“Oh, Daddy!” she said. Then she grimaced. “Don’t tell me what happened over there. Please don’t tell me. I really don’t want to know.”
“I’d rather not think about it myself,” Daniel said. He sighed. “I’m not trying to control your life, honey.”
Renata hugged him; Marguerite saw her tug on his earlobe. “Yes, you are,” she said. “Of course you are.”
“Would you like a drink, Daniel?” Marguerite asked. “I have scotch.”
“No, thanks, Margo,” he said. “I’ve had plenty to drink already tonight.” He sniffed the air. “Smells like I missed quite a meal.”
“You did,” Renata said. She shifted her feet. “Can we talk about everything in the morning? I’m too tired to do it now. I’m just too tired.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. Marguerite noticed him peer into the sitting room. In the morning he would want to see the house; he would want to see what was the same, what was different. He would look for signs of Candace. It was fruitless to hope he might bestow a kind of forgiveness, but she would hope anyway.
“Yes,” Marguerite agreed. “You, my dear, have had quite a day. Let me show you upstairs.”
Marguerite led the way with Renata at her heels. Daniel, who had been left to carry the bags, loitered at the bottom of the stairs. He was snooping around already, reading something that he found on one of the bottom steps, something Marguerite hadn’t even realized she’d left there-her columns from the Calgary newspaper.
“Dad?” Renata said impatiently.
He raised his face and sought out Marguerite’s eyes. “Do you enjoy working with Joanie?” he said.
Marguerite raised one eyebrow, a trick she hadn’t used in years and years. “You know Joanie Sparks?” she said. “You know the food editor of The Calgary Daily Press?”
“Do you remember my best man, Gregory?”
Marguerite nodded. How would she ever explain that she’d been thinking of Gregory just today, and the relentless way he’d pursued poor Francesca?
“Joanie is his sister,” Dan said. “I dated her a million years ago. In high school.”
“You gave her my name then?” Marguerite said. “You suggested I write the column?”
He shrugged, returned his attention to the clippings for a second, then set them down. He picked up his overnight case and Renata’s lumpy bag and ascended the stairs with a benign, noncommittal smile on his face. “I did,” he said. “And not only that but I read the column every week. Online.”
“You do?” Marguerite said.
“You do?” Renata said.
“It’s a wonderful column,” Daniel said.
Forgiveness, Marguerite thought. It had been there all along.
“Well,” she said, trying not to smile. “Thank you.”
The grandfather clock eked out another hour. The announcement was mercifully short: two o’clock.
Sleep! Marguerite commanded herself. Now!
She closed her eyes. In the morning, she would make a second meal, breakfast. She and Daniel and Renata would drink coffee on the patio, read the Sunday New York Times, which Marguerite had had delivered every week since the year she met Porter. They would say things and leave many things unsaid. And then-either together or separately-Renata and Daniel would leave to go back to New York. They would resume their lives, and Marguerite would resume hers.
She was not optimistic enough to believe that, from this day on, she would see them often, or soon, though she hoped her status improved from a mere name on the Christmas card list. She hoped Renata would write-or e-mail! She hoped both Renata and Daniel would think of Nantucket on a bright, hot summer day and know they were welcome there anytime, without warning. For them, her door was open.
If nothing else, Marguerite told herself, she would be left with the memory of this day. It would be a comfort and a blessing to think back on it.
There was, after all, nothing like living in the past.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elin Hilderbrand made a paper angel ornament in third grade that is still in her family’s custody. She celebrates the holidays by making batches of mustard and chive pine-nut dip and gifting them to her friends. Her favorite carol is “O Holy Night.” Winter Stroll is her sixteenth novel.
elinhilderbrand.net/
