The Darkest Day
Lila always said Meghan was born with words already forming in her head. When Meghan was barely eleven years old, she used her allowance to buy a black-and-white composition book. On the first page, she wrote “The Private Thoughts of Meghan Briggs” in loopy handwriting and used a smiley face to dot the i in her name. Then she drew a flowery border around the words, turned to the second page, and began scribbling thoughts about her desire to have summer sandals the color of a daffodil and how she was drawn to a boy named Marcus. Before the notebook was filled, Meghan knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to be a writer—a journalist or novelist, perhaps.
When she announced this intention, Lila saw the determination in her daughter’s face and gave a proud smile. “You surely are like your daddy.”
In Meghan’s senior year of high school, she applied to the Grady College of Journalism at the University of Georgia in Athens and was accepted. That winter she filled two notebooks with thoughts of going off to Athens and following in the footsteps of Mr. Henry W. Grady himself.
On graduation day, as she walked across the stage to receive her diploma, she glanced out at the audience and smiled. They were all there, all the people she loved: her daddy, wearing a smile that stretched the full width of his face, and her mama, sitting proudly beside him. On his other side, her older sister, Tracy, was looking down at her cupped hands, probably texting Dominic, her boyfriend of the day.
The early-morning forecast had threatened rain, but a gentle breeze pushed the clouds aside. By ten o’clock the sky was a blanket of blue with sunlight dappling the grass. When they gathered for photographs after the ceremony, Meghan was all smiles.
Two days later, everything changed.
The storm that had threatened for days finally rolled through and soaked the ground. The temperature rose to ninety-seven that afternoon, and the air turned so muggy you had to work at breathing. Meghan and her daddy were sitting on the front porch, lazily pushing back and forth in the swing.
“You excited about leaving?” he asked.
“I sure am.”
Of course Meghan was ready. She’d been ready for a long time. Before the end of her junior year, she had recommendation letters from three teachers, her soccer coach, and the pastor at Good Shepherd Church. Her dream had become a reality when she’d been accepted to the Grady College of Journalism, and now, in seven short weeks, she would be leaving for Athens.
George Briggs reached across and took his daughter’s hand in his.
“I’m awfully proud of you,” he said, “but I’m going to miss having my little helper.”
“I’m not gone yet,” she replied. “I can help out until the middle of August. Maybe by then you can get somebody . . .”
Five years earlier, when George had had his first heart attack, he’d resigned his job as a stockbroker and bought the Snip ’N’ Save magazine. He’d viewed owning it as a less stressful way to make a living. In the beginning, it was a simple thing to produce the weekly eight-page booklet with front-to-back coupons for savings on everything from a car to a package of toilet paper. But in five years, George’s keen business acumen couldn’t help shining through and had caused the magazine to grow to the point where it was now forty-eight pages and at times went as high as sixty-four.
The room that was once a den was now the office of the Snip ’N’ Save. It was in the rear of the house behind the dining room. There was space for two desks but little else. Finding a person to work in such an environment was rather unlikely.
“Maybe Mom or Tracy could help,” Meghan suggested.
Her daddy turned with a smile. “You know how your mama is with computers.”
With Lila there was plenty of cause for concern. Although she was a whiz in the kitchen, when it came to computers, she was at a loss. Something as simple as multiple attachments threw her into a tizzy. She’d download an advertising order, then find it impossible to locate in the computer. Staring at the screen helplessly, she’d mumble, “It’s gone. Simply gone.”
Tracy had her job at the bank, and when she wasn’t working, she was generally off with Dominic. College was not and had never been part of Tracy’s agenda, and neither was working alongside her daddy at the Snip ’N’ Save.
“Don’t worry,” George said, then gave Meghan’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “I may decide to cut back to thirty-two pages and just turn people away once the issue is sold out.”
She laughed. “Daddy, you know you’re never going to turn anyone away.”
Accepting that she was right, he laughed along with her.
Despite the heat and beads of sweat trickling down their backs, they sat and talked for nearly an hour. Then Lila called for them to come inside where it was cool and have a dish of ice cream. Afterward, Meghan headed for her bedroom where once again she looked through the Grady brochures that she’d read a hundred times before. George took the June issue of Businessweek and settled in the living room. Lila puttered around the kitchen until almost eleven, then went in to wake George. She’d looked in on him earlier, but he’d fallen asleep in the chair as he so often did.
She shook his arm and said, “Honey, it’s time for bed.”
Moments later, the most horrifying scream ever heard echoed through the house. It wound its way up the staircase, beneath closed doors, and into the far corners of every room. Meghan bolted from the bed and took the stairs two at a time. Following the sound of Lila’s cries, she headed for the living room.
“What happened?”
Lila was sitting on the floor, her head buried in George’s lap. Sobbing hysterically, she could barely gather enough strength to speak.
“Your daddy . . . ,” she said, the tears making her breath hitch, and then her words fell away.
Although Meghan’s shirt was still wet with perspiration from the heat of the day, she shivered with the icy thought left hanging in the air. She knelt beside her daddy, took his limp hand in hers, and understood the reality of what was.
“Oh, Daddy,” she cried, and dropped her head onto his arm.
When Tracy was with Dominic, she inevitably turned off her cell phone. If she was snuggled into his arms, the only thing she cared about was the feel of his mouth pressed hungrily against hers. The rest of the world could wait.
By the time he dropped her off in front of the house, the ambulance had come and gone, taking George with it. There were still two cars parked in the driveway. The black sedan belonged to Dr. Elliott, who’d given Lila a sedative to calm her. In front of the sedan was a patrol car. Two officers had arrived on the heels of the ambulance and stayed even after the medics carried George’s body out.
Tracy rushed in, breathless. “What’s going on?”
Lila was lying on the sofa with a damp cloth folded across her forehead, but she popped up the moment she heard Tracy’s voice.
“Where were you?” she said angrily. “We’ve been calling for hours!”
“With Dominic,” Tracy replied, then she went back to asking what was wrong.
“It’s Daddy,” Meghan said tearfully. “We think he had another heart attack.”
“Is he okay?”
Even as she asked the question, Tracy knew the answer. It was visible in the slump of Meghan’s shoulders and the glassy look in her mama’s eyes. She dropped onto the sofa beside Lila and gave a sorrowful sigh.
“Oh, Mama, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been here. If I’d known . . .”
Meghan looked across at her sister. “You couldn’t have done anything anyway. Daddy was gone when Mama found him.”
In the wee hours of the morning, Lila fell asleep on the sofa with Tracy curled into a ball beside her. Meghan took the afghan from the back of the chair, spread it across the two of them, then turned off the light and went into the Snip ’N’ Save office.
In here she could still feel her daddy. She could leaf through the organized clutter on his desk and make herself believe she would find him sitting there the next morning. There was a measure of comfort in running her fingers across his keyboard, in scooting down in his chair and bracing her stretched-out legs against the back of the desk as he did.
She sat for a while. Then, without thinking, she moved the mouse and clicked on the e-mail icon. Three new ads had come in. Meghan downloaded them, sorted them into folders, and then clicked on his calendar.
Next week’s Snip ’N’ Save was already at the printer; the following week’s issue was scheduled for release on Friday. The three ads that had come in were the last of what was booked. She clicked on the Adobe icon and opened InDesign, then slid each of the ads into place and closed the file.
Long after Meghan powered off the computer, she remained in the office thinking about her daddy and wondering what he’d want her to do. Oddly enough, the answer she came up with wasn’t anything like what George would have wanted.