The Night Sister

“Can I get you anything, hon?” Jason asked, reaching down to take Margot’s hand.

Margot shook her head. “No. Piper’s here now. You can go back to the station. I’m sure they need you there.”

He stood in the doorway, hesitating, shuffling his feet like a little boy.

“Okay,” he said at last, “but you call me if you need anything. Anything at all. And, Piper,” he said, locking her in a gaze, “remember, what Margot and the baby need is rest. And calm.”

“Got it,” Piper said. “I’ll take good care of her, Jason. I promise.” She gave him a warm, convincing smile, but his steely gaze told her he wasn’t buying it.

He came over and gave Margot a gentle kiss on the cheek.

“If you get a headache, or get nauseous, have double vision, or any kind of pain, call the doctor.”

“Of course,” she said. “Now go. All your worrying is raising my blood pressure!”

He gave a sheepish nod and left the room. They heard him in the kitchen, filling a travel mug with coffee. Piper noticed another collection of photographs on the dresser. There was Margot and Jason’s wedding picture, both of them looking so young and happy; one of Margot and Piper as little girls, sitting under a Christmas tree; and one of their mother, the day she graduated from law school. Their mother had gone on to work as a public defender, then opened her own practice. She’d died at forty-six of a brain aneurysm. Probably had been there for years, the doctors said—just bad luck, or possibly untreated hypertension, that caused it to rupture one spring day as she crossed the parking lot of Garden World, her cardboard tray of pansy and petunia seedlings spilling to the asphalt.

Piper turned away, her stomach twisting in that old, familiar way when she thought about how unfair life could be. It wasn’t right that their mother—who had never smoked, barely drank, worked hard but not too hard, always chose the nonfat everything, took her vitamins, went to Jazzercise religiously even when Piper and Margot had teased her—hadn’t been at Margot’s wedding, wouldn’t be here to see the birth of her grandchild.

There were no photos of Piper and Margot’s father. He’d remarried not long after the divorce, moved to Dallas, and started a whole new life, complete with four new children—including a set of identical twins—with his new wife. When Piper and Margot were kids, there were court-mandated visits twice a year, but as time went by, a mutual understanding seemed to develop that this second family was his real family now; Piper and Margot and their mother had just been a trial run. Now they were down to awkward phone calls at Christmas. Piper wasn’t sure Margot had even told him he was going to be a grandfather.

Jason called out one more “Goodbye,” then went out the front door and started his truck in the driveway.

As soon as he was gone, Margot took Piper’s hand.

“You know, it was Amy who gave me this box of newspapers,” Margot confessed, her voice low and conspiratorial. “She stopped by my office last week. It was a surprise, really—I hadn’t spoken to her in ages, and she just showed up in my office. She’d found the papers up in the attic at the house. Apparently, her grandmother—you remember Charlotte?—was the editor of the Town Crier.”

Piper thought of poor old Grandma Charlotte shuffling around in her billowing housedress, doing her best to keep the house going, to take care of Amy—both of her own daughters gone—a ghostly shadow of the woman who had spent the early part of her life running the motel her husband had built.

“No kidding?” Piper said, picking up the paper again; she knew she shouldn’t be encouraging this, but she couldn’t dim her own curiosity. Still, she needed to try. For Margot and the baby.

“Hey, look at this: the secret ingredient in Mrs. Minetti’s three-bean casserole is diced frankfurters. Talk about gross!”