Meg was racing the children from the Santa brunch at the Yacht Club to the Christmas pageant rehearsal at the church when her phone buzzed, flashing her mother’s cell number. Just as she was reaching for it, she spotted Preston—in the rearview mirror—clocking Katherine over the head in the backseat with his long, wooden shepherd’s crook. Meg let the phone ring and pulled over the car where Broad Street met East Bay and yanked him out on the sidewalk by the collar of his pressed white oxford shirt.
“You’re going to bed at seven thirty tonight.” He shrugged and she was so angry she was seeing spots. “And if I were you I’d be very concerned about the strong possibility of Santa erasing my name from the good list.”
Preston rolled his hazel eyes. “I know it’s you, Mom, and you’ve probably already bought the stuff.” Yes, she had bought all of the stuff, and it was stored at the Toys “R” Us in North Charleston where she planned to pick it up during the pageant rehearsal. But she’d had just about enough of his smartness, and she was willing to pull out all of the stops to teach him a lesson.
“Everything’s returnable, Preston. Santa’s elves keep all of their receipts.” She placed her manicured hands on his shoulders and put her powdered nose just inches away from his freckled one. “Now, I want you to be kind to your siblings and anyone else you’re around all day, all night, and all week long, or the elves are going to trade all the good stuff in for coal and switches. Do you hear me?”
Meg glared at her firstborn son, waiting for his response. She didn’t bother looking at the car honking behind her or the friends that passed by in their luxury SUVs on their way from the Yacht Club over to the church. And she didn’t flinch when her phone continued to buzz and then blip, indicating her mother had left one very long message.
Preston looked down at his polished loafers as the brisk December wind sifted through Meg’s thin hair, messing up her do. Had she gotten his attention? Did he have a conscience somewhere in there or at least a desire to behave in order to get the iPod Touch and the BB gun he had asked for? Was she as terrible a mother as she felt?
Finally, he met her eyes and nodded slightly. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Lord,” she uttered. Perhaps she had hit home somewhere inside of his heart and mind. She gently squeezed his dimpled chin as he began to shiver. How she loved him. How she loved each of them. How she hoped they would turn out all right in spite of her maternal shortcomings. In spite of their natural inclinations toward greed and control and, in Preston’s case, violence.
You were loved. She heard these words in her gut. They were not audible, but they were clear and heavy as lead. You were loved. You were loved. And the thought crossed her mind that God had just answered her back with something other than, You’re welcome.
Her son swallowed hard and she shook her head as if to clear it. Then he slipped back into the car where he quietly apologized to Katherine, who was still rubbing the top of her head.
“I forgive you,” she said.
ONCE THE CHILDREN WERE DRESSED FOR THE REHEARSAL in the parish hall, Preston in a shepherd’s costume, Cooper in an ox costume, and Katherine in an angel costume, Meg delivered them to the sanctuary for practice. Then she ducked away from the gaggle of mothers under the portico and dipped into a quiet corner of the graveyard where there was a bench and an overhang of thick, bare wisteria vines. She only had a few minutes to talk if she was going to make it to North Charleston to pick up the toys, hide them back at her home in Mount Pleasant, and pick the kids up downtown at the end of their rehearsal. Her husband didn’t like it when she drove and talked on the phone at the same time after she nearly ran over a cyclist at an intersection a few months ago, so she crouched down on the bench, hoping not to be noticed by the chatty mothers or the pageant director, who was always asking for last-minute help, and found her mother’s number on the call screen.
Her mother should be in Manhattan by now. She had taken the train up with her neighbor friend, Nate. The one she’d threatened to sue just a year before. She had somehow befriended him and they seemed rather tight. Meg had spotted them walking their dogs down Broad Street toward Berlin’s for his tuxedo fitting just the other day, and her mother had even turned down a Thanksgiving invitation to Preston’s mother’s house because she was joining Nate’s family at Charleston Place.
“Don’t you want to spend Thanksgiving with the grandchildren?” Meg had asked her mother. It wasn’t that she wanted her to come so badly as she was embarrassed to report to Preston’s mother that her mother was on a date with her gruff neighbor from off.
“Well, of course I do,” her mother had said. “I was hoping you all would come over to my house for dessert in the evening.”
Meg had thought to protest: a day with Preston’s family and then an evening with her mother was going to wear her out. But she softened momentarily and said, “All right, Mama. We can do that. I’ll bring a pumpkin pie.”
NOW MEG CALLED HER MOTHER BACK WITHOUT listening to the message.
“Have you heard, love?” her mother said. There was an echo in her mother’s voice as if she were in the bottom of a well.
“Heard what?” Meg pressed her other ear down with her index finger and listened hard.
“Marney passed away yesterday.”
Meg pulled her red peacoat tighter around her and buttoned it to the top as a chill ran up her spine.
Marney. Passed. Away. Yesterday.
The words sounded otherworldly at first. As if they were foreign and impossible to decode. Then they felt like a pin pricking an enormous water balloon Meg had been carrying on her back, and Meg jumped slightly as a thick lump formed in her throat.
“No,” she said. “I had no idea.” She had known the cancer was back, but she didn’t realize how bad it was. She had ignored Aunt Dot’s call a few days ago. Christmas was a busy time, and she did not want to get bogged down in her old family history this time of year.
