Beautiful Day(35)

Roger came over to Margot with an actual smile on his face, and Margot shivered, despite the warm sun. She had never seen Roger smile before.

“Your brother has an idea,” Roger said.

Margot nodded, pressing her lips together. Of course he does, she thought.

“He thinks we can lift the branch with a series of ropes that we would tie to the upper branches,” Roger said. “He thinks we can lift it enough to clear the height of the tent.”

“How is he planning on reaching the upper branches?” Margot asked. The upper branches were high, a lot higher than Kevin standing on top of the ladder.

“I have a friend with a cherry picker,” Roger said.

Of course you do, Margot thought.

“I’m going to call him right now,” Roger said. “See if he can come over.”

“Will a cherry picker fit through here?” Margot asked. Alfie dominated the eastern half of the backyard. Beyond Alfie was Beth Carmichael’s perennial bed and the white fence that separated them from the Finleys’ next door. Any kind of big truck would mow right over the flower bed. “My mother was very clear that no one was to trample her blue hardy geraniums.”

But Roger was no longer listening. He was on his phone.

“Isn’t it great?” Jenna said. “Kevin found a way to fix it! We don’t have to cut Alfie’s branch.”

“Maybe,” Margot said. She wondered why she didn’t feel happier about this breakthrough news. Probably because it had been Kevin who came up with the answer. Probably because she now looked like a knee-jerk tree-limb amputator who would have lopped off a piece of Carmichael family history if Kevin hadn’t arrived in time to save the day.

Margot smiled. “Thank God for Kevin,” she said.

She knew she sounded like sour grapes, and Jenna kindly ignored her.

Margot heard the back screen door slam, and she turned, expecting to see Finn or Autumn emerging—but the person who came through the door was her father. And behind her father, Pauline.

“Daddy!” Margot said.

Doug Carmichael was dressed in green golf pants and a pale pink polo shirt and the belt that Beth had needlepointed for him over the course of an entire summer at Cisco Beach. The outfit said “professional man ready for a day of good lies and fast greens,” but his face said something else.

For the first time in her life, Margot thought, her father looked old. He was a tall, lean man, bald except for a tonsure of silver hair, but today his shoulders were sloping forward, and his hair looked nearly white. His face held the same hangdog expression that he’d worn for the two years after Beth died, and it broke Margot’s heart to see it now.

As he approached, Margot held her arms out for a hug, and they embraced, and Margot squeezed extra hard. He still felt solid and strong, thank God.

“Hi, sweetie,” he said.

“You made it,” Margot said. “Is everything okay?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t, he had to move on to Beanie and Nick—and Jenna, whom he picked clear off the ground. Margot felt a crotchety old jealousy. How many times had she wished that she was the little sister instead of the big sister, the youngest instead of the oldest? She never got coddled; she never got picked up. Jenna was the Carmichaels’ answer to Franny Glass, Amy March, Tracy Partridge. She was the doll and the princess. Margot used to comfort herself with the knowledge that she had been their mother’s confidante, her right hand. In the weeks before Beth died, before things got really bad and hospice and morphine were involved, she had said to Margot, “You’ll have to take care of things, honey. This family will need to lean on you.”

Margot had promised she would take care of things. And she had, hadn’t she?

“Hello, Margot.”

Margot snapped out of her self-indulgent bubble to see Pauline standing before her. Usually, Pauline was breezy and officious, as though Margot were a woman at a cocktail party whom Pauline knew she had to greet and give five minutes of small talk before moving on to mingle. And Margot liked things that way. She had never discussed anything personal with Pauline. On the occasion of Doug and Pauline’s wedding at City Hall in Manhattan, Margot had kissed Pauline on the cheek and said congratulations. She had meant to say, “Welcome to the family,” but she couldn’t form the sentence. She always referred to Pauline as “my father’s wife,” never “my stepmother.”

Something about Pauline’s demeanor and her tone of voice was different now. It was apologetic, nearly obsequious.

Pauline isn’t coming to the wedding.

Margot realized that Doug and Pauline must have had a fight, a fight big enough to warrant the sending of that text. She had never once considered that her father and Pauline were a couple, who might have problems. At their age, Margot assumed, the drama would be all dried up. She didn’t like thinking about their intimate life—sexual or emotional.