A Midwinter's Tail

27

Olivia was charged with the premeditated murder of Dayna Chapman, as well as two counts of attempted murder and one of arson for the fire at Marsh Farm.

It turned out that Marcus had been at the Chapman place, talking to Burtis, when Maggie called him. Burtis had followed Marcus out to the old house, both of them breaking every speed limit.

Maggie spent the night in my spare bedroom after an afternoon in the ER to make sure we hadn’t inhaled too much smoke. Roma checked Owen over carefully from ears to tail. Aside from a little singed fur, he was fine.

“I didn’t go out there on purpose to confront Olivia,” I told Marcus as we waited at the clinic for Roma to finish her examination.

He put his arm around my shoulders. “I know that,” he said. “Maggie told me.”

“So you’re not angry.”

He kissed the top of my head. “All I am is very, very grateful.”

I leaned my cheek against his arm. “Me too.”

Marcus spent the night on the living room sofa. He showed up with his pillow, his toothbrush, Eric’s meat loaf and mashed potatoes and a look on his face that told me he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

When I woke up in the morning, Maggie was curled up in the big wing chair by the window with Owen snoozing on the floor at her feet.

“Maggie, why aren’t you still asleep?” I asked, sitting up and raking my hands through my hair.

Her expression was serious, lines etched around her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“For not sleeping longer?” The back of my throat was dry.

“For not coming back to get you. I keep thinking what would have happened if . . .” She let the end of the sentence trail away, and her eyes filled with tears.

“Oh, Mags,” I said. “I should be apologizing to you. I’m the one who almost got you killed. The entire staircase was on fire. There was nothing you could have done.”

She gave me a stricken look. “I don’t know what I would have done if anything had happened to you.”

I felt the sting of unshed tears in my eyes and I blinked them back. “Me too,” I said. “But nothing happened that couldn’t be fixed.” I went to get out of bed to hug her, but my legs were tangled in the blankets. I did a crazy flailing dance and fell onto the floor as Owen meowed loudly and bolted into the closet.

When Marcus appeared in the doorway, Maggie and I were on the floor in a heap of sheets and blankets hugging, laughing and crying all at the same time while Owen peered, wide-eyed, around the closet door.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” Marcus said. “There’s coffee.”

For some reason that just made Maggie and me laugh harder.

When the two of us went downstairs we found Rebecca and Brady Chapman at the table having coffee with Marcus. Hercules was sitting beside Rebecca’s chair eating what looked like a bowl of scrambled eggs.

I looked at Marcus. “I couldn’t find the cat food,” he said.

Rebecca came around the table and hugged both of us. “I’m so glad you’re both all right,” she said.

“I’m sorry about Marsh Farm,” I said.

She held up a hand and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. All Everett and I care about is that neither one of you . . .” She looked around me to Owen, who was standing in the living room doorway probably wondering why there was were so many people in the kitchen at breakfast. “. . . or you,” she said, smiling at the small gray cat, “are all right.”

Which is why exactly six days later I found myself standing in the living room at Wisteria Hill, which had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Maggie, with a little help from Abigail, had strung white lights around the windows and the fireplace. One of Harry Junior’s trees stood in the corner decorated with the snowflakes that were eventually going to be hung on the library tree and the Christmas ornaments that were usually on Ruby’s personal tree. The mantel was trimmed with pine boughs, red ribbon and fat cream-colored candles inside glass hurricane lamps.

Everett and Rebecca were getting married. After the fire at Marsh Farm Rebecca had told Everett what she really wanted: a simple wedding surrounded by the people she loved the most. Roma offered her living room, where Rebecca and Everett had met for the first time. It was perfect.

Everett’s granddaughter tapped me on the shoulder. “Ready?” Ami asked.

I smiled at her and fingered the small box wrapped in shiny silver paper with a red-and-green bow. “I’m ready,” I said. I nodded at Maggie as we passed her.

Roma was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Like Ami and me, she was carrying a small wrapped present.

Ami tapped on the door of the bedroom at the top of the stairs.

“Come in,” Rebecca called.

She beamed, clasping her hands together when she saw the three of us. “You’re all so beautiful,” she said. We were all wearing tea-length, cream-colored dresses—different styles—all with red sashes tied at the waist.

I put a hand on my chest. “You’re the one who’s beautiful,” I said.

She truly was. There was a glow to Rebecca. That was what love looked like, I realized. And the rose-colored dress from Abel’s that she’d tried on the first night Roma and I took her shopping looked perfect on her. The only alteration it had needed was to be shortened a little, and Ella King had done that in an afternoon.

