt like we’re kindred spirits.”

  Celeste didn’t look up from her work, but her voice was husky with emotion as she spoke. “I can’t tell you how much your faith has meant to me.”

  “My faith has already been justified.”

  They worked in silence for a while longer. Maggie filled two cookie sheets with dough and slipped them into the hot oven. She set the timer and turned to Celeste. “Can I help you with anything?”

  “I’m running short of plain white icing. Could you whip up another batch?”

  “Sure.” Maggie gathered ingredients for the icing.

  When she finished the cookie she’d been working on, Celeste set down her piping bag. “Can I ask you a question? A personal one?”

  Maggie didn’t make eye contact. “You can ask. I won’t guarantee I’ll answer.”

  “What’s the story with you and Luke? You told me you were close as teenagers, but I get the feeling there’s so much more to the story.”

  For the first time, Maggie found she wanted to speak, to tell someone she trusted about the love and the heartache she’d experienced that summer. She glanced up at Celeste. “He was my first love.”

  Celeste nodded with understanding, as if she’d expected her answer. “First love is hard to forget. It stays with you.”

  “Are you speaking from experience?”

  “Hope’s father was my first love, the love of my life.” Celeste’s smile held a tinge of sadness. “He died in a car accident when Hope was three.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “So am I.” Celeste picked up her piping bag and gave her gingerbread man a wide grin. “What happened with Luke?”

  She told Celeste how he’d come to work for her grandfather the summer she was fourteen. “I loved him, and he was my first sexual experience. But I was only a kid. I was young enough to believe we’d be together forever. Turned out, forever only lasted until the end of August.”

  “You don’t believe he returned your feelings?”

  Maggie shrugged. “I thought so, even though neither of us spoke the words.

  But then, a few days after school started, I found him kissing another girl.”

  Even now, ten years later, her devastation at seeing him with Cheryl Bradley, along with the confusion and hurt, shattered her. And she remembered her shock at the coldness in his eyes.

  Go home, Maggie. You’ve been making a nuisance of yourself all summer. Go play with your dolls and leave me alone.

  “Then, he was gone. No note, no phone call, no explanations. Abby told me later he’d scraped the money together to go to school in California.” Maggie measured icing sugar and butter and added them to the bowl. “She was the only person I’d told about Luke and me. My grandmother died unexpectedly the day Luke left, and I was a mess. Abby was the one I went to in late September when I thought I was pregnant.”

  Celeste looked up sharply. “Were you?”

  “No.” Her period had been two weeks late and when it had finally come, it had been unusually heavy. She’d always believed she’d had a miscarriage. Abby had told her it was for the best. She’d been an unmarried mother and knew how hard it could be. But at least Abby had been in her twenties when Luke was born. If she�
�d been pregnant, she would have had a baby at fifteen. How could she have coped? She would have been a baby having a baby.

  Even so, she’d mourned the loss. And she’d mourned Luke, for a very long time.

  “You’ve really never told your sisters any of this?”

  “No. Only Abby, and now you.”

  “I’m honored, Maggie. I’m glad you felt you could trust me.”

  She looked up from the icing she was mixing and smiled at her. “I do.”

  “Are you still in love with him? I see the way you look at him.”

  She put down her spoon. “Please don’t tell me I’m making cow eyes at him.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Just because I said we were kindred spirits doesn’t mean you can get bossy.”

  Celeste simply smiled and waited. Maggie sighed. “In spite of everything, I do have feelings for him. I…I love him, which is crazy.” She couldn’t believe she’d said the words out loud. She glanced at the door to make sure no one else had overheard her confession.

  “Why is it crazy?”

  “Because it was so long ago, and I was a kid. I should be over it by now, over him. I thought I was. He didn’t want me then. Why would he want me now?”

  “His feelings might have changed. Or maybe things weren’t as you thought they were back then.”

  “It hardly matters now. Once Abby dies, he’ll go back to California and likely never give me a second thought.”

  Celeste made a guffawing sound in her throat. “I doubt that. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  The thought of putting her feelings into words, of laying open her heart and being vulnerable to Luke again, frightened her even more than the possibility of poverty and homelessness had. “I can’t do that.”

  “I didn’t think you were a coward,” Celeste rebuked gently.

  Maggie shook her head. There was no point in embarrassing Luke and making him uncomfortable. Abby’s illness, and imminent death, was enough for him to deal with.

  And the thought of facing his rejection once more made her heart fall into her shoes.