NOTE: Where you see "...." inserted within a sentence or between sentences, the author has removed certain words from the excerpt that might give away key parts of the story.
… Preston, Marcella, Claudine and a Latin gentleman friend she’d found on the beach somewhere could not be pried from the dance floor… Surveying the assorted groupings, Anthony Parnell leaned back in his jumbo rattan throne chair and sipped a cognac. He was, indeed, quite pleased with himself, and he raised his glass in a solitary salute to an industrious, invisible partner.
Megan watched DJ pat his wife Beth affectionately as she departed for bed. He was trim and healthy, still handsome and looking so much like his father. He also appeared a decade younger than his sixty years. This was especially true at this late hour, with his formal, starched white shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest and his black bow tie unfastened and sticking out of the pocket on the front of his tuxedo jacket. Standing outside on the breezeway, he stared into the darkness over the bay and seemed a little unsteady on his feet. Yet he continued to drink from a newly filled glass of wine, as Megan walked up beside him and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Feel like taking a stroll on the beach?”
“Sure, Meg,” he said, working hard to focus on her. “You might have to carry me, though.”
They laughed and headed cautiously down the steps of the terrace, guided and beckoned by the sound of the surf. Megan held a black satin shoe in each of her hands as she and David’s son walked, in silence at first, on the cool, wet sand. Then, after he lit a cigarette, he abruptly began to speak.…
… “But we know the part about..…. is true.”
“Right. But I can’t believe Maggie put on a sweater and rode the bus or something all the way from her little downtown apartment up to the ritzy East Side of Manhattan, just so she could make this announcement to Gregory. It doesn’t make any sense to me, and I tried so hard to help Ryan see that.”
“Do you know if Ryan ever told his story about Maggie to anyone else? Or did you?”
“Well, I certainly did not. Are you kidding? But I couldn’t say for sure about my brother. He really didn’t have any friends, though, so I’m not sure who he would have been talking to. He also still lived in the Madison house with Dad. In fact, toward the end, about the only time he went out was for his medical appointments to have his prescriptions renewed. I think he was addicted to whatever drugs he was taking.”
“Where did he have to go for those appointments?”
“Dr. Coomey’s office. Why?”
She was totally silent.
“Meg?”
“Dr. Coomey,” she whispered. “Oh my God!” The letter in the strongbox, the birthmarks, the blood… “DJ, I can’t believe this!”
“Neither can I, Megan.”
Rather than try to explain what she meant, she suggested that they head back and get some sleep.
“I might be wrong,” she said, helping him get to his feet, “but I have a hunch it’s almost time for breakfast.”
Feeling unsteady, he put his arms around her and leaned on her for support.
“Thanks, Meg. I’m guessing this is all going to seem very silly in the morning, but you’ve allowed me to get something off my chest that I’ve been carrying around way too long. Promise me, though, that this conversation will stay our secret.”
“I promise. And believe it or not, you’ve been a big help to me, too.”
They walked to the cottages holding hands, and then, without speaking another word, they disappeared behind their separate doors. Megan didn’t discover until a number of days later that she’d forgotten to recover her black satin shoes from the beach.
***********************
The tanned and bleary-eyed McClinty’s straggled into the terrace dining room a few hours later, while their luggage was being loaded in the back of the shuttle van, all of them feeling glum about this trip ending so soon. By the time they arrived at the airport, however, they were discussing potential dates and locations for the next reunion, the majority favoring a Swiss ski lodge during the month of February. With these new images in their heads, they boarded two ten-passenger mini-planes for Puerto Rico. In San Juan, everyone disbursed in different directions, still talking as they waved goodbye to each other. Margaret Elizabeth McClinty Mentini Stafford had, indeed, accomplished one of her key objectives. Her magic lived on without her.
Megan waited until the 747 bound for Atlanta was airborne before reaching across the center seat separating her from Phillip. Then she lightly touched his arm and smiled at him, with all the courage she could muster.
“Sweetheart, you’re not going to like this, but I have to tell you something.”
“Can’t this wait until we get home?” he asked, leaning back against the headrest and squeezing his eyes shut.
“No, honey, it cannot. When we arrive in Atlanta, I’ll be gathering my bags and catching the first available plane to Albany. It’s time to put an end to Gram’s project, and now I finally know what to do.”
***********************
… July 11, 1988
My dearest Megan—
You are the sum of those who’ve lived before you, the women and the men, the good and the bad (not always categorized in that relative sequence, but usually). Your unique sense of self is purely “Megan,” though, and I’m very proud of what you’ve accomplished—of the woman, wife and mother that you’ve become.
But in order for you to fully appreciate what breathes inside of you, and in order to make the best use of the gifts you’ve been given, you must grow to understand the minds, hearts and souls of those who came first, knowing them to the point where you can almost hear their voices. As I close my eyes in readiness for the long night ahead, I hope I’ve been able to give you that sense of intimacy. When you revisit the stories I’ve told you, maybe you’ll recognize the pieces of you that were passed on from all of us.
Please take your new discoveries and continue building a rich and happy life with your wonderful little family. One day, before too long, your very own grandchildren will be added to that life. They will be immeasurably blessed to have you as their grandmother, and I will rest peacefully in the knowledge that you now understand what to do with that awesome responsibility.
I love you, Megan.
Always,
Gram
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…. Ordinary. Such is the baseline of all human life—the place where everyone starts. Accidents of birth bring an infant into the merits and shortcomings of a family, or group, or town. Genetic contributions and twists provide individual ingredients and complications. From that point on, however, each person moves under his or her own power, back and forth, above and below the baseline of ordinary, eventually arriving at a mark on someone’s statistical graph. That mark coldly represents the value of a person’s entire existence, and the final position is what gets all the attention. But a person’s ending doesn’t always correlate with where he or she has been. A life that began as ordinary might have circulated through times of grandeur, or poverty, or perhaps a respectable, unremarkable point in between. The only thing we know for sure about endings is that a unique story lies behind every journey just completed—and there’s certainly nothing ordinary about that!
