Elin Hilderbrand - The Love Season

“You do?” Marguerite said.

“You do ?” Renata said.

“It’s a wonderful column,” Daniel said.

Forgiveness, Marguerite thought. It had been there all along.

“Well,” she said, trying not to smile. “Thank you.”

The grandfather clock eked out another hour. The announcement was mercifully short: two o’clock.

Sleep! Marguerite commanded herself. Now!

She closed her eyes. In the morning, she would make a second meal, breakfast. She and Daniel and Renata would drink coffee on the patio, read the Sunday New York Times , which Marguerite had had delivered every week since the year she met Porter. They would say things and leave many things unsaid. And then-either together or separately-Renata and Daniel would leave to go back to New York. They would resume their lives, and Marguerite would resume hers.

She was not optimistic enough to believe that, from this day on, she would see them often, or soon, though she hoped her status improved from a mere name on the Christmas card list. She hoped Renata would write-or e-mail! She hoped both Renata and Daniel would think of Nantucket on a bright, hot summer day and know they were welcome there anytime, without warning. For them, her door was open.

If nothing else, Marguerite told herself, she would be left with the memory of this day. It would be a comfort and a blessing to think back on it.

There was, after all, nothing like living in the past.

Elin Hilderbrand made a paper angel ornament in third grade that is still in her family’s custody. She celebrates the holidays by making batches of mustard and chive pine-nut dip and gifting them to her friends. Her favorite carol is “O Holy Night.” Winter Stroll is her sixteenth novel.

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