She was in the midst of cleaning out the center pencil drawer, the one containing all types of novelties and memorabilia, when she came across the piece of folded notepaper. It was tucked into a 2008 pocket calendar, wedged beneath a handheld calculator that no longer worked.
Tugging it loose, she unfolded it carefully; then she saw the familiar handwriting. At the top of the page was a heading: “George Briggs’s Bucket List.”
Meghan dropped down into the familiar chair, and as she read the words she could almost hear her daddy speaking them aloud. She thought back to the day they’d talked of a bucket list, and he’d said everyone should have one.
“Why?” she’d asked.
She could picture the way he’d turned to her and smiled.
“Because then you’ll have pinpointed the things you want most from life, and you won’t waste time worrying about the less important matters,” he’d said.
At the time, Meghan had thought about making her own bucket list, but she’d never gotten around to it. Holding the paper now, she read through the list of things her daddy had hoped to accomplish. Several items were crossed off, but a number of them were not.
A single line was drawn through “Spend a week at the beach with Lila and the girls.” Another line was drawn through “Quit smoking.” After that, there were a number of items crossed out; most she remembered, a few she did not. “See a World Series game” was crossed out, as was “Family visit to Disney World.”
Further down the list was “Get Meghan another dog. Settle Tracy in a profession she enjoys. See both girls happily married. Have grandbabies.” The last three items on the list were “Sell the Snip ’n Save. Retire. Move into a condo with Lila after the girls have left.”
For a long while, Meghan sat there with tears rolling down her cheeks. One splashed onto the note, and her daddy’s condo wish became blurred. She grabbed a tissue, blotted the stain, then wiped the tears from her face.
As she sat there with the note in her hands, she could feel the truth of every word. It was just as her mama had said. The Snip ’n Save was never a piece of her daddy. The memories of him she carried in her heart—those were the pieces she could hold on to. Those pieces had been there all along. They were something she would never lose.
With her eyes still teary, she pushed the chair back, stood, and turned toward the kitchen.
“Mama,” she called, “there’s something here you need to see . . .”
Although the hour was late, Meghan sat at the kitchen table with her mama and Tracy as she read the note. This time, there was no distance between the women. They sat shoulder to shoulder, leaning on one another as they shared memories and laughed. They spoke of the week at the beach and the Disney trip. Lila told of how George and three friends had driven to Philadelphia to see the Phillies defeat the Tampa Bay Rays to win the World Series.
“He claimed seeing that game was the thrill of a lifetime,” Lila said with an echo of fond remembrance threaded through her voice.
Meghan handed the note to Lila. “Here, Mama, I think you should be the one to hold on to this.”
Lila looked at the note for several minutes. Then she stood, grabbed a pen from the cabinet drawer, and drew a line through “Get Meghan another dog.”
Meghan gasped. “Mama, what are you doing?”
“I think your daddy would be pleased to know we’re still working on his list,” Lila said and smiled.
70
Meghan Whitely
I told Tracy I felt silly holding on to the Snip ’n Save when it wasn’t at all what Daddy wanted, but she just laughed. She said that Alice had written in her letter that the Lord orders things to happen in His own sweet time, and that His time isn’t always the same as ours.
“The Snip ’n Save was there when you needed it, and it was there when I needed it,” Tracy said. “Maybe that was our daddy’s way of watching over us.”
I believe there’s a lot of truth in what Mama said. It seems as if Daddy is still watching over us. When I needed something to love, he sent me Sox, and now he’s given me his bucket list so I can let go of the Snip ’n Save without feeling guilty. It’s possible those things were coincidence, but in my heart of hearts, I’ll never stop believing it was Daddy.
Even though he’s still in my heart, I can’t help wanting to keep a more tangible piece of him around. I asked Mama if I could have his office chair, and she said yes, although for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what I’d want with such a ratty-looking thing.
