But were genetics just as important?
“Is it safe to sit down now?” Cameron said, walking up to the table, with a steaming cup and a plate holding a bagel. “I’m armed with my cup of coffee and am ready for anything.”
“It’s just family drama, as always,” Margo said.
“Well, I figured.” After setting down his food, he set a piece of caramel candy down next to her tea. “They just poured a bowl out at the counter.”
“Where’s mine?” Roberta asked.
He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t even like caramels. You complain they get stuck in your teeth.”
Roberta huffed and speared him with a look. “Fine. You’re off the hook.”
Margo took a sip of her tea, grinned into her cup, and snuck a look at Cameron. In their younger days, the girls didn’t appreciate his sweetness, his steadiness. But as they got into their forties and fifties, his date card had grown to a mile long. By then, people had realized that Cameron was exactly the kind of man a woman wanted in her everyday life. But he never did commit. Despite his deep friendship with Margo and Roberta, he had trust issues.
“Let’s change the subject. Our TALWAC plan,” Roberta said with a wide grin.
“TALWAC?” Margo asked.
“Our ‘Thelma and Louise without any crimes’ plan?”
“Oh!” Margo laughed. “I didn’t realize we named it.”
“I watched the movie on Netflix last night, and I was inspired. Do you think I’m more Thelma or Louise?”
A year ago, their threesome devised a plan to fulfill their retirement dreams, and to document, and maybe earn money from them along the way. A video-recorded bucket-list adventure: two best friends, but without crimes or drama, though Roberta would’ve welcomed a young Brad Pitt in a heartbeat. At the time, Margo had simply placated Roberta—discussing it took her out of the weeds of caregiving. But Leora had found out about it and explicitly requested in her will that Margo use the modest sum of money from her life insurance to make the dream come true after she passed.
Their first trip was to New Orleans.
“Wait. Where am I in the initials? TALWAC doesn’t have Cameron implied. I mean, there’s a C there, but that would be ‘Thelma and Louise without any Cameron’ and that doesn’t work.”
Margo laughed. Cameron was always so literal.
“You are the ‘without crimes’ part, since I’m sure you will be the one putting us on a curfew and reminding us of our senior-citizen discounts,” Margo joked. Both Roberta and Cameron were on fixed incomes, too, but they’d saved money over the years. And their social media revenue helped. That and their senior-citizen and AARP discounts.
“Anyway, we need to discuss activities and scripts for the two days we’re in New Orleans.” Roberta clicked her phone on. “Let me get my list of ideas up.”
The state of Diana’s living room came to mind. Three days. They were leaving in three days, and Margo had yet to tackle those boxes. And now, with these letters, a thought rose above the rest. “I don’t think Diana cares that I’m leaving.”
“Of course she does, Margo. But you’ve gotten accustomed to feeling needed every moment of the day. And now you’re just Mom.” The expression on Roberta’s face was sincere and without malice. It spoke of their shared experiences, of being a caregiver—for Roberta, caretaking of her husband years ago—and of bearing the exquisite pain of loving someone unconditionally at the end of their life.
“Maybe she’s just in denial,” Cameron added. “Denial is some strong armor.”
“You’re right,” Margo admitted now, a bravado seeping through, blurring the guilt and the claustrophobia she had been feeling since moving in with Diana. She and her daughter were both adults. Diana had had a rough six months, but Margo’s last couple of years had been gutting. This trip, with her friends who loved her and saw her through some rough days herself, was important to Margo, and she had to keep moving forward.
After heaving a breath, she said to Roberta, “What videos are you proposing?”
But Roberta’s face had scrunched down into a frown. She thumbed through her phone with her mouth in a silent O.
“Roberta?”
“Did”—she thumbed the screen—“did Diana mention anything different about work?”
“No. Why?”
“Anything, you know, about being called out in the newspaper because …” Her friend passed her the phone. “This was just linked through Facebook.”
The screen was opened to the Northern Virginia News: HOW THE 1% HAVE THEIR BABIES: DID YOU KNOW?
* * *
“Where have you been young lady? It’s past dinnertime.” Margo tossed the kitchen towel on the counter, hands still damp and resting on her hips. “I texted. I called. What’s the point of you having a phone if you don’t return voice mails or messages?”
Her daughter halted in her tracks. “Mother?”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me. I want you to tell me the truth. Right now. Right this instant.”
Diana looked to the left and right exaggeratingly, as if Margo had directed her demand to someone else. It was something Margo wouldn’t have dared to do with her own mother, even as an adult. Maybe she had been too nice to Diana, given her too much leeway.
“Diana Gallagher-Cary.”
“Margaret Gallagher-Cary,” she teased.
And that darned daughter of hers hiked her hands on her hips to imitate Margo. Diana screwed her face into a scowl, contorted like one of their holiday photos where they yelled right before the self-timer fired. “Do a funny face!” Margo would say, and they’d always don the same look: Margo with her tongue sticking out, Leora sucking her cheeks in and crossing her eyes, and Diana with this scowl.
Margo couldn’t help it; she busted up. It was that or cry at the memory.
Damn it, there went her initial anger. She had never been a disciplinarian.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call or text.” Diana walked forward and pushed a manila folder into Margo’s hand. “How did you know something was up? I swear you have a sixth sense.”
“It’s all over the news,” Margo said, though intrigued by the folder. She sat back on the kitchen stool, the day’s news and her meeting with Roberta and Cameron slipping from her mind as she took out the contents.
“What was all over the news?”
“What is this?” Now completely confused—they obviously were talking about two different things—Margo flipped through photographs and two typewritten documents. Her heart began a steady thump.
She glanced up briefly at her daughter and then back down at a candid black-and-white photograph of a woman wearing a dark sheath dress at a ribbon cutting. She had scissors in her hand, poised against the ribbon, while a man in a traditional Filipino formal shirt, a barong tagalog, held the ribbon straight.
Margo stared at the man’s face.
Her daughter took the barstool next to her. “I went to see the private investigator, Ma. I’m sorry, but I did. I wanted to tell you, but you were already gone by the time I got back from my run. His name is John Prescott and he’s local, in Frederick, and it didn’t take him long. Just today, to find out some real information. It’s why I was away all day—I hung around while his contact in the Philippines did whatever they had to do.”