Cassie looked up at the drop-tile ceiling as if asking for divine intervention. “I want to shake you and knock loose some of the good sense I know you were born with, but I know your kind of stubborn because I’ve got it, too. So I’m going to have to try to talk some sense into you.”
I turned to leave but she was quicker, blocking the exit. “No, missy. We need to have a little come-to-Jesus meeting, and I’m not letting you out of here until I’ve had my say.”
I crossed my arms like a petulant teenager. “Since I don’t have a choice, go ahead. I’m listening.”
“My gosh, Maddie. We are so much alike I feel like I’m talking to myself. Do you not think I was in your same position after your mama died? I was near crazy with grief. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore, and I almost made the worst mistake of my life by letting Sam go.”
She took a deep breath as if preparing herself for a long speech. “If God gives you one more year or one hundred years on this earth, it’s up to you to live every last minute of it. It’s your responsibility, and you owe it to your mama to take it seriously. One year of happiness is worth so much more than a lifetime of just existing. There are no guarantees in life, and you have to accept that and love all the beautiful and ugly that life throws at you.”
I tried to stop the tears, knowing what an ugly cry could do to my mascara. “Precious said the same thing.”
“Well, from what you’ve told me, she was a very smart woman. I want you to picture her here right now, standing next to me, you hear? Did you know that Colin told Sam about his brother who died? Yet here he is with you, and he apparently has no intention of accepting your belief that you’ve got a preordained expiration date like a carton of milk. Because it doesn’t matter to him. That fine young man out there would walk across burning coals for you. He flew from London to be with you at your sister’s wedding in Walton, Georgia, Maddie. If that doesn’t say love, then I don’t know what does.”
“You know that’s not all of it.” I sniffed loudly, and Cassie handed me a folded cocktail napkin to dab at my eyes. Mothers always seemed to have useful items at hand. My mother had, too.
“No, it’s not. But I would bet my eyeteeth that when you tell that young man out there the rest of your story, it won’t make a bit of difference to him.”
“Are you done?”
“I sure hope so. The rest is up to you.” She hugged me, squeezing me tightly, as if to make up for my long absence. “Don’t ever forget that you are worthy of love.”
I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Precious said that, too.”
“Well, then. And I know I could grab Suzanne to come in here, and she’d tell you the same thing. Maybe you should listen to some of the smartest women you’ve ever known and do something about it.”
I left the room and found my way to the coatroom without being seen except by my brother Joey, whom I told to let my father and Colin know I was going home. The bride and groom had left directly after the cake cutting to try to make it to the airport ahead of the weather, so my official duties were done.
I let myself out of the building and into the frigid night air, which definitely smelled of snow. Huddling into my wool coat, I walked the short blocks to my daddy’s house and let myself in.
When I flipped on the light in my bedroom, I saw a book had been left on my dresser. It was the worn leather-bound volume of Wordsworth’s poetry that Graham had once given to Eva. I picked it up, thumbing through the pages with bleary eyes until something fell out of it.
I bent down and picked up Graham’s photograph, the one where he looked so much like Colin. I looked at it for a long time, at the young hopeful eyes and grin, the face of a person who didn’t know what was to come. Like the faces in every photograph, I supposed. I wondered if he would have done anything differently if he’d known how it would all end. I knew, somehow, that he would have still chosen to love. And to be brave.
I replaced the photograph and put the book down on my dresser, next to the white ivory dolphin that Precious had given me, the talisman of the love she and Graham had shared. I held it in my hand, solid and real, remembering what she’d told me about beauty and love.
After I got ready for bed and turned out the light, I lay in the darkness, holding the dolphin, listening to the stillness of the night, then the sounds of my family returning from the wedding. I listened as the water thrummed through the pipes and doors shut, as the house settled into sleep. And then finally, I listened to my own heart for the first time in years, and I knew what I had to do.
CHAPTER 41
WALTON, GEORGIA
DECEMBER 2019
I shivered in my coat while walking through a scattering of what looked alarmingly like snowflakes falling on the sleeping lawns and houses of Walton as I headed to my aunt’s house. I passed the Harriet Madison Warner Memorial Park and the cemetery where my mother slept under pots of plastic poinsettias. Past blow-up snowmen and Santas with reindeer and sleighs that sprouted in yards like mutant trees, the brilliant displays of twinkling lights on every porch, roof, and railing a fitting backdrop to the festive statuary. A few creative people had
