a week for school, liked the places she got to go with him: New York, Puerto Rico, Washington, DC. But she missed Carson like she’d miss her right hand if she woke up to find it suddenly gone. Though there was no real choice but to marry Brian, she felt so guilty about her decision that she literally ached, as though her heart had weakened but was forced to keep beating. She just could not understand why what was supposed to be right felt so wrong.
Well, she understood better now.
Leaving her sandwich untouched, she read her mother’s entry from the day she married Brian.
August 20, 1989
I’m exhausted, but what a beautiful day we had for a wedding! Thank God the country club’s air-conditioning didn’t wear itself out, or none of us would’ve lasted until midnight the way we did. Spencer was in his element with all those horse people …
Creamy white orchids and red roses and white satin ribbon everywhere, but Meggie was the loveliest of all. Four thousand dollars for just her dress! Heavens, it was beautiful, that strapless style that’s in all the magazines, smooth satin on top, seed pearls and tiny crystals on every inch of the skirt. And the train! I can’t get over it. It was a gift from Nancy Hamilton, Brian’s grandmother, so how could we say no? They are all treating our girl like royalty. Spencer insisted we pay for the girls’ dresses, and they were princesses too. Beth and Julianne were asleep in the car five minutes after we left the reception, and I’ll bezKara won’t last much longer. She’s been on the phone with some boy she met there since we got home half an hour ago. I’m still too wound up to settle into bed, but when I do, well! I plan to sleep until eight! The horses won’t starve if their breakfast’s a little late.
She looked happy. Well, a little dazed, but what bride isn’t? We raised her right, I have to say. She has plenty of poise. I couldn’t stand being the center of that much attention, I know that.
My biggest fear, I admit it, was that people would look at us and know how little we had to do with putting on the wedding. If not for that famous Preakness trainer buying Spencer’s baby, Earned Luck, last week, we wouldn’t have seemed anywhere close to successful enough to pay for such a party. It made it easy to sound like our fortunes had turned around.
Well, they have, haven’t they? She went through with it after all. Bruce took Spencer aside just before the reception, told him it’ll all be taken care of Monday. That’s almost three thousand dollars a month it’ll save us. Three thousand! I hardly know how to sit here and write happy thoughts, when usually I’m just trying to figure out a new way to rob Peter. What good luck Meggie has had.
I remember when she first came to Spencer and me to ask about the mortgage. Was it true, she wanted to know, that we’d been late for seven or eight months in a row? Was it true we’d heard from the bank that they were starting foreclosure proceedings? That we could lose the whole business and the house, too, in just a few months’ time? I felt so ashamed. Spencer hedged, not wanting to worry her with all that mess, but then she told us why she was asking. Told us that Brian wanted to help us out – depending. I was against it at first, but not Spencer. He washed the doubt right out of Meggie’s eyes and mine with his enthusiasm for the idea. It was up to her, of course, but since she was asking, well, we had to say it was a terrific bit of luck that Brian had taken a shine to her. An amazing opportunity for her, if she wanted to take it.
She did look happy today. The more I think about it, the more I’m sure of it. And I’m sure she never saw Carson’s truck parked down the street from the church. He’ll find someone else before too long, now that he’s seen she isn’t ever coming back to him. My heart ached for him, but he’s young, he’ll be fine. They’re all so young. They can make their lives be whatever they want. Isn’t that how it works?
‘Sure. Whatever we want,’ Meg whispered.
Her nurse, Laurie, knocked once and opened the door. ‘Your one o’clock’s here.’
‘Thanks. Give me three minutes.’
She closed the notebook and stuffed it back into her satchel, certain that this foray into the past wasn’t doing her any good. The spinning blades were uncomfortably close right now.
On Tuesday, their last morning on the island, Carson woke before Val and lay watching the fan turn lazily above him. Hung over from the night before, he tried to sort out the remains of a dream. Something about Spencer sending him out on one of the mares – to check that she’d been shoed right? Something crazy like that, and as he rode off, he saw Meg standing in Brian’s arms. He tried to turn the horse, but it kept running, and when he looked behind him, he couldn’t even see Meg anymore.
A stupid dream; as it happened, she’d been the one to run.
Val slept soundly next to him, a pillow covering her head, smooth browned arms flung out toward the headboard as if she was surfing in her sleep. He lifted the pillow and looked at her, thinking again how young she was; she looked especially youthful when sleeping, long blond eyelashes against her tan face, no lines around her eyes, lips chapped from salt and sun, just as she must have looked as a teen. Her age – the difference in their ages – didn’t concern him too much, but he did wonder how long it would be before she was ready to slow down some, do the family thing. He wanted kids eventually, would have had them already if not for Meg’s about-face.
He didn’t especially like thinking about Meg, but obviously, with his wedding to Val approaching fast, he could see why all these memories were being triggered. Unfortunately you couldn’t just dump your past to clear the way for your future – although Meg sure seemed to have succeeded at doing just that.
Leaving Val in bed, Carson pulled on shorts and left the villa. After stopping at the outdoor breakfast buffet to grab some coffee and a couple of chocolate croissants, he meandered down to the beach, marveling at the multi-toned clear blue water and the benevolence of morning sunshine – something he had too little of at home in Seattle. He wished his mind felt as peaceful as the scene before him looked. Maybe if he could spend the whole day lying here on a chaise, he’d feel like he was actually having a vacation. That, however, wasn’t in the cards.
Val wanted to stop in Philipsburg to look at wedding bands before their early afternoon flight. Dutch St Martin, or St Maarten, as it was when you crossed the French–Dutch border, was known for having great jewelry at low prices. Already they’d browsed some shops, Val buying platinum-and-diamond tennis bracelets for each of her bridesmaids. He wasn’t eager to have to cram in yet another activity before they headed to Florida for more wedding planning with his parents, but he wanted Val to be happy.
He was a sucker that way, when it came to people he cared about. The last time he’d ventured so far – almost as far as he’d come now with Val – he’d gotten pretty badly singed. Okay, burned; why minimize it?
Though he was looking at the calm water of the bay, he was seeing the past.
It was almost
