Maggie looked around at her family, her children, her mother, her friend, her daughters-in-law and granddaughter. Even Emily, watching through the screen with her solemn eyes, was part of this circle now. They had all been shaped by Daniel in one way or another, had all been touched by his love and his failures. But they were more than his legacy. They were their own people, with their own lives, their own choices, their own futures to build.
The fire crackled and settled, a few last sparks rising into the air.
“Each one of us will carry memories of your father. Just as Chris said earlier, we don’t need anything from this house to help us keep them. Do what you will with your memories of him and remember that he loved us all. As flawed a person as he was, he did love us all. Forgive him as I have, move forward andremember the good in him. Most of all, don’t let him or anyone else define who you are.”
She took a deep breath and then said, “Let's go inside, there's still work to do.”
They filed back into the house, leaving the ashes to cool in the afternoon light.
The study door stood open, just another room now, emptied of its power.
CHAPTER 25
The headlights swept across the front lawn just after six o'clock, and Maggie was out the door before the car had fully stopped.
Gabriel's truck pulled into the driveway behind Christopher's car, and through the passenger window, Maggie could see Beth's face, pale with exhaustion but determined. Emily sat in the back seat between the twins' car seats, her face pressed as close to the window as she could get and took her first glimpse of the Andover house.
“You made it,” Maggie said, opening Beth's door and helping her out. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. But I couldn't miss this. Not the last night.” Beth stretched carefully, one hand pressed to her still-tender abdomen. “Besides, it's not like it was a long drive.”
Gabriel came around the truck and began the delicate operation of extracting two sleeping newborns from their car seats without waking them. It was a skill he had developed quickly over the past week.
Emily climbed out of the back seat and stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the white colonial with the black shutters and thewraparound porch. The windows glowed warm with light, and laughter spilled out from somewhere inside. She wrapped her arms around herself, though the evening wasn't particularly cold.
Emily had spent the past few days watching through a screen, observing a history that had unfolded without her. She had seen the height marks on the kitchen doorframe, the boxes in the attic, the bedrooms where her siblings had grown up. She had listened to stories about a family she hadn't known existed until recently, a life that had been happening in this house while she was living her own separate life somewhere else.
“Emily,” Maggie said softly, crossing to stand beside her.
“Thank you for including me in your family dinner.”
Maggie reached out and took Emily's hand. It was cool in hers, the fingers long and slender, so like Daniel's that it still startled her sometimes.
“I want to tell you something,” Maggie said. “And I want you to really hear it.”
Emily finally turned to look at her, her dark eyes wary but open.
“You were always family,” Maggie said. “From the moment you were born, you were part of us. We just didn't know it yet.” She squeezed Emily's hand. “While we were having Christmas mornings in this house, you were having Christmas mornings somewhere else. Our lives were happening at the same time, Emily. Parallel lines that hadn't intersected yet.”
Emily's smiled. “I like that way of thinking about it.”
“Good. Then let’s enjoy our last night in this house, together.”
Emily was quiet for a long moment.
From the porch, Lauren's voice rang out. “Are you two going to stand on the sidewalk all night, or are you coming in? The food's getting cold!”
Maggie looked at Emily, raising an eyebrow in question. “Sounds like we better go inside.”
They walked up the path together, Maggie's hand still holdingEmily's, and climbed the porch steps where the rest of the family waited.
The house was warm and noisy and smelled like takeout Chinese food—the same restaurant the Wheeler family had ordered from for decades, the same dishes they had eaten on countless nights when Maggie was too tired to cook or when there was something to celebrate or when they simply wanted the comfort of familiar flavors.
Paper plates and plastic forks covered the dining room table, because no one had wanted to wash dishes on the last night. Containers of lo mein and General Tso's chicken and beef with broccoli and vegetable fried rice crowded the center, lids removed, steam rising. Grandma Sarah had insisted on egg rolls, and there were at least three dozen of them piled on a platter.
“I may have over-ordered,” she admitted when Maggie raised an eyebrow.
“You think?”