She’s right; it is kind of ratty-looking, but it still has Daddy’s smell. I brought it to the clinic and gave Peggy the fancy new swivel chair Tom bought me. She whirled around in that chair and acted like being the receptionist was the most important job in town. As for me, I’m happy to be sitting in that old chair of Daddy’s. I think after all these years, the seat cushion has kind of hollowed itself out to match my behind.
Mama says she’s going to keep crossing things off Daddy’s bucket list. I looked at the list, and there are only a few things left. One is “have grandbabies.” I told Mama now that she’s got Lucas, she could go ahead and cross that one off, but she shook her head.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “Grandbabies is plural.”
She was looking me square in the eye when she said it. I told Tom, and he grinned so wide I thought his face would split in half.
“Your mama has a point there,” he said and walked off whistling.
Of course, nobody knows what the future holds, but I can tell you this much: I’m feeling pretty good about it.
71
Wedding Bells
On a crisp November day, after the leaves had turned red and gold, then fallen and scattered themselves across the lawn and walkway, Lila climbed up into the attic. It was the first time in years she’d been up here, but she knew what she was looking for and exactly where to find it.
When they’d moved into the house, George had wrestled the huge trunk up the stairs and pushed it to the far side under the eaves.
“We won’t be needing this anytime soon,” he’d said with a laugh.
That was the year before Tracy was born.
Lila pushed aside a box of books and two cartons of baby clothes. Then, using an old T-shirt, she wiped a layer of dust from the top of the trunk and lifted the lid.
On the top was a quilt George’s grandma had made decades earlier; beneath that, the curtains from their first apartment. She set those things aside and pulled out the box she was looking for.
She lifted the lid, and there, packed in reams of tissue paper, was the wedding dress she’d worn the day she and George were married. Lila had thought about offering it to Meghan, but hers had been a summer wedding and the velvet dress would have been too warm. Anyway, Meghan was tall and willowy like her dad. The floor-length dress would have risen above her ankles.
Tracy was like Lila—shorter, a bit broader in the waist, and with shoulders that wouldn’t be dwarfed by the heft of velvet. And for a January wedding, the dress was perfect. Lila removed the bundles of rolled tissue, unfolded the dress, and held it up for inspection. It was just as the dry cleaner had promised: perfectly preserved.
She closed the trunk and carried the dress downstairs. Although the day she’d worn the dress was over thirty years ago, she remembered it as if it were yesterday. They were so young, so much in love. It was long before gray strands threaded George’s hair, long before her waist became thick and tiny lines settled at the corners of her eyes.
Glancing in the mirror, Lila held the dress in front of her and remembered it all: the kiss at the altar, the first dance, the promise he’d whispered in her ear. Tears welled in her eyes as she placed the dress on a hanger and hung it on Tracy’s bedroom door, the silky velvet shimmering in the sunlight and the train pooling on the floor.
That afternoon, Tracy slid the dress over her head as Lila watched.
Turning to catch herself in the full-length mirror, Tracy gasped. “It’s beautiful, Mam
a!”
The dress was almost perfect. A row of lacy flowers circling the neckline had turned yellow and would have to be replaced, and the train needed to be cut back so it was not quite so cumbersome, but that was it.
Lila pulled her sewing machine from the back of the closet where she’d stored it after she turned her sewing room into Lucas’s room. All that month, she and Tracy worked on the dress. They browsed the fabric shops until they found a scalloped lace border that was the exact shade of ivory as the gown. After Lila stitched the new lace into place, she sewed tiny seed pearls around the edge of each seashell-shaped scallop. The train that once stretched out three feet behind Lila as she walked down the aisle was trimmed to less than twelve inches, and a loop was added to the underskirt so Tracy could lift it and hook it to her wrist as she danced.
