Sunday mornings at Pete’s Diner were always crowded, and it took Margo a moment to find her sisters through the crowd. But there they were, at a back table, Abby in a green sweater and Bridget in blue, both looking happier than she’d seen them since she first came back to town.
“There you are!” Abby said, pushing a chair away from the table to allow Margo to join them.
“I see the party’s already started,” Margo observed. She flipped over her coffee mug and lifted the carafe in the center of the table.
“Oh, just a little girl talk,” Abby said. “There’s a new cute guy working over at Serenity Hills.”
“A male nurse,” Bridget informed her.
Margo kept her expression neutral. He already sounded better than Abby’s last guy.
“I think I’ll pay Mimi an extra visit today,” Abby mused, giving them a knowing smile.
“I might join you,” Margo said. “If you promise to distract that cat while I’m there.”
“As long as you don’t try to flirt with Mr. Wonderful.” Abby grinned. “But then, you’re no threat. It’s Bridget who’s single.”
“And not looking,” Bridget added with a stern look.
“Actually…” Margo took a deep breath. “Ash and I are over.”
Bridget’s brow creased in concern. “You sure about that?”
Margo nodded. She’d never been more sure of anything. “It’s over. And…I’m okay with that.”
“I’m sorry, Margo.” Bridget gave her a sympathetic look.“I know it isn’t easy to end a marriage, even when it isn’t working.”
Abby didn’t seem to know how to react. She looked from Margo to Bridget and back again. “So what does this mean? Are you…divorced?”
Divorced. It was such a big word. So official. “Eventually. It’s better this way,” Margo said, taking a sip of her coffee. “I know it in my heart.” And Mom knew it too, she thought. But there were some things in life you had to discover on your own. “Ash and I had some good memories. I’m going to try to focus on that. It wasn’t all for nothing.”
“I feel the same way about Ryan,” Bridget announced, and now it was Margo’s turn to glance at Abby. “Actually, Ryan and I have decided to try to be friends. For Emma’s sake. We’re going to try to get along better, maybe even do an outing every few months, so Emma can have both of her parents together.”
“How do you feel about that?” Margo gauged. Usually the mere mention of Ryan’s name was enough to cause Bridget’s cheeks to flush and her eyes to narrow.
But now Bridget smiled. A real, genuine smile of contentment. “I feel…relieved. And I feel…relaxed. I’d been holding onto anger for so long that I couldn’t even think of what I ever saw in that man to begin with. He’s not a bad person. He’s just not someone I should be married to.”
Margo nodded. She felt the same way about Ash, somehow. Not that she’d be forgiving his recent behavior, though.
“There’s more,” Bridget said. “It’s why I asked you guys to come to brunch today.”
Margo’s stomach dropped. Oh, God. The house. She’d done it. It was official. The house was sold.
“I’m not selling the house.” She looked at them expectantly, as silence fell over the table.
“What?” Abby looked distressed. “But how can you say that? You said we needed the money to pay for Mimi—”
Bridget was shaking her head, but she was smiling. “It’s not going to be a problem. I’m buying the house.”
“You?” Margo could only stare at her sister. “But how?”
“You know all that money I gave Ryan for his restaurant?”
Did Margo ever know. She knew every detail of every sacrifice. Every dream that Bridget had, however small, overshadowed by Dunley’s. Every dime that Bridget earned back then went to pay for contractors or liquor licenses or a new industrial-sized fridge.
“He paid me back.” Bridget was beaming. “All these years later, he made it up to me for helping him build that restaurant into what it’s become. And it’s enough money to live on for a while, too, especially if I turn the house into a business.”
“A business?” Margo noticed the waiter approaching their table from her periphery, but from the way all three women were hunched over, rapt in conversation, he thought better of it and moved on to the next table instead.
“I’m going to turn the house into an inn. With your blessings, of course.”
“As if you needed to ask!” Margo exclaimed. “That’s a fantastic idea! Do you need any help?”
“Actually, I was hoping you could help me redecorate. Turn the bedrooms into guest rooms, that type of thing. I have some experience from when I worked in the hotel, and I already have a list of ideas I want to incorporate. I was up all night planning things!” She beamed, and Margo realized it had been a long time since she’d seen her sister smile like that. “I’ll bring in a contractor for some of the work, like transforming the attic and closing off some of the downstairs space for a small apartment for me and Emma. But…you approve?”
“A hundred percent, yes!” Margo’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much, and Abby flagged down the waiter, who looked guardedly at the ruckus they were all causing now.
“Three mimosas,” she declared. “We’re celebrating today.”
The waiter hurried away, but that didn’t stop Abby from lifting her coffee mug while they waited. “A toast. To family. And…to bright futures.”
“To bright futures!” Margo and Bridget declared.
It was true that perhaps the future had never been brighter, for any of them. There was just one thing missing, though, Margo thought. A person she had always seen in her future, one she had forced herself to forget, and now, couldn’t again. Would Eddie ever speak to her again? Or had he made up his mind, was he going back to Philly?
It was Sunday. His decision was made. She frowned when she thought that it might be too late for them. That they’d wasted another opportunity. Or that maybe, they just weren’t meant to be.
Bridget caught her frowning. “You okay?”
“I am,” Margo said slowly. “And I will be okay.”
Abby set down her mug and sighed. “Now that you guys have everything figured out, I guess that just leaves me.”
“Are you saying that you’re looking to settle down?” Margo glanced at Bridget, who looked just as perplexed as she felt.
