Elin Hilderbrand - Silver Girl

Sublime. It was fresh, sweet, and squashlike. This was why Meredith couldn’t simply pick a can off the shelf.

“You have to promise me that you’ll try this yourself,” Connie said. “With some really good produce.”

“I’ll try,” Meredith said. “But I can’t promise. How can I promise?”

That evening, they ate the soup with a fresh, piping hot baguette-the crevices filled with melting sweet butter-and a green salad with vinaigrette that Meredith had made herself, as a final exam of sorts. It tasted just like Connie’s vinaigrette, and Meredith was thrilled. They did a cheers with their water glasses. The cooking lessons had been a success, Meredith was a quick study, and it was a good thing because Dan would be home soon enough, and Connie would have other things to do.

In the middle of the night, Connie was awakened by a noise. At first, she thought it was the radio; she had fallen asleep listening to Delilah. But it was a rattling, coming from downstairs. It was a pounding.

The vandal, Connie thought. There had been nothing for weeks, nothing since Toby arrived, but now, yes-someone was outside. Connie slipped out of bed. She was wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. She needed shorts.

She called out, “Toby!” The man slept like the dead. She might have to splash him with cold water to wake him up.

But when she got out to the hallway, Toby and Meredith were standing at the top of the stairs.

“Someone’s outside,” Connie said.

“I’ll take care of it,” Toby said.

“It sounds like the person is trying to get in,” Meredith said. “What if it’s Samantha? What if she came here to confront me?”

“Is that possible?” Connie asked. Of course, it was possible, but was it likely? It did sound like the person was knocking, then shaking the doorknob, trying to force the door. What if it was the FBI, come to take Meredith away?

Toby turned on the hall light. Connie peered down the stairs at the clock. It was only five after eleven.

Toby said, “Who is it?”

Connie and Meredith were creeping down the stairs one at a time. Connie tried to look out the sidelights.

A muffled voice said, “Itzashalan.”

Connie said, “It’s Ashlyn!”

Toby unlocked the door, and Connie heard herself cry, “Wait, wait!” Because they had to punch in the security code first, Ashlyn’s birthday, Connie did it automatically, her whole body was shaking like she had a fever, and she thought, “Is it Ashlyn? Is it?”

And they opened the door and Connie looked, and there was her baby girl.

Connie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She did both. She was a hysterical, sobbing mess, but it didn’t matter, did it? She had her daughter, her very own daughter, in her arms. Toby’s eyes were brimming, and Meredith-well, Connie didn’t expect tears from Meredith and she didn’t find any. Meredith was smiling and nodding her head. Meredith was level-headed enough to get everyone inside and Ashlyn’s luggage in and the cabbie paid. She shepherded everybody into the kitchen, and Connie sat at the table and encouraged Ashlyn to sit, but she wouldn’t let go of Ashlyn’s hand. No way.

Meredith said, “Ashlyn, are you hungry? Would you like some summer-squash soup? It’s homemade.”

Ashlyn looked at Meredith, then at Toby, then at Connie, and she burst into tears.

Connie said, “Honey, what’s wrong?” She realized then that something horrible must have happened. Ashlyn wouldn’t have shown up here out of the blue for Connie’s sake.

“Bridget and I…” She tried to get air in. “Bridget and I…”

“Split up?” Connie said.

Ashlyn nodded. “For good this time!” she wailed and dropped her head to the table.

Oh, no. Oh, dear. Connie wasn’t sure what to do. She touched the top of Ashlyn’s head, the pale hair. “Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”

Eventually, Ashlyn raised her head. Her nose was red and running. “We split earlier this summer…”

“When you called me before?” Connie said.

“When I called you before,” Ashlyn said.

“But…?”

“But then we got back together, and I didn’t feel like I could talk to you about it. Because of what happened at the funeral.”

“Ashlyn,” Connie said. “I’m sorry about what happened at the funeral.”

“I love Bridget so much,” Ashlyn said. “And she was my best friend besides.” They all waited, watching Ashlyn cry, and Connie thought, I’d do anything to make her feel better. But there was nothing. Of course, there was nothing any of them could do.

“What happened?” Connie asked.

“I wanted a baby,” Ashlyn said.

Instinctively, Connie made a noise. She pressed her lips together.

“And Bridget didn’t,” Ashlyn said. “I really did and she really didn’t. And two months ago when she found out that I’d been to a donation center and had put myself on the list for insemination, she told me she was leaving. She moved out. Our separation lasted two and a half days, then I went to her and said I couldn’t stand to be away from her, and I said I would give up the idea of having children.”

