I practically floated to Emerson’s house from my van as I held on to the cloud of balloons above my head. Her door was unlocked and I let myself in, freeing the balloons in her spacious living room.

“Em?” I called.

“In the kitchen.”

“I’m here. Just need to get some more stuff from the car.”

I made another trip to the van for the cake, which I carried to the side door that led into the kitchen. Shadow and Blue sniffed the air around me as I set the box on the granite counter. Emerson was washing a mixing bowl in the sink. “Hey.” She glanced up at me absently. “I made room in the fridge for the cake. Thanks for getting it.”

I moved the cake to the empty bottom shelf of her refrigerator. The other shelves were crammed with who knew what. Emerson’s refrigerator was never a pretty sight.

“I left the balloons in the living room,” I said. “I’ll spread them around a little later.”

“We have one small problem.” Emerson was scrubbing the daylights out of the mixing bowl and I knew she was stressing out. “Suzanne’s sister sent us a bunch of pictures and Jenny was working on making a collage out of them but she’s not feeling well and went up to bed. Do you have time to work on it? I had her put it in my office.”

“Sure.” I said. “Anything to keep my mind off…everything.” I smiled at Emerson, but she was too frazzled to smile back. “What’s wrong with Jenny?” I asked.

“She thinks she’s getting a cold.” She gave the bowl a final rinse and put it in the drainer. “She said she woke up with a sore throat. She helped me set out the plates and things on the table in the dining room and then crashed. I think she just doesn’t feel like helping. She’ll probably be fine for the party.”

I saw there was still some coffee in the pot and reached for it. “Okay if I help myself?” I asked.

“If you don’t mind heating it up.” She dried her hands on a dish towel, then walked past me to the pantry without so much as a glance in my direction.

“Are you all right?” I asked as I reached into the cupboard for a mug. I couldn’t help picturing my own cupboard, nice and orderly now without the purple travel mug towering above the others.

“I’m fine,” she said, pulling a package of napkins from the pantry. “I just—” she shook her head “—you know.”

“Yeah.” I put my arm around her shoulders. I knew about her conversation with the woman whose baby Noelle had carried. As strange as the revelations felt to me, they had to feel so much stranger to Emerson. We’d had little time to process everything and it was getting to both of us. Once the party was over, we’d be able to catch our breath. It was almost as though we needed to have another memorial service for Noelle. The first one was for a woman we didn’t really know.

“Well,” I said as I poured coffee into the mug, “I think I just screwed up big-time.”

She’d reached into a drawer for scissors and now held them above the napkins’ plastic wrapper. “What do you mean?” For the first time since my arrival, she was looking at me.

“I threw away Sam’s travel mug.” I put my cup into the microwave and hit the timer. “I forgot that Grace gave it to him. Or rather, I didn’t think about the fact that Grace gave it to him. She called me while I was getting the cake and chewed me out royally. I’ve never heard her so angry at me.”

Emerson cut the plastic film, then slipped the scissors back in the drawer. “It’ll blow over,” she said. “She’ll be fine.”

“Are you fine?” I asked. “You seem really upset.”

“I just…” She pulled the plastic from the napkins and appeared to be counting them.

“There’s twenty-four, I think,” I said. It would say right on the plastic sleeve, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her.

“I just want it to go well tonight,” she said.

“It will, sweetie.” The microwave dinged, and I took out my cup. “I’m a little worried about Grace and Cleve, though.”

“Do you think you could work on the collage?” she asked as though I hadn’t spoken.

“On my way,” I said. She was acting more like me than herself, worrying about the details, wanting perfection. I’d take care of the collage and get that out of the way and then see what else needed to be done.

I found the huge white cardboard collage about half-finished on one of the tables in Emerson and Ted’s shared office. I balanced the stack of pictures and the glue stick on top of the collage and carried the whole mess back into the kitchen so Emerson and I could talk while I worked on it.

She was taking wineglasses from a cabinet when I walked into the room and she looked surprised to see me.

“I thought I’d work in here,” I said.

“There’s so much more room to spread out in the office.”

“Too lonely in there,” I said as I rested the collage on the table and took a seat. I began looking through the photographs. There were a few pictures taken of Suzanne with Noelle over the years and I found them hard to look at. Is Noelle pregnant in this picture? I’d wonder. How about in this one?

