A Remembered Love
During those first few weeks, there was a phone call or text from Tracy almost every day. She had so much to say about her new life. Dominic loved his job; they’d found an apartment; she was working as a waitress; they’d gone to the aquarium. None of it was especially exciting news, but it was a way of staying in touch. As weeks turned into months, the flow of daily updates slowed and then became little more than a trickle. E-mails that previously took a full five minutes to read were whittled down to a paragraph or two, and in time they shrunk to a single line. Texts were a few words followed by an emoji.
Nothing much happening here, Tracy would write, then ask how the family was doing.
Throughout that first year, Meghan buried herself in the day-to-day tasks of the Snip ’N’ Save. After the work that needed to be done was done, she began to create new projects: a mailing to potential customers in the surrounding towns, a special edition to celebrate the coming of spring, coupon pages for advertisers who couldn’t afford to run a quarter-page ad.
The town of Magnolia Grove was expanding—new homes springing up on streets that a few years earlier were vacant lots, businesses branching out from Main Street and the Chamber of Commerce adding new members, nineteen in a single year. To keep pace with the town’s growth, Meghan began to include new features in the Snip ’N’ Save. She started with listings of special events, then added spotlight features on local businesses. Before long, she found she could afford to take on an assistant and hired Sheldon Markowitz, a young man in his second year of studying design at the community college. Once he took over the layout and design of the magazine, she had enough time to call on customers and take them to lunch as her daddy had done.
It turned out to be the perfect arrangement. As ads came in, Meghan forwarded them to Sheldon, who worked remotely, and they communicated via e-mail. When the layout was complete, he sent everything to the print shop with a few keystrokes. Once or twice a month he and Meghan got together for lunch, and although it was supposed to be a business meeting, they generally ended up talking as two old friends.
She told him about her occasional dates with Pete Mulligan and the pharmacist who’d invited her to a dance at the Elks Club. He told her about his friend Sarah. At the moment, Sarah was just a friend, but Sheldon hoped one day to change that.
“We hang out a lot,” he said, “but I’m afraid if I try to ramp it up a notch, she’ll back away from our friendship.”
“Don’t be shy,” Meghan advised. “Shyness will get you nowhere.” She left off the part about knowing this from her own personal experience.
In early September, on a weekday evening at Walmart, Meghan was picking up a few items for Lila. She breezed through the grocery aisles and eventually meandered past the school supply section. Right there, smack in the middle of the aisle, were hundreds of black-and-white composition books.
Her heart skipped a beat. It had been more than a year since she’d written in a journal, more than a year since she’d made the fateful decision to delay going to Grady. For a moment she remembered the joy of scrawled words running across blank pages.
Suddenly a great longing filled her heart. It was the longing for thoughts that turned themselves into words and settled on pages to be forever preserved.
Moving closer to the display, she lifted a composition book and felt the familiar desire bristling inside her chest. Until now, she hadn’t realized how very much she’d missed this old friend. She dropped the composition book into her basket and hurried along the aisle.
That evening, Meghan took the book to her room and began to write. She intended to simply make note of her trip to Walmart, but once she started, she couldn’t stop. She wrote about all the things she’d kept bottled up inside her for more than a year: the heartache of Tracy leaving, the loneliness of an empty desk in the Snip ’N’ Save office, the Thanksgiving that had come and gone without Tracy at the table, the late-night sobs she’d heard coming from her mama’s room.
After she emptied her heart of those burdens, she wrote about Tracy’s life in Philadelphia, giving page after page of details about things she knew only from phone conversations and text messages. She told of Dominic’s new job and described the apartment as Tracy had described it to her.
One by one, she listed the Snip ’N’ Save’s new customers and explained how in a little more than one year the business had nearly doubled. She also told of hiring Sheldon Markowitz and bragged on his quick wit and flair with design.
“I think of Sheldon not as an employee,” she wrote, “but as a friend.”
The grandfather clock in the hall struck three before Meghan closed the book. By then her eyes were rimmed with red and her fingers cramped from gripping the pen, but the weight of the words she’d carried in her heart for all those long months was gone.
The next day, Meghan returned to Walmart and bought another ten composition books.
One Sunday morning, a year after Tracy had left home, she sent a text saying she was expecting a baby.
Meghan read the message three times before the thought actually settled into her head. Something about the way the text was put together troubled her. The first two words were Good news! It was supposed to sound happy, but there was an undercurrent of sadness, a thread of melancholy that seemed unlike the sister she’d known.
She and Tracy were always so close. With news this important, it would seem as if she’d call. Meghan’s first impulse was to call Tracy herself, but she hesitated, knowing there had to be a reason for the text instead of a call.
Maybe she’s at work? Or hasn’t told Dominic yet?
Meghan ran through a list of possible reasons, then hit on the one that was most likely. Tracy didn’t want Mama to know.
She tapped out a reply.
Congratulations! I’m so excited for you and Dominic. BTW, call Mama. She’ll love being a grandma.
Tracy’s response came back seconds later.
Don’t say anything to her yet, she wrote. Call you tomorrow.
The next day, Tracy called on the Snip ’N’ Save line. That was the customer line, and it was a safe bet their mama wouldn’t answer. The two sisters began talking at the same time.
“How wonderful—”
“I’m afraid—”
They both laughed.
“It’s your news, so you go first,” Meghan said.
“I’ve got a problem telling Mama and thought maybe you could tell her.”
“That’s crazy. Why would you not want to?”
“Because she’s not going to be one bit happy. She tolerates my being with Dom but doesn’t like it. Once she hears about the baby, I just know she’ll go back to asking when we’re getting married.”
“No, she won’t,” Meghan said. “Mama just wants you to be happy.”
“Yeah, happily married.” Tracy gave a labored sigh. “It isn’t like I don’t want it, too, but Dom isn’t ready yet.”
“Have you discussed it?”
“Yeah. He said Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt didn’t get married before having a baby, and if it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for him.”
They spoke for a long time, and in the end, Meghan agreed to smooth the way with their mama if Tracy would call that evening and talk with her.
“You’ll see. Mama will love being a grandma,” Meghan assured her.
“Maybe,” Tracy replied doubtfully.
That evening, when Tracy called, Lila put the call on speaker. By then she had come to grips with the fact that the baby would be born out of wedlock. It wasn’t what she would have wished, but Tracy was her daughter, and that outweighed both her dislike of Dominic and the impropriety of the situation. Keeping these opinions to herself, Lila stuck with expressions of happiness as the three women chatted.
“Perhaps you could come home for a visit,” she suggested.
“We’ve got too much going on right now,” Tracy said, but promised to think about it after the baby was born.
“You just know I’ll be itching to see my grandbaby,” Lila replied.
The conversation lasted a full twenty minutes, and during all that time there was not a single mention of Dominic. By anybody.
In April, Tracy gave birth to a baby boy. She named him Lucas, and he did indeed have her dark hair and eyes. When Meghan received the first picture, it was one of Tracy sitting in the hospital holding the baby in her arms, with Dominic standing beside her, leaning in. They appeared to be a family, married or not.
“You see, Mama,” Meghan said. “They’re happy together. Isn’t that the most important thing?”
Lila nodded reluctantly. “It should be, but I doubt Aunt Phoebe will see it that way.”