Meg at Sixteen Read Free

didn’t?” Thea said. “Then you didn’t see the same videotape I did.”
    â€œThey did,” Sybil said. “I know they did, and what’s more important, they know they did. But what difference does that make? You can’t possibly want Megs to stop her life at that moment, Thea. Of all of us, you know the most about loss and the need to go on.”
    Claire smiled. Thea didn’t seem to notice.
    â€œWe all want Megs to be happy,” Evvie declared. “We just have different images of how that should be.”
    â€œDo you like the idea of this marriage?” Thea asked her. “Honestly now.”
    â€œHonestly, I don’t know,” Evvie replied. “Sometimes I’m very happy for her. Sometimes I think about Nicky, and I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel like she’s betraying him. If their love was so perfect then how can she be marrying someone else?”
    â€œWould you ever remarry, if Sam died?” Sybil asked.
    â€œI can’t even think about that,” Evvie said. “It panics me. Isn’t that ridiculous? Levelheaded Evvie, in a state of total terror.”
    â€œI’m happy for her,” Sybil said. “I think it’s really nice she’s getting married.”
    â€œYou have a vested interest,” Thea declared. “Megs moves out of this house, and you move right in. Your very own Beacon Hill mansion. At least until there’s a legitimate Christian grandson.”
    â€œThat’s not fair,” Claire said. “This house is available to all of us. Sybil’s just going to be going to graduate school here, that’s all.”
    â€œThat isn’t all, and we all know it,” Thea said. “We know what Sybil was willing to do to keep this house.”
    â€œMy,” Claire said. “We are in an ugly mood today.”
    â€œWe have our share of ugly truths,” Thea said.
    â€œShe was sixteen,” Claire said. “Just. And you know the kind of pressure Nicky could assert. Besides, whatever happened was between Sybil and Evvie and Sam, and if they can all handle it, I don’t see why it should bother you.”
    â€œI hate this house,” Evvie said. “Megs offered it to Sam and me when I was expecting, and I’m so glad I turned her down. It does ugly things to us to be here. Sybil may think of it as home and she’s welcome to it as far as I’m concerned, but it’s a cruel house, and it makes us all say and think cruel things.”
    Thea started to cry. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Sybil, I know it wasn’t your fault. It’s just I associate that business, your birthday, all of it, with Nicky’s dying, and now Megs is getting remarried, and somehow that makes it feel like Nicky really is dead. Is that dumb? It’s been five years, but I still have dreams that he’s alive, that it’s all been a scheme of his, and he and Megs are just waiting, the way they waited all those years ago, when Aunt Grace wouldn’t let them get married. It’s like when Megs gets married tomorrow, we’re really burying Nicky, and that hurts so much.”
    â€œI didn’t believe he was dead until we scattered the ashes,” Claire said. “When was that, a year after he died? Scattering them in the ocean at Eastgate. I could feel him then, so intensely, what he was and what he wanted to be, and then for the first time ever I guess, I felt at peace about him, and I felt he was at peace too. I know you think I didn’t love Nicky, but in some ways I loved him more than any of you.” She paused for a moment. “And in some ways, not,” she declared. “No point getting too maudlin.”
    â€œI wish Megs would come downstairs already,” Evvie said. “Clark is coming over in an hour or so, and we have a lot of things to do this evening.”
    â€œLet her stay up there as long as she wants,” Thea