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Bea’s heart still pounded like that accusation might go flying, and she tapped to read the texts from her daughter.“Good,” she said when she saw that her stole and tassel had been found.“I can’t wait to see you in the Oxford pink.”She beamed at Meredith, who smiled a proud smile too.
Meredith nodded, her throat working.That meant she had something to say, and Bea braced herself.Her daughter kept her thoughts to herself until she pulled into the parking lot at a grocery store.“Mama,” she said.“You’re going to be…okay, right?”
Bea looked at her daughter, unsure what she meant.“Of course I am.Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Daddy asked me if he could bring his girlfriend, and I didn’t know how to say no.”The words rushed out of Meredith’s mouth, and it took Bea a few seconds to make them into meaning.
“Your father’s dating,” she said, her voice pitching up an octave.“He should be.He was when we were married.I wouldn’t expect him not to be now that we’re divorced.”She reached for the door handle and got out of the car.She expected the wind to whip her away, to drown her in misery, to make her shiver and drive her back inside the safety of her ranch house.
Today, it didn’t.
Bea stood strong against it, and nothing inside her pinched or clenched or spun out of control.She met her daughter’s eyes over the top of the car.“I’m going to be fine,” she said with a smile.“It’s going to be Ted in trouble.”
Meredith grinned and rounded the hood, asking, “Why’s that?”
“Oh, that boy can’t stay away from my Texas sheet cake,” Bea said.She fell into step with her daughter.“He’ll eat so much, he’ll have a stomachache for days.”She linked her arm through Meredith’s, and they laughed together as they went inside to get the ingredients Bea needed.
She half-expected her thoughts to fly right back to Nort.She usually obsessed over how events and activities with him would go.Today, she didn’t.He was no longer someone she had to worry too much about.She could exist in the same room with him—girlfriend or no girlfriend—because she must.They had three children together, and that wasn’t going to change.
Beahad changed, and yes, she was going to be just fine.
As she picked up flour, sugar, and pecans, her mind rotated around Grant, her daughter’s performance, the beach on Hilton Head Island, the graduation party, and then Grant again.She hadn’t answered his texts yet, but the moment she could find a quiet place to be alone, she would.
A couple of hours later, that moment finally came while one sheet cake baked and one cooled.She stole out to Meredith’s tiny backyard and quickly thumbed out a text to Grant.
I wish I’d thought to invite you to come, she said.I miss you.
She looked at the words and didn’t fight them.Instead, she sent them.
The following afternoon,Bea could not hold still.By some stroke of bad luck, Meredith had been slotted to go last at the music department’s final recital.Bea had listened to over an hour of phenomenal piano solos, but none by the one person she’d flown hundreds of miles to see.
Her anxiety had hit the ceiling ten minutes ago, and it now plowed through the plaster and into the sky.
Applause started, and she hadn’t even realized the young man on the piano bench had stopped playing.She perked up now, though, as the department chair stepped behind the mic and the clapping quieted.
“Our last student to perform is Meredith Callahan,” he said, his smile as bright now as it had been in the beginning.How he accomplished that, Bea would never know.
She reached over and put her hand on Curtis’s leg.He covered hers with his and gave her a quick smile.
“Miss Callahan has led our department this semester, and it’s my pleasure to welcome her to the stage.She’ll be playingWidmungby Franz Liszt and Robert Schumann.”He turned to the left the way he had for everyone else, and Meredith glided onto the stage.
She wore a deep black-as-a-country-midnight dress that made her look elegant and classy.The bodice fit like a glove, and thin straps went over her shoulders.At her waist, the dress flared into yards and yards of fabric, and it held just enough shimmer to look like dancing fairy lights under the big bulbs in the performance hall.
Bea clapped harder than she ever had, while trying to suck back the tears in her eyes.She lost that battle, and she let them flow down her face.She’d driven Meredith to a countless number of piano lessons.She’d sat with her for a countless number of hours as she practiced.She’d scrimped to buy their first grand piano, and she’d attended every single one of the girl’s recitals.
Her daughter came alive with music, and Bea had done anything and everything in her power to provide that outlet for her.
Somewhere else in the hall, a loud voice lifted into the air—“Go get ‘im, Mere!”and that dried up a lot of Bea’s tears.
Norton was here after all.She hadn’t seen him yet, and both of her sons sat with her.In fact, Curtis reached over and squeezed her hand, which had already curled into a fist on her lap.She held very still, and then the moment passed.Leave it to Nort to ruin a perfectly sophisticated concert.None of the other fathers had yelled out, and Bea stewed in her irritation for the first few opening notes of Meredith’s song.
Then she released it all, because she wasn’t going to let her ex-husband ruin her daughter’s performance.She turned her hand over and squeezed Curtis’s hand, then dared to look away from Meredith and at him for a moment.He gave her a smile that melted her heart, and she looked past him to Ted.
Her middle child.The dark horse.Black sheep.Whatever label he wore, Ted wore it really well.He too gave her a smile and reached over to pat her hand before all three of them focused on the stage again.
The boys loved their dad, and Bea knew that hadn’t changed.She did find it a tad surprising that they’d chosen to sit with her at this concert.She hated that they had to choose at all, but life had not been particularly fair for her over the past fourteen months.
Meredith’s fingers moved brilliantly over the keys, and she coaxed the most beautiful sounds from them, in stunning chords, harmonies, and melodies.Bea loved the way Meredith let the music move through her, and each movement of her body seemed to be in tune with the music, not something she’d invented to be theatrical.