Now she thought of her half sisters and brother: Heath, Etta, and Charlie. She saw their round faces in her mind, their big, unblinking eyes. Then she pictured her father and the way he had danced with pregnant Marney at Meg’s wedding in the back corner of the Yacht Club ballroom behind a potted plant. A place where he thought they wouldn’t be noticed.
However, Meg had noticed. She was on her way to change out of her wedding dress into the strapless linen sundress for her grand departure on Preston’s family yacht where the guests would shower the couple with pale pink rose petals as they ran down the dock and onto the grand boat. They would tour the harbor and eat a private dinner on the bow beneath the light of the moon before starting their European honeymoon.
Then Meg pictured Marney as an eighteen-year-old college freshman—in cutoff jeans and a bikini top and a frayed Georgia Bulldogs baseball hat—hopping in Meg’s sailboat with an orange Fanta and saying, “You can drive this by yourself?”
Meg had nodded, proud to show her independence to such an older, cooler, womanly college student. “Yep,” she had said as she shoved off from the dock, looking back to her mother and Julia who were waving to them as they headed out toward St. Pierre Creek.
“That’s really cool,” Marney had said. Then she offered Meg a sip of her Fanta, which Meg took for a moment as she told Marney to take hold of the main sheet rope. Meg took a large swig and handed it back to the girl who smiled and took off her hat and leaned back with her thick, dark mane nearly touching the water, the summer sun showering her face with its light. Will I be that beautiful someday? Meg had asked herself as she watched Marney soaking up the brightness. How she had hoped she would.
“MEG? ARE YOU THERE?”
Margaret, she thought to herself, but she didn’t correct her mother.
“I’m here, Mother.” And then the words floated up from that same place in her gut. As if in response to it. “What can I do to help?”
“Oh, I was hoping you’d ask,” her mother said. “I’m in Penn Station right now. We can’t get a train out until tomorrow morning.”
“Can you stay with Julia?”
“Well, yes, Bess can put us both up. She’s got a couple of extra bedrooms, but Julia’s not even here.”
“Where is she?”
“She’s in Charleston, love.”
“Three days before her wedding? This is crazy.”
“I know,” her mother said. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but she asked me to plan the funeral reception, and since it will be a day and a half before I get home . . .”
“I’ll take care of it.” The words kept working their way up from the gut and out of Meg’s mouth before she realized what she was saying. Her family Christmas party, the pageant rehearsal, the trip to the Greenbriar they had planned just after Christmas, it would all need to be canceled, but it would be all right. Everything needed to be put on hold. She could be a help to Julia and Aunt Dot. And she wanted to.
“Oh, darling,” her mother said. “I was hoping you’d say that. Are you sure? I know how much you have going on this time of year.”
Meg brushed the tears away. “I’m sure, Mama. I want to do this.”
“All right.” She heard her mother exhale deeply, and Meg pulled out her notebook for the planning.
“Now, I think we need to order some finger sandwiches from Hamby’s,” her mother instructed.
“Chicken salad and pimiento cheese?”
“Precisely.”
“Done,” Meg said. “And I’ll make the tomato aspic and marinate some shrimp.”
“Wonderful,” her mother said. “And would you mind ordering some mini coconut cakes from Normandy Farms? I remember that was her favorite.”
“No problem.”
“Oh, thank you, darling. I don’t expect there to be more than two dozen people, but I want it to be nice.”
“Me too,” said Meg as she turned to find her daughter, dressed as an angel with soft feathery wings and a white dress and a gold tinsel halo, behind her.
She held up her finger to indicate that she’d be just a minute, and the girl lifted up her dress to reveal two skinned knees.
“And I’ll make some sweet tea and get Preston to handle the bar and bring some large bags of ice,” Meg continued.
“I hope Dot’s silver is in good condition. She’s not the best polisher, you know.”
“Well,” Meg said, “I’ll bring some of mine and you can bring some of yours so we should be fine.”
“You’re right.” The roar in the background grew. “I’m out on the street now,” her mother said. “I’m leaving it all in your hands, Meg. I’ll be home late tomorrow night.”
“Consider it done,” Meg said.
“I will,” her mother said.
“Oh, and, Mother? Do you need Preston to pick you up at the train station?”
“Yes,” she said. “We get in tomorrow at nine p.m.”
“He’ll be there.” Meg hung up the phone and turned to her little heavenly host. “What happened?”
“I fell down on my way to the bathroom.”
Meg sifted through her purse and pulled out two Band-Aids and some Neosporin ointment.
The little girl stepped closer and hiked up her gown, and Meg cleaned her up before looking into her full cheeks.
“You’ve had a rough day, haven’t you, sweet pea?”
The little girl nodded.
“I’m so sorry.” Meg opened her arms and her child stepped inside of them and hugged her mother.
“Thank you, Mama,” Katherine said as Meg blinked back the tears and held her child tight.
“I better get back to the rehearsal,” Katherine said as Meg pulled back and kissed her daughter’s cheek before standing up.
“C’mon.” She reached out her hand, which her daughter gently took. “I’ll walk you back, and I’ll stay with you.”