The Wedding Circle Read online

  “I can vouch for us both,” Stout Fella said. “She eats the stuff she’s supposed to for the baby, I eat my stuff for my burning feet, and I’d say we’re doing just fine. She keeps gaining weight, and I keep losing.”

  “I see that. Looks good on you, Justin. Well, just keep on gaining and losing, and don’t get them mixed up,” Maura Beth said. “And, Becca, we’re definitely going to have that book signing at the library for you when the time comes.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Maura Beth continued to circulate among her treasured circle of friends and soon found herself bonding as she had so often in the past with Periwinkle, who was overflowing with advice as she worked her gum.

  “Girl, movin’ is the pits. But here’s a really good tip. You go out and buy yourself lotsa trash bags and keep an eye out when your movers come. If you don’t, they’ll wrap up everything in sight, including the leftovers in the fridge, and charge you for all of it to boot. Take my word.”

  Maura Beth was laughing now. “It’s been so long since I moved up from Louisiana, I’d practically forgotten about all that. But I know you’re right. They boxed up everything in my wastebaskets last time. Imagine—old, crumpled-up pieces of paper wrapped in new crumpled-up pieces of paper!”

  “But can you believe it? You have your own home!” Periwinkle continued, nudging her friend playfully.

  “Not to mention a wonderful husband and a new library going up a few hundred feet away.”

  The two of them enjoyed an impulsive hug, but Periwinkle soon pulled away, frowning. “Which reminds me—did you invite His Majesty to your big to-do tomorrow?”

  “Who?”

  “Our beloved Councilman Sparks.”

  “Oh, yes, I did, as a matter of fact, and he says he’s coming.”

  “Do you think he’ll behave himself, considering his track record regarding the library and the book club?”

  Maura Beth looked wickedly smug. “Trust me. I have a little treat planned for him at the reception.”

  “Well, it looks like everything is finally goin’ your way.”

  Maura Beth thought about Periwinkle’s words, indulging a warm inner glow as she moved about the great room in and out of conversations and soaking up this milestone moment in her life. It all confirmed once again the rightness of her decision to stick it out in Cherico personally and professionally over the past six years.

  There were a couple of loose ends that Maura Beth needed to tie up, however, and the first concerned Mr. and Mrs. Locke Linwood.

  “I’m just curious,” Maura Beth said, sidling up to them with a smile. “Where did you two end up on your elopement honeymoon? You haven’t said a word, and I’m just dying to hear all about it.”

  “Ah, that!” Locke answered, after a sip of his wine. “Well, we just got in the car and drove up to Memphis and then headed west to Little Rock. But we didn’t stop there, did we, Voncille?”

  “No, indeed. We were eagles flying high and free. We just kept on going until we got off the interstate at this little town called Altus. They billed themselves as the Wine Capital of Arkansas, or something like that. So we toured a couple of wineries, did a lot of free tasting of the grape, and then spent the night in this quaint little country inn. Although I have to admit, we didn’t get much . . . sleep, so to speak. It was all just too glorious. We were like teenagers on a lark!”

  “Sounds like a lot of fun. I hope Jeremy and I can have your outlook when we get to be your age.”

  Locke put a finger to his temple and winked. “It’s all up here, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

  The second loose end was certainly the more important, however. There was still that unfinished business to address with her mother. Yes, Cara Lynn Mayhew had smiled right along with the others when her father had unveiled their spectacular wedding gift. There had been a hug and kiss exchanged between mother and daughter that had felt genuine enough. But Maura Beth knew she simply could not leave it at that, not with the wedding and honeymoon fast approaching, not with any number of things left unsaid and truly unexplored.

  It was upstairs in the guest room that Maura Beth and her mother faced each other, sitting on the edge of the quilted bed with its rough-hewn, cedar posts that faced the lake below. Oddly enough, it was Cara Lynn who had come up to her daughter at one point and initiated everything.

  “Maura Beth,” she had said, gently taking her arm, “I’d like to tell you a few things in private. Let’s head upstairs.”

