10 

Now, bring me up-to-date on your life.” Athen poured coffee for Meg at breakfast the next morning and tried to ignore the fact that she still felt the sting of Meg’s comments from the night before. Meg’s ability to cut so cleanly to the heart of the situation left Athen with the unavoidable knowledge that she had some serious questions to ask herself between now and the time her Christmas holiday concluded. “I take it things did not work out with what’s-his-name?”

“That son of a bitch.” Meg scowled. “Remember I told you I thought he was seeing someone else? Well, guess who? Jenny Scott!”

“Your next-door neighbor?”

“The same. Of course, we’re not neighbors anymore. They moved into a neat little town house on the other side of Tulsa together. Can you believe it?” She put her head back and all but screamed, “I hate men!”

“Until the next one comes along.” Athen laughed.

“Well, of course. That goes without saying.” Meg grinned.

“Where are you off to?” Athen asked Callie, who was pulling on her jacket and hat.

“To Nina’s,” Callie told her. “We’re working on a project at her house.”

“School project?” Meg poured cream into her cup.

“Nope. Something special. A surprise.” Callie kissed them both and headed for the back door. “See ya.”

“Must be a last-minute Christmas present,” Athen explained. “Callie’s into arts and crafts this year.”

“Speaking of last-minute things, I’ve a few items to pick up myself,” Meg said. “Would you have time to drive me into town?”

“I’ve got some baking to do, and I haven’t finished wrapping Callie’s presents.” Athen frowned. “Why don’t you just take the car and run your errands?”

“Good idea. Thanks. I appreciate it.” Meg drained her cup. “Listen, Athen, not that I really mind sharing a room with a ten-year-old for a week—God knows I love Callie like she was my own—but don’t you think it’s time to finish that guest room? I mean, the chances of my beloved brother coming back to hang those last few rolls of paper are not good.”

“I know.” Athen sighed. “I think about it from time to time, but then I get depressed and I put it off.”

“And if you don’t mind my saying so, the hall bath—and the hall, for that matter—are ready to be done over. And maybe it’s time for you to get that bunny paper off Callie’s walls.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.” Athen clenched her jaw as she cleaned off the table.

“Start here.” Meg tossed her the phone book, then pulled on her jacket. “The Yellow Pages. Under Paint and Paper.”

“DAMN MEG, ANYWAY,” ATHEN GRUMBLED as she measured flour into a bowl for the first batch of cookies. “She always has a way of making everyone feel like an idiot.” You’re nothing more than a figurehead mayor, Athen. How could you be so stupid, Athen? Your daughter isn’t a two-year-old anymore, Athen, nix the bunny paper. …

Athen was miffed, and she took it out on the cookie dough. She was well aware of her shortcomings. She didn’t need Meg to point them out to her. It took four batches for the snit to pass, but by the time the last tray went into the oven, she was over it.

When Meg failed to return by two, Athen began to wonder just how many stops her sister-in-law had to make. At four thirty, she left a note on the table, telling Meg she’d be back by five, and arranged a plate of cookies for her elderly neighbor. By the time she delivered the goodies to Mrs. Sands and walked back across the street, her car was safely in the driveway.

“Where’s Meg?” she asked Callie, who was gleefully raiding the cookie jar.

“She’s in the shower,” a cookie-crammed mouth told her. “She has a date.”

“She has a what?” Athen hung her coat up in the hall closet and stuck her head back into the kitchen.

“A date with a man.” Callie grinned. “Someone she went to college with or something. She’s real excited.”

Athen started dinner, splashing a jar of spaghetti sauce into a pan and spattering the front of her shirt, wondering who Meg’s mystery man was. When the hum of the hair dryer ceased, she went upstairs to find out.

Meg was in a frenzy, struggling into a short black velvet dress and cursing at the zipper.

“Here, I’ll do it.” Athen laughed and lent a hand.

“I hope you don’t mind, Athen.” Meg leaned over the dresser and attempted to apply eye makeup with shaky hands. “I mean, with me just getting here last night and everything. But I have waited fourteen years for this date and I’d walk through downtown Woodside Heights naked before I’d miss this opportunity.”

“Whoa.” Athen sat down on the bed and laughed. “Tell me, tell me.”

