by Molly Harper
“The place that’s not even open yet?” Margot opened the box and found a small pecan tart, beautifully formed with a hand-pinched golden crust, shiny with egg wash. Perfectly aligned pecans sprouted from the center in concentric circles, topping a custard filling that crackled with brown sugar and sweet possibilities.
“This smells amazing. I want to eat it n—” she said, glancing up to see Marianne offering her a plastic fork.
“The secret to surviving pregnancy is to find the food you can tolerate and then eat as much of it as possible,” Marianne told her.
“This is why you’re my favorite cousin.”
Margot was almost sorry to break the pecan topping, but break it she did, shoveling an enormous bite into her mouth. She moaned, and the sound was downright indecent. This was everything she wanted in food, sweet and rich and filling.
“How do I get more of this?”
“It’s one of Duff’s old friends from—hell, since forever,” Marianne said. “Lucy Bowman. He’s head over ass in love with her, has been since high school, but he’s too damn stubborn to do anything about it.”
“I need to meet this pastry temptress, soon.”
“You’ll love her. The bakery she’s opening, Gimme Some Sugar, is over on Main Street.”
“I’m very much in favor of that. Though, if I keep eating like this, I’m not going to fit into these pants for very long,” Margot said, sitting back in her chair.
“Honey, you’re holding on by a safety pin as it is,” Marianne said, nodding toward her waist, where an extra-large diaper fastener was the only thing securing her pants.
Margot patted her belly. “I know. I ‘popped’ about a week ago. I just wanted to stay in my old clothes as long as possible. I worked for a really long time to build a wardrobe of designer classics . . . also, the maternity wear I’ve seen online looks like something out of The Handmaid’s Tale. So many empire waistlines . . . so many.”
“I told Kyle not to let you watch that show.”
3
STAN PULLED THE funeral home van in front of Kyle’s house, a modern Cape Cod saltbox on the shore of Lake Sackett. The house was gray with blue shutters, and on either side of the front door were enormous pots just recently planted with purple and yellow pansies that scented the air with their waxy citrus fragrance every time Margot stepped outside.
Somehow, her father managed to keep his navy suit crisp, even with the seat belt pinning his clothes to his chest. By comparison, Margot’s safety pin had given up the fight after lunch.
“Thanks for driving me home, Dad. I could have driven myself, but I didn’t get to see you for most of the day, so this was nice.”
“I know I’m fussin’ a little bit, but thanks for humorin’ me. I worry about my grandbaby driving his mama crazy,” Stan said, his smile digging deeper furrows around his dark brown eyes. “I’ll have somebody drop your car by the house later.”
“I much prefer your fussing to Leslie and Tootie’s fussing. And E.J.J.’s, for that matter. He found me putting an urn on a display shelf in the showroom and he took it out of my hands and tried to make me go take a nap. Where he wanted me to lie down, I have no idea, but I suspect Frankie’s slab would be involved.”
Stan tried to hold in a laugh, his craggy face crinkling while he patted her hair. “It will all work out, Sweet Tea, I promise. Everybody is just trying to show you that they care about you and they’re worried about you . . . but they’re doing it in the most obnoxious way possible, because they’re McCreadys. And that’s what McCreadys do.”
She laughed and put her hand over his. “Thanks, Dad.”
Stan grinned, like he always did when Margot called him Dad. Things had been very awkward with her father when she’d returned to Lake Sackett. Margot didn’t know the man, and what Linda had told her throughout her childhood hadn’t been good. She hadn’t known anyone on his side of the family. Her first few weeks in town, all of these people kept coming forward with memories of Margot that she didn’t share and it became so frustrating. But her father had been so maddeningly patient as she rejected him over and over.
Margot had expected her stay in Lake Sackett to be a short one. She wasn’t built for small-town Southern life. She’d thought she would bide her time until she found a job with one of the lesser firms in a smaller but still high-market city, and then she’d climb her way back to the elite level. But then she had met Kyle and he’d complicated the hell out of her life. So much so that Margot had given her father a chance to be paternal, and they’d somehow found their way back to this more comfortable medium.