By then, Tracy’s time was her own. Sheldon had taken over full production of the Briggs Snip ’n Save, and Meghan was happy to spend her days working alongside Tom at the animal clinic. After years of having the responsibility of being a mother, Tracy now had the luxury of being a prospective bride. In time, she and Lucas would move to Barrington and she’d work at the school until the camp was built, but for now, it was only two or sometimes three days a week. The other days she spent leisurely, browsing through bridal magazines, addressing wedding invitations, selecting favors, and shopping for the event.
Meghan was to be the matron of honor, so on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday, the two of them went downtown and browsed through the shops. At Bridal Elegance, they selected three dresses, and Meghan carried them off to the fitting room. Moments later, she stepped out in an off-the-shoulder burgundy taffeta, and Tracy grinned in delight.
“Oh, my gosh, you look amazing!”
Meghan grinned back. “And the best part is I can wear this dress again.” She could already imagine Tom whirling her around the dance floor at the Starlight Room as they celebrated their next anniversary.
Although the sisters had grown up close, over the years, time, lifestyle, and responsibilities had slid little slivers of separation between them. That space now began to grow smaller and smaller until, a few weeks before the wedding, it disappeared completely, and neither of them could remember it ever being there.
“It’s nice to see you two together and getting along so well,” Lila said.
“We’ve always gotten along,” both girls answered.
Lila smiled and said nothing. It was satisfaction enough just to see them as they now were.
December flew by. Christmas came and went with everyone at the house and Lila cooking up a storm. Cakes and pies were lined up along the counter, and the refrigerator was filled to overflowing. In the living room wrapping paper and ribbons were scattered about, and Lucas’s shrieks of delight could be heard clear to the end of the block. Lila reveled in each moment knowing that, in the days to come, it would be different. Not bad, just different.
As much as she loved having the family here, she knew that was destined to change. Just as she had left her mama’s house and moved into a life of her own, so would the girls. Sure, they would come to visit, but little by little they would drift into their own responsibilities just as she had.
She couldn’t help but wonder what she’d do with so much room after they were gone. More than once, she eyed George’s bucket list and focused on the part where he’d thought of retiring to a lovely little condo. And more than once, she’d also recalled the adorable condo his sister, Phoebe, had in an adult living complex.
Not such a bad idea, she thought, but held off saying anything.
As the wedding drew closer, Tracy worried that low clouds—or, worse yet, an icy-cold rain—might hover over the Good Shepherd Church and spoil everything. On the dreariest day of December, she looked up at the steel-gray sky and pictured herself walking down the aisle trailing puddles of water in her wake.
None of those things happened. In fact, the second Saturday of January dawned with a sky as bright as a blue diamond and equally as clear.
Though the chill of the previous evening had not yet burned off, Tracy threw open the window and sucked in a deep breath. Downstairs she heard the rattle of pots and pans; Mama had invited Charlie, Meghan, and Tom for breakfast and was already cooking. Gabriel would be there also.
She thought back on how her mama had at first been reluctant to include Gabriel, claiming it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride before their wedding.
Tracy’d laughed and rolled her eyes. “Mama, we’re not exactly kids!”
Everyone else laughed along with her, and Gabriel said he’d love to come for the wedding-day breakfast.
“Don’t worry, Mama B, nothing in this world can stop me from marrying Tracy, especially not a sneak peek at my lovely bride the morning of.”
“Mama B,” that’s what Gabriel now called her. He’d slid into the family as seamlessly as Tom had, and apparently Lila couldn’t be happier.
The wedding jitters that had plagued Tracy the month before vanished that morning as she sat at the table with a cup of hazelnut coffee and a cinnamon bun so sweet the taste of sugar lingered on her tongue for hours.
The invitation said five o’clock, but people started arriving at the Good Shepherd Church before four thirty. They strolled through the courtyard, greeting one another and marveling at such a day for a wedding. And such a day it was: warm for January with not a cloud in the sky and sunlight slanting through the nearly bare trees. Ladies needed nothing more than a lightweight shawl around their shoulders, and men left topcoats hanging in the closet at home.