“Well, when I was in college, there was one guy who was so phenomenal, everyone was in love with him. He dated a girl on my floor senior year and we all used to hang out the window when he’d come to pick her up just so we could watch him walk.” Meg groaned as a poorly aimed brush slid eye shadow onto her face. “Anyway, who do I see when I walk into Silver’s Card Shop this afternoon but Buddy. Tall, dark, and incredibly handsome Buddy. I must say the years have been very good to this man. So, of course, I had to go over and see if it was really him, you know? So we started talking, and he suggested we take a stroll through town to see the Christmas displays, and we ended up having coffee over at Lorenzo’s—I didn’t even know that place was still there—and the next thing I knew he was asking me if I’d like to go to a cocktail and dinner party with him tonight. Well, he didn’t have to ask me twice.”

Meg flounced her hair, nervously glancing at the clock on Callie’s desk. “Oh, God, Athen, he’ll be here in five minutes. What do you think? How do I look?”

“Gorgeous. He’ll fall at your feet,” Athen assured her.

“That’s close enough for starters. Thank God I had the sense to pack my lucky dress.” She grinned. “This little number has never let me down. Oh, shit, where’re my shoes? Oh, God, that’s the doorbell. …”

“Calm down, Meg, I’ll get it.” Athen headed for the landing.

“Talk about miracles of fate.” Meg kept up a nervous patter as Athen took the steps two at a time. “Him coming here from St. Louis, me coming home from Tulsa …”

Athen all but froze in midair.

“What does he do?” she asked cautiously.

“Well, he’s writing a book on the Underground Railroad, the local connections and that sort of thing, but he’s working for his stepfather, too. Athen, will you please get that door?”

Cement feet carried Athen to the front door. Wooden hands opened it. An obviously startled Quentin Forbes stood on the top step.

“I-I think I have the wrong house,” he stuttered. “I was looking for number two thirty-five.”

“You found it. Please come in so I can close the door, ‘Buddy.’” She motioned stiffly for him to enter.

He stepped inside but only enough to push the door closed behind him.

“Meg …?” He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“My sister-in-law.”

“Meg …?” He looked at her blankly.

“Moran.” She finished for him.

“Oh. I hadn’t remembered her last name. Your husband’s …”

“Sister.”

“I see.” He was obviously unaccustomed to such discomfort. Athen found herself enjoying it.

“Buddy, hi.” Meg sauntered down the steps in her short black dress, looking casually gorgeous, and it was then that Athen realized how frumpy she herself looked. Her white sweatshirt was liberally doused with spaghetti sauce. Her shoeless feet were clad in white wool socks, and her jeans were faded, her hair a rumble, half hanging from a knot at the back of her neck.

“Athen, I guess you’ve met …” Meg began to formally introduce them.

“‘Buddy.’” Athen nodded. “Yes, we’ve met.”

“Well,” he said, looking not at Meg but at Athen. “I guess we should …”

“Yes,” she replied. “You certainly should.”

Meg looked at her, questioning, her eyes narrowing slightly, not for a second unaware of the strange undercurrent running between the man of her dreams and her sister-in-law.

“Have a good time.” Athen fairly pushed them out onto the front steps. Closing the door quietly behind them, she wondered why she had a sudden urge to bang her forehead against the oak panels.

Athen was still wide awake when she heard the car doors slam. Callie, having chided her for being such a grump, convinced Athen to take her foul mood to bed before ten.

She heard them in the hallway for a few minutes, their laughter floating up the stairwell into her room. It took all her self-control not to tiptoe to the top of the stairs to eavesdrop. The front door closed quietly several minutes later. Athen closed her eyes and pulled the covers up when she heard Meg tiptoe into her room.

“Don’t you even pretend to be sleeping, Athena Moran. I know you’re not.” Meg poked her.

“How was the party?” Athen dropped the childish ruse and sat.

“It would have been a hell of a lot more fun—not to mention less awkward—if you had told me ahead of time that you’d had something going with my date.” Meg was ready to explode.

“What?” Athen sat up all the way.

“You could have told me that you and Buddy were more than casual acquaintances.”