Linda had always blamed the end of her first marriage on the fact that Stan was an alcoholic. And while that certainly hadn’t helped things, Margot also knew that Linda had hated everything about life in Lake Sackett. She’d craved the busy city and all its cosmopolitan charms. For some reason Margot still didn’t understand, Linda seemed to have thought she married into wealth when she married a McCready. And when she’d realized her mistake, she’d towed Margot to a target-rich environment where she could access the kind of money and lifestyle she wanted from a new partner.
Stan had been sober for years now. He’d stopped living at the funeral home, in the apprentice apartment, and had returned to the family cabin on the McCready compound—something he’d found too painful after Linda’s departure. And he seemed far more content than Margot had been when they first reconnected. The pair of them were never going to be as close as they could have been, but they had a comfortable relationship. One of the few things she was absolutely sure about when it came to the wedding was that she wanted her father to walk her down the aisle, something she’d always thought she could live without before.
“Kyle and the girls will be home from school soon?” he asked.
“Yes, I will be properly supervised in just a few minutes. And Kyle is picking up dinner later from the Rise and Shine, because he’s convinced that the baby needs protein in the form of red meat.”
“The baby needs whatever you feel like eating,” Stan said. “I know the doctor said no caffeine, and I respect that. But it seems like you girls drive yourselves crazy trying to eat organic, vegan, no artificial colors. And that’s fine, but all that stress has to be just as bad for the baby as some red meat and food dye.”
“This is why your baby book didn’t make the bestseller list,” she told him. He snorted as she opened the van door. “Drive safe, Dad.”
“Good night, Sweet Tea.”
Margot used her key to let herself in. The house was, as always, clean but cluttered, and there was considerable evidence of Margot living there. One of great-grandma Ellie’s quilts was thrown over the back of the sofa, the earth tones a contrast to the dark blue cotton upholstery. Kyle’s paperback novels and academic journals were still piled high on the coffee table next to Margot’s magazines. Big picture windows framed a beautiful view of the lake with new blue and green curtains she’d ordered from her favorite draper in Chicago. The girls’ toys were stored in big canvas bins Margot had ordered, with their names embroidered on them. While the house hadn’t been super messy when she’d moved in, she liked to think she brought a little more organization with her.
She also brought a fluffy mutt named Arlo, who was now barreling out of the kitchen and threw himself at her knees. He was soon joined by Charlie, a black-and-tan dachshund whom the girls had adopted from Tootie just before Margot adopted Arlo. The addition of two dogs to the household meant Kyle had spent much of her first week in the house installing a doggie door to the backyard. The arrangement had worked well over the winter, until the night a possum had let himself into the kitchen and helped himself to the contents of the fruit bowl. Kyle hastily replaced the old-school door with a higher-tech model that only opened when it read RFID chips implanted in the dogs’ collars.
“Hi, guys, how are you?” she asked, crouching down to pet the puppies. She felt the safety pin at her waist give and her pants popped open. Her frustrated growl was
barely audible over the dogs’ happy barks. “Of course.”
THIRTY MINUTES AND ONE PAIR of yoga pants later, Margot was standing at the kitchen counter debating the relative merits of eating an apple for a snack or consuming the entire bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the cabinet. She liked standing near this window, where she could look out on the lake and see Kyle’s sailboat—just taken out of winter storage—bumping against the dock.
A framed photo of Kyle’s late wife, Maggie, balanced carefully on the windowsill. She’d been a beautiful woman, with glossy dark hair and laughing brown eyes. Maggie’s photos with the girls were displayed just as prominently throughout the kitchen and living room as they had been the day Margot first visited the house. She’d been adamant with Kyle that she didn’t want that to change just because she was living in the house. Frankly, she felt like she was still on somewhat wobbly ground with his older daughter, Hazel.
