THIRTY-ONE

Jim’s car turned out of the driveway just as Deacon and I rounded the bend a little after eight. Deacon cut the truck lights and pulled slowly up to the house.

“You want me to come in with you?”

I could see Mama through the windows, moving between the counter and the sink in the kitchen. She might not even know I’d left. So different from the Parkers. I touched my cheek, remembering the way Kori had cupped her hand under my chin before I’d left and said, “I’m glad you came to us, Maggs. It was a good Thanksgiving.”

“I’m okay. But thanks.”

Deacon patted my shoulder. “You know where to find me and Quince.”

I got out and fumbled my way around to the back of the house in the dark.

For Mama and me, the way we’d always acted when there had been an “unpleasantness”—which was the way she referred to out-and-out fights—was to pretend nothing had happened. This might not have changed for her, but I couldn’t let it go. My heartache was real. I’d stuffed too much down inside my whole life; there was no room for more.

The morning after Thanksgiving, I wrapped up in the new red parka she’d bought me and snuck out to the barn before she was awake. I hadn’t been back to see the magnolias for a while, but on this day, with a showdown between the two of us in clear view, I needed more than courage. I needed a reminder of what I’d missed out on, and why I wanted so badly to stay.

I folded the big tarp into a square on the floor and lined the paintings up against the wall, smallest to biggest, left to right, and sat cross-legged to study them. What did he feel when he stroked his brush across the canvas? Did he paint each one on my actual birthday? Or did he work on them over the winter, before sugaring season took all his time? I dabbed my fingertip on the unfinished painting, right where my eyes would have been, and pretended to color them sky blue. It was nice being up here by myself, almost like he was sitting beside me, so close I could smell the Listerine on his breath. I remembered that now—that he always smelled like Listerine when he hugged me.

The barn door rolled open downstairs.

“Sugar?”

I crawled out to the landing and peered over the edge. Mama stood in the middle of the big empty first floor in her fur coat and pink snow boots, looking like she was lost on a trek to Antarctica.

“I’m up here.”

She startled. “Oh! I saw you come out. What are you doing?”

“I like it in here.”

“Your daddy used to come here to paint.”

“I know. Some of them are in this room.”

“Still? I figured he’d sold them all. People loved those landscapes.” She lifted the collar up around her ears and shivered. “It’s so cold in this barn. It’s a wonder Jesus survived his birth.”

“These aren’t just landscapes,” I said. “Some are different.”

“Different?”

I’d spoken too soon. I wasn’t ready to share the magnolias with her, and now she’d want to see them. Thoughts flew through my mind so fast I couldn’t catch them. What should I say? How could I use this in the Stay-in-Vermont Action Plan?

“He painted magnolias,” I said bluntly.

“Magnolias?” She climbed the steps. Her pink boots left wet marks on the wood. “I didn’t know that.”

When she got to the top I moved between her and the room where the magnolias were still lined up against the walls. “I didn’t know he painted anything. I had to find out from two girls at school,” I said.

She heard the accusation in my tone and stopped, guarded. “May I see them?” she asked quietly.

Reluctant but hopeful at the same time, I led her to the room. Maybe seeing them would make her understand why it was so important to me to stay. Her eyes moved slowly from one painting to the next, her mouth dropping open slightly. When she got to the last one, she raised a hand toward the faceless image, then jerked it away.

“Do you know who that is?” I asked.

“Of course I do,” she said gently. “They’re beautiful. He even remembered the way your eyelashes had that little bit of gold on the end. I never knew he painted these.”

“Neither did I.” My voice wobbled. I was trying so hard to sound certain, and grown-up, but everything inside trembled. “Why didn’t I get to know him when he was alive?”

Her eyes softened again, the way they’d been that night I asked about the divorce. “It was complicated, sugar. He came to Georgia once, don’t you remember?”

I nodded. “But why only once? Every time I asked about him, you made me feel like I didn’t appreciate Peter and should stop asking.”

“Peter took good care of you. He gave you everything you needed.”

I shook my head. “No, he didn’t. He gave me things. You gave me things. We never talked about stuff that mattered. You made me feel ashamed whenever I asked questions about my own daddy.”

“How do you think Peter would have felt if he knew you were asking all those questions when he did everything for you? He took you in as his own when we married, without question. Have you ever considered his feelings?”

That tipped me over the edge. “I don’t really care how he felt,” I yelled. “The man who painted these pictures was my father!”

Mama’s eyes got big and her nostrils flared, the same way Sassy Pants’s did when she got spooked. “This, young lady, is exactly why we never discuss this sort of thing. Get your hysteria under control. This is not how we behave.”

She turned and stalked toward the door, but I couldn’t let it go. “Maybe that’s the way we did it before, but we aren’t in Georgia anymore!”

She wheeled around, her face frozen in a scary, fake-smile, wild-eyed expression. “Oh. I. Am. Aware,” she snapped. “Now come down out of this place. Your real mother is taking you shopping at the Black Friday sales.”