“Now wait just a minute, Meg. How was I supposed to know that your old college chum ‘Buddy’ was the same man who’s been making my life a living hell for the past three months? And for the record, there is nothing between ‘Buddy’ and me. Except maybe animosity and hostility.”

“Athen, I have known enough men in my life to recognize when a man is dead on his face over another woman.”

“You are out of your mind.” Athen stared blankly at her sister-in-law.

“All he wanted to talk about the entire night was you.”

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Not to mention the fact that there was enough electricity in that little vestibule when I walked downstairs tonight to light half the Christmas trees in Woodside Heights.”

“Meg, you have the most incredible imagination of anyone I have ever met.” Athen shook her head. “Look, you don’t know what this man has done to me. He goes out of his way to publicly humiliate me every chance he gets. He thinks I’m a political slut, he …”

“… is fascinated by you.” Meg kicked high heels across the room and made a spot for herself on the bed. “I’m telling you, all night long, one question after another.”

“Like what?” Athen eyed her suspiciously.

“Like everything. Everything from how long you and John had been married, to what kind of a deal you made with that ‘scumbag Rossi,’ to …”

“What?!”

“Those were his exact words.” Meg nodded.

“There was no ‘deal,’ Meg. I did this because … because …” Athen was suddenly at a loss. “Because at the time I thought it was the right thing to do. Because I thought I could do something good.”

“That’s exactly what I told him. I told him you were absolutely incapable of anything that even hinted at being underhanded.” Meg paused. “Athen, do you still think that was the right decision?”

“I do, and no vague little innuendoes coming from someone who up until six months ago had never set foot in Woodside Heights is going to change my mind.”

“Buddy thinks Rossi is long on rhetoric and short on accomplishment,” Meg told her. “He also thinks Rossi is into something shady.”

“Rumors, no substance. Who knows where he gets his information, anyway? And I don’t want to hear another word. I already know what he thinks of me, so let’s just can it.”

“I just want to say one more thing. I’m really surprised that you have such a closed mind. Buddy has no motivation to go witch-hunting. What possible reason could he have for going after Rossi if there’s nothing there?”

“Because he … he hates me,” Athen sputtered. “I don’t know why but he does. And because he’s a reporter— reporters are always suspicious of anyone in politics. It’s a prerequisite for the job. And because he’s trying to impress Brenda Chapman.”

“His stepsister? Why would he care about impressing her?”

“What?” Athen paused.

“Brenda is his stepsister.”

Athen thought it through. “Then Lydia Chapman …”

“… is his mother.” Meg nodded. “She mentioned she’d met you.”

“She and her husband hosted the rally the night Rossi nominated me.” Athen’s face flushed at the memory of the cool reception she’d received from Mrs. Chapman, the amused glances from Brenda, Quentin’s insults. “Quentin Forbes is a … a geeky little butthead.”

Meg hooted. “He’s hardly that, Thena. I think he’s really concerned that …”

“I could care less what he’s concerned about.” Athen pushed Meg off the bed with her foot. “I am going to sleep now. And hopefully, by the time I wake up tomorrow, I’ll have forgiven you for consorting with the enemy and for bringing that man into my home.”

“Okay, okay.” Meg stooped to pick up her shoes. “But I would think you’d want to know if there was something going on in which you could eventually be implicated.”

“There is nothing going on. Nothing. What could be going on?” Athen sat up. “What was he talking about, anyway?”

“He didn’t get into specifics.”

“Forbes is blowing smoke, Meg. I am not the least bit concerned about his gossip, and neither should you be. Now go to bed, please.”

“I’m going.” Meg turned for the door. “But, Athen, maybe you should …”

“Enough, Meg.” Athen turned her face in her pillow, and for the next several hours fitfully battled the mean demons Meg had brought home with her.

THE HOLIDAY PASSED WITHOUT FURTHER reminder of the shadow that Quentin Forbes had cast over her. Athen pondered his insinuations as she, Meg, and Callie were on their way to see her father on Christmas morning. It annoyed her that even on this day Quentin Forbes managed to get—and stay—under her skin.

Unconsciously, she scanned the parking lot for a little blue car, but it was nowhere in sight.