Abby laughed. “God no. Life is too short to stay put, doing the same thing day after day, with the same person…”
Margo smiled at Bridget across the table as the waiter appeared with their drinks. Maybe she was wrong. Some things did never change.
***
If there was one advantage to small town life, it was that you could easily find someone. And if you didn’t know where they were, you could ask. One question to Bridget confirmed that she’d seen Eddie at the apartment building that morning, and that he usually had Sundays off, too.
And this was why, with a pounding heart, Margo stood in the courtyard of the building, staring at Eddie’s door (information also courtesy of Bridget) wondering if he would even answer it when she knocked.
She had to try.
She put her fist to the door and, before her nerves could get the better of her, tapped three times.
Nothing happened. Maybe she hadn’t knocked hard enough. She tried again, a little louder this time.
Nothing. She stared at the door, wondering if he was inside and choosing not to answer, or if he was gone and she should come back later. She reached into her handbag for a scrap of paper and scrawled a note that she tucked under the corner of his doormat.
“Looking for me?” a voice behind her said, causing her to jump.
Margo turned, heart pounding, to see Eddie standing a few feet from her, a strange expression on his face that she wouldn’t exactly define as a smile.
“I was just leaving you a note,” she said. As if that weren’t obvious.
“A note?” Now Eddie looked interested. “What does it say?”
Now why’d she have to go and leave a note? Why hadn’t she turned and left, come back later? She sighed against her growing humiliation and reached down to grab the paper, which she thrust out at him.
He took it and read aloud, “I’m sorry. Margo.” He looked up at her. “Sorry for what?”
Margo froze. This was where her grand plan ended, and it hadn’t been much of a plan at all, really. “I’m sorry for the other day. At my house.”
Eddie held up a hand. “No need to apologize.” But his jaw was set and his eyes were flat and Margo knew then what she was sorry for, and what she’d been afraid to say earlier, for fear that it wasn’t really true.
“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings. I’m sorry if you thought…Look, Ash surprised me. I wasn’t expecting him.”
Eddie just nodded. “It’s your life, Margo. I’m not involved.” He tried to brush past her, toward his door. He was already fetching his key from his pocket.
“But you are involved,” she said, her voice growing louder, forcing Eddie to stop walking. “You were…always involved.”
Eddie frowned, and Margo felt her shoulders droop. She motioned to the sidewalk. “Can we take a walk? Just five minutes? I feel like everyone’s staring out their windows.”
He looked up. “I’m sure they are.” He hesitated. “I guess I can spare five minutes.”
That wasn’t the reaction she had hoped for. Still, she’d take it. They walked out of the courtyard and down the street, to a park she used to play in as a child. The park where he’d first kissed her, half a lifetime ago. Leaves crunched under feet, and children laughed in the distance. Margo kept walking, hoping it wasn’t too late, that Eddie hadn’t made his decision. That he wasn’t leaving. Again.
“When you left…it broke my heart,” she said. She couldn’t look at him, just at the leaves beneath her shoes, and the tufts of grass that wouldn’t be green much longer. “And I didn’t want to feel that way again. I didn’t want to fall so hard. And then I met Ash.” She shrugged. “And it was easy.” Now she turned to look at him. “I tried to find someone as different from you as I could. It seemed like the only way to guarantee that I’d never feel the way I felt when you left me. But I didn’t stop to realize that I never felt the way I did when I was with you either. Happy. Excited.” She shook her head. So many wonderful feelings that couldn’t be put into words. “Ash and I are over. I told him so.”
“Because of what happened?” Eddie asked, stopping to look at her properly.
“Because of that, yes. But because…we weren’t right for each other, not really. And because I gave up so much to try to convince myself that we were.”
“And what is right for you, Margo?”
Margo took a deep breath. She didn’t want to tell Eddie how she felt. She didn’t want to give him that power again. But if she didn’t, he might never know.
“You were right for me,” she said, swallowing hard. “Maybe…maybe you still are.”
Eddie grinned. A slow, smooth grin that made her stomach flutter and her chest swell. “You know when I went over there and saw you with him, I was pretty upset.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“I got in my car, and I drove around.”
She knew where this was going. “And you called Mick.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And I called Mick.”
Oh, God. Margo chewed her lip. “And what did you decide?”
“Philly was good to me, Margo. It’s where I became a cop, it’s where I started helping people and really, well, growing up, I guess you could say.” He stared at her for a moment. “It’s time to put down roots. Time to go home.”
She nodded. Of course, of course. It made sense. Why would she have thought he’d want to stay? He didn’t have fond memories of this town, not like her. It was never his home, it was only ever a place he’d passed through.
“So I’m staying.”
She blinked. “What?” Her heart was pounding and she hadn’t even realized she had been holding her breath until it came out in one long burst.
His grin was slow. “Oyster Bay is where I belong. It’s where I’ve always belonged. It’s where I’ve been happiest. I never forgot the time I spent here. The time I spent with you.”
She couldn’t hide her smile. “Oh.”
“And what about you? You thinking of giving Oyster Bay another shot?”
“I am, actually,” she said, grinning up at him. “I ran away for all the wrong reasons.”
“And now?”
She looked at him, at the man who had stolen her heart, and who still had it. “Now I have a reason to stay.”
“Think the second time around will be just as sweet?” he asked, reaching down to take her hand. It was warm and smooth and achingly familiar.
“Even sweeter,” she said, knowing it was true. That they’d both come so far, and full circle, to be standing right here in this moment. “But no rush this time. I need some time and—”
“Take all the time you need,” he said, leaning in to kiss her. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And neither was she.