  Once they had settled in, Cara Lynn retrieved a pair of scissors from her purse and laid them out on the patchwork quilt. The gesture was at once puzzling and—for a brief moment—seemed just a tad bit ominous.

  “What are those for?” Maura Beth wanted to know, cocking her head but still managing a smile.

  “They’re kitchen shears that Connie was good enough to lend me. No, I don’t ordinarily go around carrying them. Don’t worry—I’ll get to them soon enough,” Cara Lynn said. Then she took a deep breath, straightened her posture, and rested her hands in her lap, looking thoroughly relaxed. “But first I want to start acting like a mother instead of a prima donna.”

  Maura Beth made a half gesture of protest, but Cara Lynn quickly waved her off. “No, sweetheart. This is long overdue. Let me have my say. Or at least the right kind of say, for once.”

  “Please, Mama. Go ahead.”

  Then the words started coming, and it occurred to Maura Beth that everything about them was natural and welcome—with not a single syllable forced. “When I was first married, I wanted to have a big family. I didn’t particularly like growing up an only child myself. Maybe things would have been different for me if you hadn’t been our only child as well. Your father and I wanted a brother or sister for you—well, we probably intended to have as many as possible—but I wasn’t able to have any more children. Just one of those things that sometimes happens in life. It breaks your heart a little, but you move on.”

  “I know, Mama. You told me a long time ago that year I asked you if I could have a little brother or sister for Christmas.”

  Cara Lynn reached over and took her daughter’s hand, and again, everything felt right to Maura Beth, as it rarely had before between the two of them. “Once you arrived, I think I expected you to be just like me. I was going to dress you up in style, and you were going to be the social leader of your generation. But I knew from the beginning that you weren’t like that at all. A mother knows such things and doesn’t have to be told. And it wasn’t just your red hair and obstinate temperament.” Cara Lynn briefly looked away and chuckled. “I remember clearly that your father and I spent a lot of time researching both of our family trees for a while there. Oh, we shook them and shook them to see what would fall out. We thought maybe that way we’d discover just where you came from. Isn’t that silly?”

  Maura Beth saw the humor in the remark at once and shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I understand. I know I’ve always been a handful.”

  “I think your father truly appreciated your uniqueness long before I did. Whenever I’d say to him, ‘What are we going to do about her?’ he’d just shrug and say, ‘We’ll let her be whoever she’s going to be.’ And when you turned out to be a small-town Mississippi librarian—wonder of wonders—I just didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t see how you could possibly be happy up here in Cherico so far away from the world you’d grown up in down around New Orleans.”

  Maura Beth realized that she had heard some of her mother’s words before; but this time—and maybe for the first time—she was hearing them from the heart—both hers and her mother’s.

  “But despite all my stubborn protestations,” Cara Lynn continued, “I want you to know that I truly see how happy you are up here, what Jeremy means to you, how you fit in so well with these friends of yours you’ve made on your own. When I heard the words you and Jeremy had written for each other this evening, they took my breath away. I remember what it was like to hav
e something or someone take my breath away. His name was William Morrell Mayhew, and I still feel the same way about him as the day I married him.”

  Maura Beth gently squeezed her mother’s hand. “It’s all there in your wedding pictures.”

  “Your father reminded me of that before we came up again. We went through the album together—we hadn’t done that in a long time, you know. And then he turned to me, and said, ‘That’s all our little redhead wants. The same thing we had—and still have. Forget about the trappings and what the wedding looks like. Let’s just take tons of pictures of her looking as happy as we looked.”

  “This is just about the best conversation we’ve ever had,” Maura Beth said, the affection flowing from the light in her eyes. But she soon returned to the scissors with an impish grin. “And I can’t wait to see how those fit in to all of this!”

  “Oh, those!” Cara Lynn picked them up and stared at them as if they were expensive jewelry. “They’re just symbolism, so to speak. I hadn’t thought about the idea in many years. First, your father told me he thought I should go see Father Hickock about all of my wedding resentment and see if I could get some help. ‘You need to do something, Cara Lynn,’ he said to me. ‘This could affect your relationship with Maura Beth the rest of your lives.’ Or something like that.”