“Come on, you two,” she commanded her passengers, who were merrily singing carols. Callie insisted on bringing her new iPod and dock to fill her grandfather’s small room with the sounds of the holidays. “Help me, Callie. Meg, you grab that bag.”

Athen and Callie struggled with an enormous red poinsettia. Ari had always filled their house with them at Christmas, and each year on the holiday she would bring the biggest one she could find to add a touch of cheer to his room.

She thought he almost smiled at the sight of them, his eyes offering the welcome his voice could not extend, his gaze lingering upon Callie. Athen opened a cardboard box and removed the brass candelabra shaped like a fishing boat that Ari had brought with him from Greece. She placed the candles in their places and lit them, one by one. Her father stared at their lights, and she thought he might be recalling the many Christmases the small boat had seen over the years.

Next Athen delivered gifts to the nurses’ station, seeking out the ever-faithful Lilly for a special cash gift for all the extra care she showered on Ari.

“Why, thank you, Mrs. Moran. Thank you for thinking of me.” Lilly smiled. As Athen started back to her room, Lilly added, “Just missed Ms. Bennett. Said she wanted to catch the last service over there at the church but she’d be back.”

Athen stopped in her tracks.

“She’s been here already?”

“Oh, yes. Break of dawn she was here. Brought a special breakfast to share with Mr. Stavros.”

“Is she here every day?” Athen heard herself ask.

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Most days twice a day. She sure is devoted to that man, Mrs. Moran.”

“Yes.” Athen nodded thoughtfully. “It would appear that she is.”

Athen walked slowly back to Ari’s room, suddenly filled with gratitude that her father had found someone whose devotion and love was so complete that it could survive such tragedy. In the depths of her own sorrow, she had forgotten that such boundless love did indeed exist. She could almost envy Diana, she thought, as she joined the others who were now singing “Away in a Manger” in Ari’s room.

TWO DAYS LATER, MEG AND Athen were seated in the living room, enjoying the blaze of a dancing fire in the fireplace, listening to the Messiah, and lounging for the first time in months.

“Athen.”

She heard Meg, but only barely, having leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

“Athen,” Meg persisted. “I want to talk.”

“Don’t do it, Meg,” Athen said without opening her eyes. “Don’t even mention his name.”

“I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you.”

“What about me?” Athen yawned.

“About your life.”

“What’s wrong with my life?”

“Don’t you think it’s time to get John’s toothbrush out of the bathroom?” Meg asked gently.

Silence.

“Athen, you can’t spend the rest of your life grieving over John.”

“Meg, please …”

“No, Athen, I mean it. You’re young, you’re beautiful, you’re bright—though your career path has led me to question that somewhat lately, but we’ll let that ride for now. You can’t wrap yourself in the past, build a shrine to a dead man.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Athen’s head shot up.

“Look at this house, Athen. You haven’t touched a thing of John’s since the day he died. I’ll bet his clothes are still in the closet.”

Meg waited, and finally Athen nodded.

“How long are they going to hang there?”

“Meg, you’re overstepping the line a bit.” The afternoon’s peace had evaporated.

“What line? There’s no line. We’re family, and as far as I can see there’s no one else around to tell you what you need to hear.”

“You don’t know what it’s been like.”

“Don’t I? Johnny was my brother, my best friend, next to you. He was always there for me, Athen, for as long as I can remember. I could scream with rage every time I think about him dying, and I think about him every day.” Meg’s voice was controlled and calm. “But my life didn’t end with his, and neither should yours.”

“That’s not quite fair, Meg,” Athen told her. “I’ve come a long way in the past year.”

“Athen, you have no social life. You go from work to Callie’s school and home and back to work again. You don’t even paint anymore. And how long has it been since you tutored down at the community center? I’ll bet you haven’t even had that new bike out more than five times since you bought it.”

“Meg, I’m a single working mother. And with all the meetings I attend, I don’t have time for anything else.”

“Stop hiding behind your job! Don’t you realize that for the past year you’ve done nothing but hide? You’ve hidden inside this house, hidden inside your sorrow, hidden from yourself. Now you’re hiding behind Dan Rossi, and you can’t keep doing that.”

Meg held her breath, waiting for Athen to explode.