Hazel had more memories of her mother, and was much more reluctant to accept Margot into their family circle. She hovered in the periphery, watching as June and Margot played together. She didn’t wrap herself around Margot’s hip like June did or demand bedtime kisses. And Margot didn’t blame her, really. She didn’t want to try to replace their mother. Maggie was a difficult standard to live up to, and not just in the Rebecca way. Nearly everyone in Lake Sackett remembered her as kind, funny, and smart. Even Margot had to admit that in an ideal world, Maggie would still be there to raise the girls. Instead, they were left with Margot, someone who hadn’t been sure she wanted children until she met them. (Which was fortunate, considering the state of her gut.)
But she was so afraid of messing up, she sometimes felt she kept herself too distant. She didn’t want to make mistakes with the girls, the way her own mother had botched up her childhood. And it felt like every decision she made was a potential minefield of emotional trauma. She hoped that maybe, after the baby was born, she would feel more confident in her choices.
But it didn’t seem likely that the ticking grenade of hormones and sleepless nights she was carrying about in her uterus was going to make split-second decisions easier.
The dogs’ heads perked up at the sound of the front door opening. June came running into the kitchen wearing a minidress printed to look like the TARDIS and turquoise rain boots. Since spending more time with Frankie, June had found several “fandoms” that she loved, including Dr. Who and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She wasn’t allowed to watch the scarier Whovian episodes, but she was a staunch Ninth Doctor girl and was planning to be Rose Tyler for Halloween that year. Kyle had not relented on allowing June to dye her hair crimson like Frankie’s, but had given her a set of rainbow hair chalks as a compromise.
“Hi, Mom!” June cried, hugging her leg. “We did a volcano science experiment at school today, but Joey Childress knocked over vinegar and baking soda and it made a huge mess on Ms. Marcum’s desk. It looked like the Adipose! It was so cool!”
Margot froze, her hand suspended over June’s head. Did June just call her Mom? Margot pressed a hand over her belly and felt her knees go a little weak. She’d expected to be stressed or panicked when someone called her Mom for the first time, but this felt right. She loved June. She took care of her. She wouldn’t trade anything for having June in her life. So . . . maybe this was what motherhood was supposed to feel like. It was certainly preferable to the whole constant-morning-sickness thing.
She glanced up at Kyle, who had just walked into the room with Hazel. He was watching the interaction carefully, the corner of his mouth curving up. Margot stroked her fingers over June’s mussed hair. She swallowed thickly, determined not to make the situation weird. “That’s too bad for poor Ms. Marcum, sweetheart, but it sounds like you had fun. You want a snack?”
“Peanut butter Daleks, please!” June said, skipping into the living room. Margot snickered. “Peanut butter Daleks” were just apple slices covered in peanut butter with a few strategically placed chocolate chips, but June swore they were exact replicas of the Doctor’s mortal enemies. It was the only after-school snack she’d tolerate at the moment.
On the rare days Margot had managed to anger her mother by disagreeing with Linda’s carefully constructed life plans, her mom would hiss in her carefully cultivated non-Georgian accent, “I hope that one day you have a little girl just like you. And then you’ll know how much it hurts to have all your efforts thrown back in your face.” Of course, Linda never could have foreseen Margot receiving a daughter like June, who wanted to dress and act just like her cousin Frankie. Linda probably wouldn’t have relished that idea so much.
“I will smooth the peanut butter on with my sonic screwdriver,” Margot said, waving a butter knife. “How about you, Hazel?”
Hazel, whose eyes were already narrowed and shiny, scowled at Margot, then threw her backpack on the floor with a thunk and ran up the stairs. Margot turned to Kyle.
“What did I do?” Margot asked.
“I don’t think it’s you. I think Hazel is feeling a little bit betrayed,” Kyle said.
“June doesn’t have to call me Mom if it makes Hazel uncomfortable.”
Kyle wrapped his arms around her.
“I don’t want to do anything to make her upset,” she whispered.
“Well, that’s not very fair to June. If she wants to call you Mom, she should be able to. The girls have to move at their own pace. Let me talk to Hazel.”
