Bringing Maggie Home Read online

  Meghan offered an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I thought you said bottom.”

  “She did say bottom drawer.” Margaret Diane folded her arms over her chest. “I distinctly heard her say ‘bottom drawer.’ ”

  Maybe she was growing senile. How else could she have made such a foolish mistake? Hazel’s feet didn’t want to cooperate, but she forced them to carry her to the circle of photographs. She bent over and collected them with jerky, almost uncontrolled motions. Her muscles had gone stiff and her fingers clumsy. A pulse beat in her left temple like a tom-tom. “Didn’t you see the note on the top of the box? These weren’t meant to be seen by anyone but me.” Tears threatened and her voice took on a tremor.

  Meghan slid the photos into one pile. “I’m really sorry. I thought the note was meant for your parents when you were still a girl. If I’d realized—”

  “No, no…” Her granddaughter’s genuine remorse pierced Hazel. She dropped the stack of photographs into the box and straightened, hugging the box to her heart. She aimed an apologetic smile at Meghan. “It was my mistake. As my daughter is fond of pointing out, I’m getting old. Sometimes I get things confused. I’ll put these away now and get the right box.”

  Meghan cringed. “Um…Grandma, I already used a couple of them.”

  Prickles raced across her flesh like wind-driven raindrops down a windowpane. “What do you mean you used them?”

  She pointed to a square piece of paper that resembled vintage wallpaper. Two photographs formed a pair of stair steps on the page. “Since the album is your birthday present, I scoped out what looked like birthday pictures.”

  Hazel stared at the top image. “That…That’s not…”

  Margaret Diane arched her brow. “It must be a birthday picture. It can’t be Christmas because there’s no snow and you’re wearing a summery dress. Plus, you’re holding what is obviously a new doll.” She tapped the picture. “I can even see the tag hanging from the doll’s wrist.” She nudged Meghan. “Too bad we can’t make out the price written on it. I bet it’s a lot less than what I paid for the dolls I bought you for birthday presents.”

  Meghan flashed a grin at her mother and turned to Hazel. “If it isn’t a birthday picture, when was it taken?”

  Hazel’s mouth was too dry to form an answer. Her pulse still pounded. Her head felt light and empty yet somehow heavy and full at the same time. Stars began to dance in front of her eyes. Her muscles went weak and the box dropped from her hands. She made one feeble grab for the box, and her body lurched. Meghan cried out, and Hazel’s world went black.

  Meghan

  “Grandma? Grandma?” Meghan stroked her grandmother’s soft, pale cheek. She’d gone over so fast there hadn’t been time to catch her.

  Grandma murmured, but she didn’t open her eyes.

  Mom knelt on the other side of Grandma, hands braced on her knees, her face almost as white as Grandma’s. “What’s she saying?”

  Meghan frowned. “I’m not sure, but I think it’s ‘I won’t forget.’ ” Worry ate a hole in her stomach. She reached for her cell phone, which lay on the floor next to the ottoman. “I’m calling for an ambulance.”

  Grandma’s eyelids fluttered. She lifted one hand a few inches. “No…”

  Both Meghan and her mom leaned in. Mom touched Grandma’s shoulder. “Mother?”

  Grandma’s bleary gaze fixed on Mom’s face. “No ambulance. Help me up.”

  Mom flicked a look at Meghan. The uncertainty in her eyes made Meghan feel as if she were the mother and Mom the child. She offered Mom a reassuring smile and put her hand on Grandma’s snow-white hair. “Lie still a little longer, Grandma, okay? Just to make sure the woozies are gone.”

  Grandma emitted a weak snort. “I’ve never had the woozies.”

  Meghan and Mom exchanged a grin. Meghan patted Grandma’s arm. “Then lie still until my woozies are gone.” She swallowed tears. “You scared me.”

  Grandma closed her eyes. A grimace twisted her face. “I’m sorry. I…I don’t know what came over me. Must have been the heat. As Margaret Diane said in the parking lot at the grocery store, it’s hot enough to bake cookies on the sidewalk.”