“Look, Athen, I love you dearly. You’re more than a sister, more than a friend. You can’t spend the rest of your life with nothing more to look forward to than a trip to the cemetery to put flowers on John’s grave.” Meg swallowed hard.

Still Athen did not respond.

“Look, there’s a brand-new year starting next week. I know it’s hard, but, Thena, John’s not coming back.”

“I know.” Athen bit her lip. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Begin by getting this house spruced up. Move the furniture around. Give John’s clothes away. I’ll help you. You can go into the new year on fresh ground.”

“Okay.” Athen nodded. “You’re right. And next week I’ll …”

“Forget next week,” Meg told her. “Tomorrow. We’re going to start tomorrow.”

UPON FIRST SEEING HER FATHER’S clothes removed from the dresser and packed into paper bags, Callie had burst into tears. When Athen explained to her that they would be given to people who really needed them, she brightened.

“Oh, you mean like the homeless guys who hang around Schuyler Avenue?” Callie asked. “Cool. Dad would have liked his warm things to keep someone else warm.”

“When were you down on Schuyler Avenue?” Athen folded shirts and placed them in a bag.

“Last week when Julie’s mom took us to the movies, we had to detour around Third Street. There were all these people hanging out around the big church on the corner, and Julie’s mom said they were all homeless.” She picked through a pile of sweatshirts. “Can I keep some of these?”

“You may keep all of them if you want.” Athen smiled.

“Well, I think I’ll just keep a few. I have warm shirts of my own.” She thumbed through the pile, selecting several that had been particular favorites of John’s. “Maybe I should go through my stuff, too, Mom. There were a lot of little kids with their moms outside that church. It made me feel real sad. Maybe you should clean out your own closet and we could send lots of stuff down. Ms. Evelyn said … “

“Where’d you see Ms. Evelyn?” Athen stuck a stack of brand-new wool socks into the bag.

“She was outside the church. I ran over to see her but Julie’s mom made me come right back.”

“What was Ms. Evelyn doing down there?” White undershirts, still in their wrappings from last fall, followed the socks.

“She does volunteer work there. She cooks at dinnertime. She said the situation is getting out of hand.”

“What is getting out of hand?” Meg carried an empty box into the room. “What do you think, Thena? Shoes, belts in here?”

Athen nodded.

“Ms. Evelyn says there are too many people out of work and more mouths to feed at the church than she can deal with.” Callie gathered up the shirts she had selected. “I’m going to clean out my dresser. Then we’ll have lots of things to take down to the church and Ms. Evelyn will be happy.”

“Spoken like a budding social activist.” Meg smiled.

“Frankly, I’ve been concerned about the situation myself. Here, give me a hand with these suits …”

Callie came back in for some plastic bags, and then dragged them, filled, to the bottom of the steps.

“I’m going over to Julie’s, Mom,” Callie called up the stairwell. “She’s going to clean out her closets, too.”

“While you finish up that last shelf there”—Meg motioned to the closet—“I’ll go downstairs and make us some lunch. We should be just about ready to take this stuff to wherever it is you want it to go.”

Athen was sitting cross-legged on the floor, her back against the bed, when Meg came in twenty minutes later.

“Hey, are you deaf? I’ve been calling you.” Meg paused in the doorway. “Honey, are you all right?”

Athen looked up at her with a white tear-stained face, her bottom lip quivering. The pale gray sheet of paper in her hand rustled, her hands were shaking so.

“What is it?” Meg knelt down and gently placed her hand on her shoulder.

Without a word, Athen passed the letter in her hand to a puzzled Meg, who scanned it quickly.

“Oh,” she exclaimed with only mild interest. “Where’d you find this?”

“On a shelf at the back of John’s closet.” Athen stretched her arm for the tissue box. “There’s a whole box of them.”

“Athen, don’t tell me this is bothering you? A letter from John’s old girlfriend that was written sixteen years ago?”

Athen nodded.

“Why?”

“Don’t you realize John saved every letter she ever wrote to him? I had no idea they were there.” Athen blew her nose.

“So what?”

“So don’t you know what that means?”

“It means it was a time in his life that was important to him.”