“Should I go, too? Or go fetch her some cookies or brownies or something? Sugar is usually the answer here, right?”
Kyle glanced upward as the Kidz Bop version of “Bad Blood” started from Hazel’s bedroom overhead—which was as close as a well-supervised nine-year-old got to angry heavy metal. “Probably not.”
“Just don’t make her feel bad. She can call me Margot every day for the rest of my life if she wants to. I mean, it was amazing to hear June say it, but that’s June and she doesn’t remember her mom like Hazel does. And I just—” Margot took a deep breath. “I don’t want to mess this up.”
“I know.” Kyle kissed her. “You’re a good woman, you know that?”
“I have my doubts every once in a while.”
He grinned at her. “I don’t care what anybody else says.”
“Go on. I’m just going to be here, rubbing butter on that sick burn you just gave me,” she muttered.
Kyle grinned again as he slipped out of the kitchen. Margot braced herself against the counter and caught her breath. As much as June’s calling her Mom had knocked her knees out from under her, she was surprised that Hazel’s rejection didn’t sting. Hazel was hurting. She was a child who missed her mother and was feeling very adult emotions about changes to her family she couldn’t control.
Months ago, when Margot still fit into her pants and had something resembling a five-year-plan, she probably would have cited Hazel’s feelings as reason enough to end the relationship. Old Margot didn’t do emotional complications. Hell, she probably would have taken it pretty personally. New Margot was crying for the girl and trying to figure out how to make it better with baking. Well, someone else’s baking. Margot hadn’t become that domestic yet.
She wasn’t sure if that meant she was growing as a person or losing her edge. Probably a little bit of both.
“Oh, emotional maturity.” She sighed, taking a bite of a tart Granny Smith apple from the nearby fruit bowl. “You fickle mistress.”
4
WHILE MARGOT HAD made peace with the charms of small-town life, she had to admit it was nice to drive to Atlanta and enjoy chain stores and upscale restaurants and malls that didn’t have the words flea market in the title.
It gave her a thrill to look out the van window and see the bright neon lights of big-box stores. Hell, even recognizable gas station chains made her smile. In what she considered to be a stroke of Machiavellian genius, she’d included Frankie, Marianne, Tootie, and Leslie in this wedding dress shopping excursion. She hoped that giving them a lot of input in a short shopp
ing session—and then ignoring it and getting what she wanted—would make them feel like they were included.
Margot had even invited Aunt Donna, who gave her the patented you just said something too stupid for me to dignify with a response eye roll and shut her front door in Margot’s face.
June had begged to come to the pretty dress shop and look at wedding gowns, but Margot thought it would be a little too much for her to manage two girls and the frustration of trying to find a stylish outfit that would fit over her baby belly without broadcasting Knocked up at the altar! She’d promised that she would take the girls on their own special flower girl dress search and lunch at a fancy restaurant soon. But since she’d never taken children shopping, she would probably need Marianne to help wrangle them. And maybe a SWAT team.
Hazel was still cutting Margot a pretty wide berth, but the looks she gave Margot were more angry than wounded . . . which seemed promising? Angry she guessed she could work with; hurt was harder to negotiate. After their conversation, Kyle confirmed that yes, Hazel was angry with June for calling Margot Mom. And angry with Margot for existing.
Kyle had very patiently explained to Hazel that while he cared very much about her feelings, Margot was a part of their family and was not going away. And that Hazel wouldn’t decide for June what sort of relationship she had with Margot. Hazel seemed to accept this but clearly wasn’t happy about it. She wouldn’t even eat the smiley-face eggs and toast Margot made for breakfast the next day—and that was the only breakfast Margot knew how to make.
Kyle assured her that this was normal, that the child therapist Hazel had spoken to after her mother’s death had assured him that it was typical for big changes to be met with hostility. The duration of that hostility would determine whether she needed to start talking to the therapist again.
Marianne parked the van in the chic shopping center in the Brookhaven area, which boasted several high-end boutiques Margot hadn’t visited since she left Chicago.