  Then why hadn’t she collapsed in the parking lot or in the front yard instead of in the air-conditioned living room? She’d been fine until the saw the pictures. But Meghan wouldn’t argue, mostly because she was relieved Grandma recalled something so specific from an hour ago. If something serious, like a stroke, had caused her to faint, she probably wouldn’t remember details of her morning.

  Meghan tapped Mom’s hand. “Get a wet cloth to put on her forehead. It’ll help cool her down.” It would also get Mom out of the room long enough for Meghan to ask a question she didn’t want Mom overhearing.

  Mom trotted around the corner, and the quartet of dachshunds followed her. Meghan bent low and spoke into her grandmother’s ear. “Grandma, you kept saying, ‘I won’t forget, I won’t forget.’ What were you remembering?”

  Pink crept into Grandma’s cheeks, making her look more alive, but she kept her eyes closed. Her lips trembled, her chin wobbling. “Why did you bring out that box?”

  Regret nearly collapsed Meghan’s chest. Why hadn’t she been satisfied to look at the photographs in the albums on the shelf? If she’d known the agony it would create, she never would have gone into Grandma’s closet. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the one you wanted me to use.”

  “It wasn’t—” Grandma shifted her head from side to side as if writhing in pain. “I tried to—”

  Meghan stroked her grandmother’s hair. Slow, gentle strokes, meant to soothe. “It’s okay. If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

  Her eyes popped open. Her brown irises were nearly swallowed by her pupils. She reached for Meghan’s hand. Her lips parted.

  Mom bustled into the room. “I’m sorry it took so long. I put the dogs in their crates in case we needed to call 911. They’d be in the way of the paramedics. Here.” She handed Meghan a cool, moist, folded cloth, then slipped to her knees. “Is she coming around?”

  Meghan laid the cloth across Grandma’s forehead. “Yes, she—”

  Grandma yanked the cloth from her head and pushed it into Meghan’s hands. “As I’ve already told you repeatedly, I possess full use of my faculties. Don’t talk about me as if I’m not in the room.”

  Mom smirked. “I’d say she’s coming around.”

  “Yes, I am.” She held out both arms. “Help me up, please. My hips are throbbing. I want to sit.”

  Mom drew back. “Are you sure? You hit the floor pretty hard.”

  “My floor is covered with carpet. Quality carpet, with a good pad under it. I’m not in any pain other than my hips, and that always happens when I’m flat on my back. Please help me up.”

  Meghan slid her arm behind Grandma’s shoulders, and Mom gripped her elbow. “All right, Grandma, but if you start feeling dizzy, you tell us to stop.” Meghan pushed, Mom pulled, and together they shifted Grandma to a seated position.

  Grandma pressed her temples with her fingertips and let her eyes slide closed again.

  Meghan kept her arm across her grandmother’s shoulders. “Are you all right? Do you want to lie down again? Maybe we should put the cloth on the back of your neck. Mom, why don’t you—”

  “Please stop fussing over me. I’m all right. I’m merely gathering my…bearings.”

  Meghan was certain Grandma had intended to say something else.

  Grandma took slow, deep breaths and blew them out in long exhales. After the third expulsion of air, she opened her eyes and lowered her hands. “Well, the Lord and I just had a little chat—”

  Mom sent a startled look past Grandma to Meghan.

  “—and I’ve decided my telling you to look in the bottom drawer instead of the top one was more serendipitous than senseless. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, ‘Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.’ ” G
randma turned her gaze on Meghan. Moisture made her dark eyes shine. “I’m nearly eighty. How many years do I have left?”

  Pain stabbed straight through Meghan. She’d had the same thought, but hearing the words spoken aloud by the very person she worried about losing was much worse than saying them to herself. She took Grandma’s hand. “You have lots of years, Grandma.”

  Grandma shook her head, wrinkling her brow. “There’s no guarantee of that. There’s no guarantee any of us will even have tomorrow.”

  Mom abruptly stood. “Now you’re being maudlin.”

  Grandma sighed. “Not maudlin. Realistic. And that’s why I have to speak now. I have to tell you about…” She searched the floor around her, her fingers skimming over the photographs that still lay scattered on the carpet. She released a tiny cry of elation and snatched up the scrapbook page Meghan had started. “About her.”