“She doesn’t want children right now?” Connie asked. “Or not ever?”

“Not ever,” Ashlyn said. “She’s on track to be the best female pediatric heart surgeon in the state of Florida. She wants to be the best pediatric heart surgeon, man or woman, in the country someday. She said she was around children enough to know that she wasn’t capable of raising her own. She thinks she’s too selfish, too driven.”

“But lots of men are like that,” Connie said. “If you agreed to stay at home…”

“She still wouldn’t do it,” Ashlyn said. She started crying again.

Connie squeezed Ashlyn’s hand, thinking, This is my daughter’s hand. This is all I’ve been wishing for.

Meredith set down a bowl of warm soup and a hunk of baguette and a glass of water. Toby cleared his throat. He said, “So then why did you break up?”

Ashlyn wiped at her red eyes. Her hair was in a messy bun. It didn’t look like she’d seen the sun all summer. But she was, absolutely, the most beautiful creature Connie had ever laid eyes on.

Ashlyn said, “I’m pregnant. Due in April.”

Toby jumped in surprise. Meredith said, “Oh, Ashlyn, that’s wonderful.”

Connie thought, Wolf! Wolf! Did you hear that?

Ashlyn was still crying. “And I thought news of a baby, a real live baby, would change Bridget’s mind.” She sniffled. Meredith brought a box of Kleenex. Ashlyn blew her nose. “But it didn’t.”

“So here you are,” Toby said.

She crumpled the Kleenex in her hand. “So here I am.” She looked at Connie with bleary eyes. “I’ve been a terrible daughter, and I know I don’t deserve a second chance, but I came here because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“That sounds familiar,” Meredith said. She rested her hands on Toby’s shoulders.

Connie thought, What is the most important lesson of all? Perseverance? Honesty? Forgiveness? Love?

Wolf, Ashlyn, Toby, Meredith, Dan. Ashlyn, Ashlyn, Ashlyn-Connie and Wolf’s daughter, their only child, conceived so many years ago in the back of a pickup truck a few miles away, beneath a sky filled with stars. Ashlyn was going to have a baby. Ashlyn had been so angry-she had been silent and seething-but she had come back to Connie because Connie hadn’t stopped loving Ashlyn even for a second. Ashlyn would soon know it herself: parents didn’t stop loving their children for any reason.

Love, then, Connie decided. The most important lesson is love.

Meredith felt like they were all graduating from college, and everyone knew what the next step was but her.

In the span of sixteen or seventeen hours, Connie’s life had transformed as dramatically (almost) as Meredith’s life had the previous December-only for the better. Connie would return to Bethesda the Tuesday after Labor Day. That was as planned. What was different now was that Ashlyn was putting her house in Tallahassee on the market and moving back up to Bethesda, into Connie’s house. Ashlyn would live with Connie indefinitely. She would have the baby, and Connie would care for it while Ashlyn went back to work. Ashlyn had applied for a job in the ped onc department at WHC, and if she didn’t get that job, she would look elsewhere.

“Lots of good hospitals in Washington,” Connie said to Meredith and Toby. “And just think, next summer when we’re all here, we’ll have a baby!”

Next summer when we’re all here: These words were a balm to Meredith. She had been invited back. It took some of the sting out of leaving, although it did nothing to help her sense of floundering, about where to go or what to do in the next ten months.

Toby was going back to Annapolis. A brand-new freshman class of cadets awaited.

“Now I wish I hadn’t sold my boat,” Toby said. “Now I wish I could just sail with you around the world.”

Sailing with Toby around the world: it was appealing, Meredith had to admit.

“I know you,” Meredith said. “You have to have your freedom.”

“I’d like to share that freedom with you,” he said. “Give you a little sip of it. It’s the most intoxicating thing on earth.”

But Meredith’s freedom was still in the firm grip of federal investigators.

They all sat on the back deck, enjoying the sun: Connie, Ashlyn, Toby, Meredith. They had a pitcher of iced tea (decaf, for Ashlyn) and a bowl of Bing cherries, which they passed around. Ashlyn was nauseous; every half hour or so, she’d go into the house to throw up.

“I can’t believe how lousy I feel,” she said.

“I could tell you stories,” Connie said. “About you.”

Meredith squinted at the ocean. She decided to speak the words that were on everyone’s mind. “I never want to leave here.”

“You don’t have to,” Connie said. “You know you don’t have to go anywhere.”