Page 63 of April Flowers

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” Margot said.

Lillian turned to look at her daughter. “You look as pretty as a picture, Margaret.”

Margaret. Margot suddenly remembered that Vic Rondell had called her that when they’d first met. It felt likely that he carried within him hundreds of stories from her mother.

He’d only called her Margaret because her mother had referred to her as that. It was her given name, after all—the name of Lillian’s grandmother. Margot suddenly felt even closer to her. She bent to kiss her mother on the cheek and said, “I love you. I’ll be back soon.”

Margot drove to the Regent Hotel with her heart in her throat, imagining all range of possibilities. It was more than likely that Vic wouldn’t be in that he was out exploring the island or meeting up with friends for a cocktail or early dinner. But when she got to the front desk and asked, the receptionist rang up to his room and told her he was there.

“Tell him it’s Margot Earnheart,” she said.

The receptionist did just that. When she hung up, she said to Margot, “He’ll see you now. Room 333.”

Margot was filled with a mix of dread and wonder. Instead of taking the elevator, she took a side staircase and paused at the second-floor landing to text Noah. She knew that afternoon he was back at work, meeting with the parents of an at-risk young man who’d robbed the grocery store last week. Noah took his job incredibly seriously. He wanted to instill hope into young people, help them override their spontaneous urges, and become respectable and loving members of society.

Margot loved how much hope he had for the future.

MARGOT: I’m about to meet Vic Rondell.

Noah wrote back immediately.

NOAH: Call me after. Good luck.

NOAH: I love you.

MARGOT: I love you, too.

They’d started saying “love” again about three weeks into their “new” relationship. It had fallen out of Margot’s lips naturally one day. It felt easy, like breathing. Noah had echoed it, and they’d gone on like that as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

There was still a smile on Margot’s lips when she reached Vic Rondell’s door. To her surprise, he was waiting for her with the door open.

It seemed plain as day. The man before her was like Frank Earnheart’s twin.

Margot’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt her smile melt away. She stopped and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I don’t bite,” he said, beckoning for her to enter. “Would you like a drink?”

Margot crossed the threshold to find a large suite with a balcony that looked out over the water, just as she’d imagined. In a pair of slacks and a V-neck shirt, Vic was far less dressed up than he’d been all the other times she’d seen him, and there were rings around his eyes that suggested he hadn’t been sleeping well.

“Red wine? White wine? Aperol spritz?” he asked.

Margot said she’d like a glass of white wine.

“Sounds wonderful. We’ll sit out on the balcony,” he said.

Margot was quiet as Vic poured their glasses. But when they left the hotel room and sat at the balcony table, she asked, “Where have you been?”

Vic tried to smile. “I was called away on business.”

“My mother really misses you.”

Vic winced and let his gaze drop.

Margot scrutinized his expression. What did it mean? Did it mean he missed Lillian, too?

“When I found you with her diaries that night,” Margot began, “I didn’t know what to think.”

“I can understand that. It must have been alarming,” he said.

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