When the time grew close, friends and neighbors began to scuttle inside, each vying for a spot near the center aisle, a spot where they would get a firsthand glimpse of the bride. Before long, every seat was taken, and latecomers stood shoulder to shoulder along the back wall.
Once the others were seated, Charlie escorted Lila down the aisle and sat her next to Phoebe, George’s sister. Moments later, the bell in the steeple chimed, and the organist stomped down on the foot pedals. The song Gabriel and Tracy had chosen was “A Thousand Years.” It was how long they’d promised to love one another.
First down the aisle were Meghan and Tom, walking side by side and wearing such a glow they could have easily been mistaken for the bride and groom. Meghan carried a small bouquet of stargazer lilies tied with a length of ivory velvet, a piece of the fabric trimmed from Tracy’s gown.
Following behind was Lucas. He carried a small pillow made of the same velvet with the two gold bands on top held in place by a narrow ribbon. With a crisp bow tie snapped onto the collar of his shirt, he marched up to the altar, then turned back to watch his mama and Gabriel.
A hush fell across the room when Tracy and Gabriel started down the aisle together. Women smiled, and a number of the men looped their arms around the women next to them.
Phoebe gave a gasp and leaned into Lila. “Good grief,” she whispered. “She looks exactly like you did.”
“She’s wearing my gown,” Lila whispered back.
Tracy’s hair was swept off her neck and caught in a delicate pearl clip. Wispy tendrils hung loose and framed her face. She had chosen not to wear a veil. It was a symbolic decision that no one could argue.
“When I left town with Dominic, my eyes were covered with a veil of foolishness,” she’d said. “But I’m entering this marriage with nothing veiling my eyes.”
As they walked slowly down the aisle, Tracy’s left arm was looped through Gabriel’s. In her right hand, she carried three calla lilies tied together with the same ivory velvet as her gown. When they reached the altar, they turned to Pastor Dale, Gabriel standing to the left of Tracy and Lucas standing on her right.
Pastor Dale’s voice echoed throughout the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to unite Tracy Briggs and Gabriel Hawke in holy matrimony and to establish a family bond no man can break . . .”
When Pastor Dale asked if they were prepared to enter into such a bond, they b
oth answered yes and turned to one another. The pastor reached down, took the velvet pillow from Lucas’s hand, and loosened the ribbon.
Gabriel spoke first, his hands clasping hers, his eyes focused on her face and seeing nothing of the surroundings.
“Tracy Briggs, I’ve loved you for longer than you could possibly know, and today I rejoice in knowing we’ll become a family. I want you to know that for as long as I live, your feelings will be my feelings; your sorrows will be my sorrows; your joys, my joys; and your son, my son. Our son. My love for you is unshakable. My devotion to you endless. From this day forward, I swear you will never walk alone. My heart will be your shelter, and my arms will forever be your home, so help me God.”
He held her trembling hand in his and gently slid the ring on her finger.
Tracy’s eyes were brimming with tears of happiness, and her voice shook a bit as she began to speak.
“Gabriel Hawke, on this our wedding day, I pledge you my unconditional love and deepest devotion. I promise that no matter what the future might hold, I will be by your side to love, honor, respect, and cherish you for all the days of our lives. I want your face to be the last thing I see before I fall asleep at night and the first thing I see when I wake in the morning. At this moment, I feel all my prayers have been answered. I believe our love has been heaven-sent and will endure for all eternity. You will have my faithfulness, love, and devotion for as long as we both shall live.”
Pastor Dale handed her the second ring, and she eased it onto Gabriel’s finger.
At that point, Tracy expected the pastor to pronounce them man and wife, but instead, he turned to Gabriel and gave a nod. It was time to proceed with the secret only the two men knew would happen. Gabriel stepped in front of Lucas and squatted down.
A Year of Extraordinary Moments (A Magnolia Grove Novel) Page 25