“It means more than that.” Athen sniffed. “It means he probably never stopped loving her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“How could he have? I mean, Dallas MacGregor is every man’s fantasy. How could I have thought I could step into her place in John’s life?”

“You didn’t,” Meg said bluntly, “nor should you have expected to.”

“Thank you, oh, so very much.”

“Thena, you had your own place in John’s life. The fact that he once loved someone else …”

“Not just someone else, Meg. Dallas MacGregor. How would you feel, marrying a man who had been love with a woman who looks like that? A huge movie star—a real star—for God’s sake …”

“I’d feel damn flattered.” Meg crossed her arms. “And it’s not as if you hadn’t known about John’s relationship with her. Why, all of a sudden, is it bothering you?”

“I guess because I hadn’t realized he’d cared enough to save all these,” Athen whispered.

“Look, John and Dallas were together all through college. But he always knew where she was headed. She was always up front that after college she was taking off for California. I don’t think he really understood that all she ever wanted was to be a movie star, that she wasn’t about to let a little thing like love stand in her way. Two days after graduation, it was ‘Adiόs, John. Buenos días, L.A.’”

Athen recalled how John had withdrawn that summer, how subdued he’d seemed when she would visit the usually bustling Moran house. He had asked her out for the first time the following Christmas, taking her to a party at his old fraternity house at Rutgers. A huge photograph hanging over the bar in a downstairs room had stopped John cold as he entered the room. BOUND FOR GLORY exclaimed the sign above the photo of Dallas—Dallas with the platinum hair and the perfect face, eyes to die for, not blue, not gray, but true lavender.

“Athen.” Meg drew her attention from the long forgotten image. “What difference does any of this make? John loved you, he married you.”

“On the rebound, apparently.” She glumly reached for another tissue.

“Now why would you say that?” Meg lowered herself to the floor beside Athen. “Athen, we humans are amazingly fortunate. We have the ability to fall in love, to fall out of love, to fall in love again. And again. And even again.”

“I never fell out of love with John. And apparently he never stopped loving Dallas.”

“Just because she’s gorgeous and famous, you think he carried a torch for her for the rest of his life?”

Athen shook her head, unable to share the memory that flashed suddenly, painfully before her eyes. The look on John’s face when he came home one night to find Athen waiting up for him, deeply engrossed in Lucinda’s Pride on the VCR, the movie for which Dallas had received an Academy Award nomination. He had retreated suddenly from the room, and Athen had known at once where he had gone all those times he would almost seem to disappear before her eyes, his face taking on a faraway look as he mentally vanished to some secret room inside himself, a room she’d never been invited to enter.

“Don’t make more out of this than what it is,” grumbled Meg. “Good grief, I have been in and out of love with so many men in my lifetime. Well, at least, I believed I was in love with each one of them at the time. Then again, sometimes I wonder if I ever loved any of them.” She smiled wryly. “But John loved you enough to marry you, produce the world’s most remarkable child, and live, as I recall, a pretty damned happy life with you.”

“Yes, we were happy.”

“Then what is the big freaking deal?” Meg shouted to the ceiling.

“Well, somehow I always thought that John and I were, you know, meant to be together, that somehow we were …” She groped for words.

“No, don’t tell me. Written in the stars? Destined for each other?” Meg groaned. “Athen, you are the last living soul on the face of this earth—over the age of possibly five—who still believes in fairy tales. I’ll bet you even clap your hands when Tinker Bell’s light starts to go out.”

Athen burst into tears.

“Oh, God, Athen, I’m sorry.” Meg’s voice softened as she attempted to comfort the weeping heap that was her sister-in-law. “Look, I think you’re just overly sensitive right now, what with all John’s things being packed up. This can’t be easy for you.”

“Maybe you’re right. You probably are. It has been hard today, looking at all his things. Touching them. Folding them up to give away.” Athen took the tissue Meg held out to her, then motioned for Meg to pass the box over. “But you know, I always believed I’d grow up and find the absolute love of my life and live happily ever after.”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry you didn’t get your happy ending. But you know, your life’s far from over. You’ve a long, long way to go.” Meg rubbed Athen’s back between her shoulder blades to comfort her. “And who knows, maybe the absolute love of your life is out there somewhere, right now, looking for you. …”