Rebecca noticed the boxes in our hands. “No,” she said shaking her head. “You don’t believe in that something old, something new superstition, do you?”

Ami looked at Roma and me. “I told you she’d say that.” She turned back to Rebecca. “It’s not superstition, Rebbie. It’s tradition. Deal with it.”

Rebecca smiled at her. She loved Everett’s only grandchild as if she were her own.

Ami handed her the small square box she’d been holding. “This is borrowed,” she said.

Rebecca undid the ribbons and unwrapped the paper. She pulled the top off the box and lifted the lid. For a long moment she stared at the contents of the box and then she lifted out a small silver heart-shaped locket.

Ami smiled. “Do you remember that?”

Rebecca’s eyes were bright and I noticed she swallowed hard before she answered. “I didn’t know you still had it,” she said softly.

Ami looked at Roma and me. “Rebbie gave me that on my first day of middle school. She said I was about to start one of the best adventures of my life.” She turned back to her soon-to-be-official grandmother. “You’re about to start one of the best adventures of your life.” They hugged each other and I had to swallow down the lump in my throat.

“I’m next,” Roma said. “Mine is blue.” The box she handed Rebecca was long and flat. Rebecca laughed when she saw what was inside—a lacy blue garter. She slipped off her high-heeled shoes and stepped into the garter, sliding it up her leg until it was just above her knee. She hugged Roma. “Thank you,” she said. “I think Everett will like this.”

“I really don’t need to hear this,” Ami exclaimed, clamping her hands over her ears.

We all laughed.

“My turn,” I said. I felt the unexpected prickle of tears as I gave Rebecca my package. “This is something new.”

Rebecca undid the paper and the ribbons and opened the small jewelry box. “Oh my word, these are lovely.”

I’d gotten her tiny silver heart earrings as close to a match as I could find to Ami’s locket.

“Thank you, my dear,” she said as she wrapped me in a hug. “This day wouldn’t be happening without you,” she whispered.

“Just be happy,” I whispered back.

Rebecca pulled out of the hug and turned to the mirror to put on the earrings. They looked as good as I’d hoped they would when I bought them.

“Thank you,” she said. “And I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, because I wasn’t expecting this tradition.” She smiled at Ami. “But isn’t it something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue? Unless you were thinking I’m the old.”

“You are not old,” Ami said firmly. She glanced at Roma and me, and with exquisite timing there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Rebecca called.

The door swung open and a man about my age stood in the doorway. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a blue shirt and a blue-and-gray tie. He had blue eyes, shaggy salt-and-pepper hair and Rebecca’s smile. “Was someone looking for something old?” he asked.

“Matthew!” Rebecca exclaimed.

He covered the space between the door and his mother and lifted her up into a hug.

“How? How?” Rebecca said as she touched his face and ran a hand through his hair.

Matthew Nixon smiled at his mother. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Everett Henderson doesn’t exactly take no for an answer.”

“He wanted you to have the wedding of your dreams,” I said.

“Oh, I am,” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around her son again.

Ami looked at me and grinned. I saw Roma surreptitiously wipe away a tear. I had to blink back a couple myself.

It was the most beautiful wedding I’d ever been to. Rebecca’s favorite people were my favorite people, too—Roma, Maggie, Harry Taylor Senior and Junior, Marcus, Brady Chapman, Mary and her husband. And Oren Kenyon played the piano.

Rebecca’s brother, Stephen, the best man, walked with the maid of honor, Ami. He was a taller version of his sister with kind gray eyes. Harrison Taylor escorted Roma, and I walked in with Burtis Chapman.

“Thank you for everything you did for my boys,” Burtis said as we waited for our cue to start walking.

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Thank you for helping save my life.”

He smiled. “Anytime, girl,” he said.

And after so many years of waiting to be together, Rebecca and Everett were finally married, fittingly, it seemed to me, in the place where they had fallen in love more than fifty years before.

After we’d toasted the happy couple, Rebecca walked over to Marcus and me. She handed me the bouquet of daisies that she’d carried.

“What’s this for?” I asked.

“Tradition—and Ami—says I should throw this, but I’m not because I want you to have it.” She looked at Marcus. “Don’t wait too long for your happily ever after,” she said. Then she turned and walked back to her new husband.

“They’re pretty,” Marcus said, gesturing to the flowers. Then he leaned down and kissed the top of my head. “And I like the sound of happily ever after.”

I smiled up at him. I liked the sound of it, too.