  Ten

  Diane

  Diane glanced at the page her mother held. She bit down on the end of her tongue. Her mother was speaking of herself. In third person. She’d wondered when Mother’s aging mind would begin to slip, and apparently the time had arrived. But since she seemed fully capable of speech and the color had returned to her face, they should get her off the floor.

  “It’s fine, Mother, if you want to talk about her.” She shot a wry look at Meghan. “But how about we put you in your chair? You’ll be more comfortable there.”

  Mother stretched her hands to Diane. “If you’ll help me up, I’ll put myself in my chair. It’s kind of you to be concerned, but that syrupy tone you’re using is condescending. Save it for someone else.”

  Diane choked back a snort and took hold of her mother’s elbows. With one smooth pull, she brought her to her feet. Mother wobbled for a moment, then seemed to regain her balance. She removed herself from Diane’s grip and moved the short distance to her wingback chair.

  “Now help Meghan from the floor. We might as well all be comfortable, hmm?”

  Diane offered Meghan the same assistance, and Meghan perched on the edge of the ottoman next to her suitcase. Diane plopped onto the sofa, at the end closest to Mother’s chair. “All right, we’re listening.”

  Mother pinched the page between the fingers of both hands. She held it in front of her and stared at the top photograph with such intensity Diane suspected she’d drifted away to some unknown place in the far recesses of her mind. She glanced at Meghan and found her daughter as transfixed with Mother’s face as Mother was with the photo.

  Diane cleared her throat. “Mother?”

  Her mother gave a start and her gaze lifted. “Pardon me. I was…thinking. Remembering. After so many years of pushing the memories aside, it’s both a joy and a heartache to open the floodgates.” She turned to Meghan and drew in a shuddering breath. “Maggie…”

  Meghan put her hand on Mother’s knee. “I’m Meghan, Grandma.” Her tone held both confusion and deep concern, emotions Diane understood. Something seemed seriously wrong with Mother. Maybe they should call the paramedics after all. Carpet or not, she might have bumped her head harder than they’d realized when she hit the floor. And having a medical record would benefit Diane when petitioning the court to declare her mother incapable of independent living.

  Mother sighed. “Not you. Her.” She flipped the page around and tapped her finger on the picture of the little girl holding the doll. “This…is…Maggie.”

  Diane found herself leaning toward the photograph, drawn by the mingled pain and release in her mother’s expression. “Who is Maggie?”

  Mother’s eyes slipped closed. The corners of her lips quivered—was she trying to smile or trying not to cry? “My little sister.”

  “You had a sister?” Diane and Meghan chorused the question.

  Diane held up her hand to silence her daughter. “I thought you were an only child.”

  Mother shook her head slowly. A single tear escaped one of her closed eyelids and trailed down her cheek, leaving a path in her rouge. “No. I had a sister.” She opened her eyes and looked at Diane. More tears washed the rouge from her cheeks, and a crooked smile formed. “Her name was Margaret Rose. My parents always called me by my full name—Hazel Mae. But she was Maggie. Always sweetly, simply Maggie.”

  Meghan stared at the photo, which Mother continued to hold aloft like a child showing off a perfect spelling test. “What happened to her?”

  Mother sighed a sigh so deep and heavy Diane felt the anguish behind it. “She got lost in the woods shortly after her third birthday. We found her doll. We found one of her shoes. And her hair ribbon.” She pointed to the box, to a rumpled, torn, faded pink ribbon at its bottom. “But we never found her.”

  “Oh, Grandma…” Meghan slid from the edge of the ottoman and knelt in front of her grandmother. She placed her hands on Mother’s knees. “How awful.”

  “Yes. Yes, it was. When we lost Maggie, we lost…” Mother paused, her throat convulsing. “Everything.”

  Diane took the page from her mother’s fingers and examined the photo. Although it was black and white and had faded over the years, upon closer examination she could tell the little girl in the picture had lighter hair than her mother’s. Her face was chubbier, her eyes less deep set, yet her nose and mouth resembled Mother’s. Margaret Rose…She’d been named for this child yet hadn’t known she existed.

