"It's the way it's going to be. My marriage is over." She looked down into her brandy, saw nothing. "And that's that."
The stubborn streak was classic Templeton, Margo thought. Carefully, she tapped out her cigarette, touched a hand to Laura's rigid one. "Honey, you know it won't be that easy—legally or emotionally."
"I'll do whatever I have to do, but I won't play the easily deceived society wife any longer."
"And the girls?"
"I'll make it up to them." Somehow. Some way. "I'll make it right for them." Little tongues of fear licked at her, and she ignored them. "I can't do anything else."
"All right. I'm behind you all the way. Look, I'm going to go down and scare up some food. Kate's going to be starving when she gets here."
"Kate's not coming here tonight. She always falls into bed for twenty-four hours after the tax deadline."
"She'll be here," Margo promised.
"You'd think I was on my deathbed," Laura muttered. "All right, I'll make sure her room's ready. And yours. We'll put some sandwiches together."
"I'll put some sandwiches together. You worry about the rooms." Which would, Margo thought as she hurried out, give her enough time to pump her mother for information.
She found Ann exactly where she'd expected to, in the kitchen, already arranging cold cuts and raw vegetables.
"I don't have much time," Margo began and headed directly for the coffeepot. "She'll be down in a minute. She's not really all right, is she?"
"She's coping. She won't talk about it, hasn't yet contacted her parents."
"The scum, the slime." Her legs wobbled with fatigue and made it hard to storm around the kitchen, but Margo gave it her best shot. "And that little slut of a secretary putting in overtime." She broke off when she caught her mother's eye. "All right, I wasn't much better when it came to Alain. And maybe believing he was working out a divorce isn't any excuse, but at least his wife's family wasn't cutting my paychecks." She drank the coffee black to fuel her system. "You can lecture me on my sins later. Right now I'm concerned about Laura."
A mother's sharp eye noted the signs of exhaustion and worry. "I'm not going to lecture you. It never did any good when you were a child and it would hardly do any good now. You go your own way, Margo, you always did. But your way has brought you here when a friend needs you."
"Does she? She was always the strong one. The good one," she added with a wry smile. "The kind one."
"Do you think you're the only one who feels despair when the world falls apart around you? Who wants to pull the covers over her head instead of facing tomorrow?"
A quick flare of temper made Ann slam down the loaf of bread. Oh, she was tired, and heartsick, and her emotions were bouncing like a rubber ball from joy that her daughter was home, misery for Laura, and frustration at not knowing what
to do for either of them.
"She's afraid and full of guilt and worry. It's only going to get worse for her." She pressed her lips together but couldn't settle herself. "Her home is broken, and whether you can see it or not, so is her heart. It's time you paid back some of what she's always given to you, and help her mend it."
"Why do you think I'm here?" Margo tossed back. "I dropped everything I was doing and flew six thousand miles to help her."
"A noble gesture." Ann's sharp, accusing eyes pinned her daughter. "You've always had a knack for the grand gesture, Margo, but holding fast takes something more. How long will you stay this time? A day, a week? How long before you're too restless to stick it out? Before the effort of caring for someone else becomes an inconvenience? Before you rush back to your glamorous life, where you don't have to think about anyone but yourself?"
"Well." Because her hand was unsteady, Margo set the cup down. "Why don't you get the rest of it out, Mum? Sounds like you've stored plenty."
"Oh, it's easy for you, isn't it, to come and go on a whim? Sending postcards and presents, as if that made up for your turning your back on everything real you've been given."
Ann's own worries acted as an impetus for resentments harbored for years. They spewed out before she could stop them, splattering them both with bitterness.
"You grew up in this house pretending you weren't the daughter of a servant, and Miss Laura treated you always as a sister. Who sent you money after you'd run off? Who used her influence to get you your first photo shoot? Who was there for you, always?" she demanded, stacking slices of bread like a irate cardsharp. "But have you been there for her? These past few years when she's been struggling to hold her family together, when she's been lonely and sad, were you there for her?"
"How could I have known?"
"Because Miss Kate would have told you. And if you hadn't been so wrapped up in Margo Sullivan, you'd have listened."
"I've never been what you wanted," Margo said wearily. "I've never been Laura. And I can't be."
Now guilt layered onto weariness and worry. "No one's asked you to be someone you're not."