And still did seventeen years later.
Meg drew a deep breath and let it go. The last five years had covered so much of life’s rocky bumps, his and her own. The main one being the death of her cousin Dee Dee…his wife.
“Meg Lawrence, you sure are a welcome sight.” Sandy Yoder, one of her mother’s buddies greeted her in the middle of the crowded church hall. “When did you get in? Yesterday, I suppose. I just know your mama was happier’n a June bug to see you. Is she any better?”
Meg hated to be rude, but she heartily wished she had entered the building from the opposite door. She’d already said hello and exchanged news with most of the three hundred or so of the church membership this morning, and Sandy would keep her talking about nothing and everything, making her late home.
“Hi, Sandy. Yes, Mother’s very glad I’m home. Excuse me, but I just want to, um, ask for this morning’s sermon on tape for her.” She moved to edge past her, but a bump from behind shoved her into two teenage girls trying to get through the crush going the opposite way.
“Oh, sorry, honey, I—Lissa?” The young girl stood only a few inches short of her own five foot nine inches, surprising Meg as she glanced into the girl’s face.
“And Aimee.” She confirmed the younger girl’s identity and broke into a broad smile.
Her thoughts scrambled to remember how old they were now.
Yet with one breath, she recalled How could she not, when she’d been around their mother so much during their births and after. Lissa had to be fourteen now and Aimee twelve.
“Hi, Aunt Meg,” Lissa said eagerly. She glanced at Mrs. Yoder for a moment before meeting Meg’s gaze. There was hope and hesitancy in the girl’s green eyes, so like Kelsey’s. “We thought we’d missed you.”
“Yeah, we wanted to see you right away before you—” Aimee, dark-eyed, with her expression eager for adventure like her mother, was effectively cut off by her sister’s elbow. “Um, I mean, before you go back to England. Last time you were home, we got to see you only for a few minutes.”
“Oh, girls…” Meg’s heart warmed immediately even though she felt a tug of guilt for neglecting them so long. She drew them into a hug. Lissa returned the embrace shyly while Aimee’s was unequivocally enthusiastic. “I’m sorry about last time. But we’ll definitely make time together this visit. Days and days of it, if we’re lucky.”
Mrs. Yoder placed a hand on her shoulder with a look of mild reproof at being ignored. “I must go. Happy you’re home, Meg, dear, and I’ll be by to see your mother in a day or so.” The woman added portentously, “She does need you, you know.”
“Yes, Mrs. Yoder,” she answered soberly. “I’ll look forward to seeing you then.”
Meg waited until the older woman had turned away before she grinned at the two young girls. She felt suddenly happy and younger, as though the three of them shared a special understanding. They grinned back. She took their elbows and started for the door. “I hate to pull that old saw on you girls, but—”
“My goodness, how you’ve grown,” Aimee said, laughing, her voice joining Meg’s.
Lissa rolled her eyes as Meg groaned.
“Terrible, isn’t it?” Meg confided with a grimace. “I used to hate it when people said that to me. Especially since I kept growing and growing, both up and out.”
She’d been a large child for her age, and a big girl. The comments about her size hadn’t always been kind, and Meg had had to work hard to cover her sensitive feelings. Even now she filled a size sixteen admirably, but she no longer cared that she wasn’t a sprite. She exercised, ate a balanced diet and accepted herself the way she was.
Meg looked at the two girls, noting Aimee’s slender resemblance to Dee Dee, and the shape of Lissa’s mouth, so much like her father’s.
Nostalgia turned her heart over. She and her cousin Dee Dee had met Kelsey together at a baseball game the summer she turned fifteen and Dee Dee seventeen. Both girls fell hard for the laughing young man who already studied agriculture in a leading state college; they became a threesome that summer. But two years later, Dee Dee was the girl Kelsey had married.
“I guess I haven’t been a very good adopted aunt,” she said with regret. “I haven’t seen you for so long.”
“Oh, but you send us cool Christmas presents every year,” Aimee reminded. “And birthday checks.”
Meg chuckled. True, she’d scoured the shops every December for just the right gifts. She’d loved these little girls of Kelsey’s and her cousin’s, and the boys, too. She’d indeed felt like a favorite aunt before she moved to New York, and then eventually to England. Suddenly, she realized she’d missed them more than she’d thought.
“I’d planned on coming out to see you one day this week,” she assured them.
Aimee jumped on it. “When?”
“As soon as I make sure my mother is truly all right after her heart attack scare. Kathy,” she said, mentioning her sister-in-law, “is sitting with her this morning. Which reminds me. I’d better go.”
As they swung through the door, a young, dark-eyed boy broke from a knot of youngsters milling on the sidewalk, tugging a little girl behind him.
“There you are, Lissa. Where’ve you been?” he demanded, scarcely giving Meg a glance.
Meg stopped, a tiny disappointment running through her. Eleven-year-old Thad hadn’t recognized her.
But then, why should he? He and his brother, Phillip, nine, had been left home with Kelsey when Dee Dee came with the girls to visit her the last time she was home. Dee Dee had invited her out to the farm to see Kelsey and the boys, but her time had been so short, she hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t seen either of the boys for five years. Or their father.
“Thad,” Lissa complained, “I told you I’d be a little late getting out today.”
“Well, I got Heather like you told me. Now take her.” He shoved the child forward. “She’s yammering for you, anyway.”
“Couldn’t you have waited with her over by the spot where Dad usually parks? I just wanted—”
“Dad’s already here.”
“Already?” Lissa scanned the parking lot, spotted the old truck and groaned. “I wanted to talk with Aunt Meg for a little longer.”
“Well, take Heather, will ya? I have ta see Cort before—” He dashed away.
“Thad!” Lissa protested. “Come back here.”
“Dad’ll wait for a little bit,” insisted Aimee. “We don’t have to go just yet.”
“Where’s Phillip?” Lissa wondered out loud as Thad disappeared around a corner.
“Lissa, I’m hungry,” Heather complained, tugging at her sister’s hand.
“In a little while, Heather,” Lissa said. “We have to find Phillip.”
“I’ll go find him,” Aimee offered on a long-suffering note.
“Can we have McDonald’s today?” Heather asked.
“We might if you ask Dad. But don’t count on it,” Aimee said. “We’re s’posed to go to Linda’s house to eat dinner.”
Meg caught a quick look of disgust pass between the two older girls as Aimee took off after Thad.
“Linda?” she asked Lissa.
“You know. Linda Burroughs.”
Ah, yes. Another of the old crowd, another woman who had once vied for Kelsey’s attention.