There were tons of pictures of Cleve at different ages. Skin the color of pecans. His dad’s jet-black hair and his mom’s blue eyes. Handsome child. Even better-looking young man. “Cleve was the most adorable kid,” I said to Emerson.

She was cleaning water spots off the wineglasses with a dish towel and she didn’t seem to hear me. Grace once told me I didn’t need another person to have a conversation with—that I was content to hold up both sides of it on my own—but that wasn’t the case. I stood and carried a picture of Cleve over to the sink where Emerson stood, holding it in front of her so she didn’t have to put down the glass in her hands. “He’s about three here, don’t you think? Isn’t he precious?”

Emerson barely glanced at the picture. Instead, she suddenly set the glass and dish towel on the counter and pulled me into her arms, surprising me. She held me tight. Almost too tight.

“Hey,” I said, patting her back. “What’s wrong?”

“I love you,” she said. “Sorry I’m so preoccupied.”

I drew away from her. There were tears in her eyes and I took her hand. “Emerson, what’s the matter?” I lowered my voice in case Jenny or Ted were around. “Is it all the stuff with Noelle?” I whispered, then it hit me. “Your grandfather! Is he—”

“He’s okay,” she said. “I think I just have major PMS or something.”

“O-kay,” I said slowly, not sure I believed her. She never complained about PMS. “Why don’t you lie down? I can get everything ready.”

“Do you mind?” She looked so relieved. “I didn’t sleep well last night and I—”

“Go.” I pushed her gently toward the hallway. “Everything’s under control. Don’t worry.”

“All right,” she said. “I’m going.”

I watched her walk down the hall. She needed a good nap, I thought, and she probably wouldn’t be able to get one until tomorrow when the party would be behind us. She had too much going on. All the revelations about Noelle. Her grandfather in hospice. Suzanne’s party. No wonder she was a wreck.

I sat down in front of the pictures again. I’d have to finish the collage, then make sure everything was ready for the caterer. And then I’d go home and get dressed. I wanted to take a picture of Grace in her new red dress, but I had the feeling she wouldn’t let me. I could imagine the two of us in the van together as we drove back over here to Emerson’s. Me blathering. Her quiet and still angry. We needed to finish that argument before the party, I thought as I glued a picture of Suzanne and Noelle in the lower corner of the collage. We needed to be done with it.

I reached in my purse for my phone and hit Redial again, but she didn’t pick up. She wasn’t going to make this easy.



35

Noelle


Wilmington, North Carolina

1994

“I just want it to be simple,” Noelle said. She and Ian were sitting in her Sunset Park living room with Tara and Emerson, whom she’d enlisted to help plan the November wedding. She had no experience and definitely no skill in that department.

“It can be simple in style,” Ian said, “but I’d really like to have all of our friends there.”

Noelle knew she drove Ian batty with her desire for simplicity. She’d already nixed the idea of a church wedding—something he’d wanted—as well as renting a reception hall. The engagement ring he’d given her had weighed down her hand with its diamond and she’d insisted they exchange it for something far less ostentatious. He’d wanted to get married in August, but she’d put him off until November so Tara and Emerson would be completely recovered from having their babies. Tara was due in late August, nearly a month away, while Emerson was due in mid-September. They would be her bridesmaids. No maid of honor. She was always careful to treat them equally.

“Maybe we need to define what simple means for each of you,” Tara said. She sat on one end of Noelle’s old sofa, a notepad on her lap and excitement in her eyes, thrilled to be planning a wedding. Emerson sat on the other end of the sofa, and Noelle thought they looked like counterweights—two very pregnant women holding down her couch. Emerson was going to make it this time. Her pregnancy had tested all of their nerves with one problem after another, and although she wanted a home birth there was no way Noelle would take that risk with her. She’d assist at her hospital delivery, but one of the OBs would be in charge and that was definitely the way she wanted it. As long as everything continued to look good for Tara, though, her baby would be born at home.

“Simple to me means getting married in something comfortable,” Noelle said. “You know, just what I wear every day.”

Ian let out a small groan. He looked at Tara and Emerson. “See what I have to put up with?” His voice was so full of love that Noelle leaned over to kiss his cheek. He was a sweet guy. They would have a good marriage. She was determined to make that happen.