  “So I took your father’s advice, and it was Father Hickock who brought up the scissors. You know, there’s really a great deal of wisdom behind that jolly disposition of his. What he said was that all I needed to do was cut the cord, and then I’d be fine with everything.”

  “The cord?”

  “The umbilical cord. The tie that binds a child to its mother. Sometimes it’s the child that has trouble cutting the cord. Sometimes, it’s the mother. You were out there snipping away on your own early, sweetheart—my only baby. Maybe just too early for my tastes, and that’s what I had so much trouble with all these years. But . . . it’s high time I let you go . . . and let you be you.”

  Cara Lynn pointed the scissors gently in her daughter’s general direction and made a gentle snipping motion. “There, now,” she said, her voice not unlike the way a mother speaks to a newborn cooing up at her. Then she put the scissors down on the quilt, exhaled deeply, and smiled. “All done.”

  Maura Beth felt the release in the form of a surge in her blood, and it overwhelmed her for a few moments. But soon enough, she and Cara Lynn were embracing, as the long years of tension between them dissolved into tears of joy.

  “I’ve finally gotten you back,” Maura Beth said, pulling away slightly and sniffling. “The Mama that used to read Adventures of Uncle Wiggily to me every night at bedtime. You planted the seed, you know. That’s when I started falling in love with books. And when you took me to the library and enrolled me in summer reading, I was done for—a librarian in the making. It wasn’t all on me.”

  “I know that now,” Cara Lynn said, wiping the tears away with the tips of her fingers. “And I want you to know that I am proud of what you’ve done with your life. I had no business coming up here thinking I could change that and force you to do things my way—the New Orleans way. Please forgive me for all the dramatics—especially the way I stormed out of the library that night. Sometimes I think I should have majored in Theater Arts at Tulane.”

  They both enjoyed a much-needed laugh. “Of course I forgive you, Mama. And it’s not like we haven’t included our New Orleans upbringing at all. We have your wedding dress and Father Hickock to remind us of all that. And I was just thinking—maybe we could ask Miss Voncille to show you her house before you leave—well, I guess it’s my house now. But we could draw up some diagrams to see where the furniture goes and that sort of thing.”

  “I’d love that. Only promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?’

  “If your father and I decide to contribute a piece of furniture now and then, let us do it. Let us help you and Jeremy enjoy your house and your life together. Don’t be defensive when we give you things.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  Another hug followed, and suddenly, Maura Beth felt like she could conquer the world. This was the one ingredient that had been missing in her life—a resolution to this awkward, drawn-out standoff between herself and her mother. Now, with the snip of a pair of scissors, the dilemma had been cut out of her life for good. She must remember to thank Father Hickock for the excellent counsel he had given her mother; then she found herself laughing out loud.

  Cara Lynn drew back, somewhat astonished. “What’s so funny?”

  “I was just thinking about our Sheriff of St. Andrew’s for a moment there. I guess you had to be inside my head to appreciate it.”

  “Apparently. So let’s go join the others, why don’t we?”

  But mother and daughter had only gotten halfway down the stairs when Cudd’n M’Dear appeared at the bottom, dramatically gesturing their way. She almost looked and sounded like she was in the midst of some classic Shakespearean balcony scene. “Pray tell, where on earth have you two been?”

  “Let me take this one,” Maura Beth murmured to Cara Lynn out of the side of her mouth.

  “Gladly.”

  “We just had one of those last-minute wedding talks,” Maura Beth said, once the three of them were face-to-face on the great room floor. “You know, lots of motherly advice and all that sort of thing. I wouldn’t have dreamed of getting married without it, you know.”

  Cudd’n M’Dear was not appeased in the least. “Well, I trust you haven’t forgotten, Maura Beth.”

  “About what?”

  “Please don’t tell me it’s slipped your mind. We were going to huddle about that councilman of yours.”