  The same unsettling feeling she’d experienced when Meghan showed her the box of photos returned. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about Maggie?”

  Mother cringed. “My mother wouldn’t allow it.”

  Diane shook her head. “Your mother’s been gone for decades. She died when I was what—two, three? You could have said something before now.” Was Mother conjuring some sort of story to gain Meghan’s sympathy? If so, it was working. Tears winked in her daughter’s eyes and sorrow was etched into her features. “It doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t talk about her if she was important enough for you to name your only child after her.”

  Mother hung her head. “You’re right. I should have told you about your namesake. But if I told you about her, I’d have to tell you what I did.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, her shoulders shaking. “I didn’t want you to know how…how careless and foolish and irresponsible I’d been. If you’d known, you’d have always been insecure with me. You’d have always been afraid.”

  Insecure and afraid wouldn’t have been any worse than irritated and resentful. Diane pretended to ream out her ear. “I’m sorry, but you aren’t making any sense. What exactly did you do?” A half laugh, half cough escaped her throat. “You didn’t lose her in the forest, did you?”

  Mother jerked her face toward the wall.

  A chill wiggled down Diane’s spine. “Mother, did you?”

  Her mother’s frame began to shake violently.

  Diane watched her always-controlled, always-ladylike, always-perfect mother crumble before her eyes. As a teenager she’d wanted to witness her mother’s tumble from the pedestal of perfection. Wanted to prove that her mother was human like everyone else. Hadn’t she driven all the way to Nevada from Arkansas in the hopes of finding her mother incapable of caring for herself any longer so she could finally sell this big house, move Mother into a rest home, and be certain she’d never manipulate Meghan into caretaking for her?

  But sitting there now while her mother hid her face and trembled with silent sobs, an unexpected sympathy washed through her. Instead of the desire to glory in her mother’s frailty, she wanted to reassure her. But she had no idea how. So she sat silently, observing, her fists gripped so tightly her fingernails cut into her palms.

  Meghan fired a frantic look at Diane and then turned to Mother again. “Grandma, it’s all right. Whatever happened, it’s all right. You can tell us.”

  Diane battled a stab of jealousy. She was the daughter. She should say something. She blurted, “Yes, Mother. Tell us. You’ll feel better after you’ve told us.”

  Mother jolted, her spine straightenin
g and her chin lifting. She wiped her hand down her face and turned. She pinned her gaze on Diane, her dark eyes still wet but also steely with determination. “Those tears weren’t for me. They were for you.” Her chin quivered for a moment, but she set her lips in a firm line and the quiver disappeared. “You didn’t get to know your grandparents because they died young. You grew up without cousins. You were robbed of so many things.” A weak, sad smile lifted the corners of her lips. “Maggie’s loss…it took so much…”

  Meghan glanced at Diane, as if expecting her to speak, but Diane had no idea what to say. She’d never had grandparents or cousins, so how could she miss them? Mother might as well have been talking in riddles.

  “Grandma, what happened to Maggie?”

  Mother leaned back in the chair, her gaze drifting to the ceiling. “I wish I knew for sure. The preacher convinced my mama and daddy that she drowned in the creek and her body was carried far, far away. One woman in town was convinced the Gypsies stole her. Others thought she was taken by a bear, others that she simply wandered deep into the woods and fell into a ravine or an old well. My parents went to their graves not knowing. And I suppose I will, too.”

  She sat up and turned a fierce—or was it desperate?—glare on Meghan. “But if I tell you about her, then someone will know she once lived. She’ll no longer be forgotten. Someone like Maggie, someone who brought so much joy to her folks, should never be forgotten. You’ll remember her, won’t you, Meghan?”

  Meghan

  Meghan opened her mouth to reassure her grandmother, but before she spoke her cell phone played the theme song from Rocky. She cringed. “I’m sorry. That’s my partner, Sean. If I don’t take it, he’ll worry.”

  Grandma waved her hand. “Take it. I’ve waited seventy years to talk about Maggie. I can wait a few minutes more.”