  In fact, the cathartic session with her mother had the effect of wiping out practically all her other modest concerns. Councilman Sparks suddenly seemed like a footnote at the bottom of the pages of her life. But she still intended to unleash Cudd’n M’Dear on him. It was only fitting.

  “Yes, so we were. Mama, if you’ll excuse us, we have a bit of dishing and plotting to do. Just an old score to settle.”

  Maura Beth’s spirits were soaring now. At last—the first documented, constructive use of Cudd’n M’Dear’s machinations at her disposal!

  16

  Into the Sunset

  Jeremy thought it was the funniest thing he’d heard in a while and said as much with a note of laughter in his voice. “I guess you think some conventions should be upheld after all, Maurie.”

  It was the morning of their wedding day, and after they had finished a paltry breakfast of cinnamon toast and coffee at the kitchenette counter, Maura Beth had surprised him by laying down the law with a smile. “This is the way it’s going to be, Jeremy. I’m spending the rest of the day at your Aunt Connie’s. She and Mama and your mother are all going to help me get dressed when the time comes. Everyone knows it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride until the ceremony. I don’t know what you’re going to do to occupy your time, but I’m sure you’ll figure out something. Maybe you and your father could do something together.”

  “It’s perfectly fine with me,” he continued. “I mean, I didn’t have a bachelor party, you didn’t have a bachelorette party, and we’re not doing anything else by the book. And since I know I can dress myself, I guess I’ll be seeing you out on the deck at sunset. But I’ll still miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” she said, giving him a lingering kiss. “But I think I need to do it this way. It’ll mean a lot to Mama, especially since I’m wearing her dress. I know you understand, sweetheart.”

  An hour later, Maura Beth had kept her word and headed off to the lodge in a virtual whirlwind with everything she needed to become the beautiful bride of the day. Jeremy was about to call up his father to come over for some last-minute male bonding and manly encouragement when the doorbell rang, and the smile on his face was nothing short of smug. Was it possible for a woman to go anywhere without forgetting something and having to backtrack? But i
n another instant he found himself frowning as he realized that his Maurie never went anywhere without her key and had made quite a to-do of dropping it into her purse before leaving.

  “In case I need to come and go, and you’re not here,” she had told him just before making her hurried exit.

  So who was that ringing the bell on his wedding day? Had Paul McShay read his son’s mind? If so, more fatherly advice would be just the ticket.

  When Jeremy opened the door, he felt like pinching himself. There she was after a five-year absence in his life, looking the same as ever: her blond hair parted down the middle and hanging nearly to her waist, no makeup of any kind as usual, and her garment of choice—a floral granny dress—covering her tall, thin frame. But there were a couple of new and uncharacteristic things to observe. His sister, Elise McShay, had a smile on her face for once, lighting up her delicate features. In fact, when she wasn’t frowning, she was a very attractive young woman. In addition, she was carrying an envelope in her hand.

  “Hello, Jer. I bet you I’m the last person in the world you expected to see here today,” she said

  “Leesie!” he managed. “We . . . I thought you weren’t coming! I mean, you told Mom and you told me that . . . well, what the hell are you doing here like this at the last minute?!”

  She arched her brows and gestured toward the living room. “May I come in, or are we going to conduct this conversation here in the doorway like I’m trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner?”

  He gathered himself and stepped aside. “Oh . . . sure . . . come right in.” Then he went ahead and did it almost as a reflex action—he offered up an embrace that she accepted without a moment’s hesitation. Considering their past history, that was indeed a refreshing change.

  Once inside, she looked around and nodded approvingly. “Well, you certainly don’t go in for pretentious trappings, Jer. I like it. It’s the new, simpler you. My place in Evansville isn’t much bigger than this.”

  “This is actually Maura Beth’s place. We’re moving into a real house after the honeymoon, thanks to my in-laws. More like a starter house, actually. One of those little ole schoolteachers lived in it before. But can I . . . offer you anything? Orange juice, something for breakfast?”