A Family to Cherish

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She approached the door of the somewhat worn Federal-style building in Wellsville, noted the Closed Mondays sign, and hesitated.

A part of her wanted to run.

Another fraction longed to turn back the hands of time and fix things, an impossible task made harder by a guilt span of fourteen years. She raised her hand to knock, but a voice hailed her from above. “It’s open, Mere.”

She stepped out from under the overhang and looked up. “Hey, Heather.”

Heather Madigan jerked a thumb. “Come on in. Coffee’s fresh.”

Her voice and easy acceptance made Meredith feel more like a jerk, deservedly. As she let herself in, the door emitted an old, familiar squeak, a welcome whine that reminded customers of where they were.

“Same door,” she noted as Heather hurried into the room. Heather had gained weight, something she’d struggled with all through high school, but the look of cautious question in her face, her eyes, said Mere’s visit was only a little surprising.

Heather waved a hand toward the door and motioned left toward the kitchen. “I could change it, but it was always that way when Mom was running the shop. It reminds me of her.”

“Your mother was a good woman,” Meredith said softly. She faltered, then frowned in apology. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back for her service. Her funeral. It was rude.”

“Everybody gets busy, Mere.” Heather poured two mugs of coffee, grabbed out milk and sugar, then turned. “It’s understandable.”

“It wasn’t that.” Meredith figured if she was going to wipe the slate clean, best to do it now. “I just couldn’t face coming home then. Seeing people. Having them talk.”

Heather settled a look on her that mixed common sense and compassion. “You always cared too much about that. You worried Mama something fierce because she said you’d fall head over heels for the first guy with a good line that came your way because you wanted desperately to be loved.”

The truth in Sandy Madigan’s words must have shown in Meredith’s face because Heather stepped forward. “And that’s what happened, right?”

Meredith hadn’t come here to spill secrets, but Heather’s look of sympathy touched old feelings, rusty from disuse. “Let’s just say your mother’s common sense held true. Like always.” Meredith walked back to the doorway separating the salon room from the small kitchen. “It looks the same.”

Heather frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“It is.” Meredith turned her way and inhaled. “The same scents, too. Coffee, shampoo, neutralizer.”

Heather laughed. “Brady hated that smell. He complained loud and long about how he smelled it in his shirts. In his food. How he couldn’t even go upstairs to get away from it.”

“So he left.” Meredith set the words out gently. To her surprise, Heather didn’t look all that disturbed.

“He never meant to stay, Mere. I was the one pushing, always. For a ring, then a wedding, then a family. He didn’t want any of it, but I was too young and naive to see that. Or admit it to myself.”

“How’s Rory?”

Heather’s smile broadened. “Amazing. So sweet. So smart. She’ll do more than this someday.” She spread her arms wide, indicating her attached-to-the-salon home. “I’ll make sure of it.”

Meredith pondered that comment, then pulled out a chair. “Can we talk?”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” Heather supposed, but she pulled out the seat opposite and sat.

Meredith leaned forward and steepled her hands. “I’m starting a business.”

Heather nodded.

“A spa.”

A shadow darkened Heather’s features as realization set in. A spa would go toe to toe with her business. “Where?”

“The Senator’s Mansion.”

“That’s like three minutes from here.”

“Yes.” Meredith nodded, then slipped a proposal out of her bag. She extended it across the table to her old high school friend. “Here’s the layout. The basic plan. Cam’s doing the work for me.” That news didn’t shock Heather, because word spread fast in small towns. Maybe the following question would be a bigger surprise. A good one, Meredith hoped. Prayed. “And I was hoping you’d go into business with me. Be my partner.”

Heather’s eyes shot up. “What?”

Meredith hesitated, with good reason. She’d stomped the dust from her hometown off her feet fourteen years past and hadn’t looked back, not even as much as a Christmas card to her old friend.

Talk about cold. Stupid and unfeeling.

Now she had a chance to right old wrongs. Isn’t that what Matt had intimated? That she needed to make amends where needed? And wasn’t that what Christ instructed the throngs that gathered to hear him speak? To forgive, go forth and sin no more.

Heather was the perfect starting point. “I’ve got a great head for business, for spa procedures, for running a large-scale shop. What I don’t have is customers.”

Her admission softened Heather’s look of surprise. “I’ve got plenty of those.”

“And it would be a good pairing.” Meredith leaned in farther. “You and I always worked well together. We learned at your mother’s feet, we go-fered until we were old enough and pesky enough to do nails. Then hair. And I’ve worked with a lot of stylists over the years, but no one better than Sandra Dee Madigan.”

Heather put her head in her hands, groaned, then grinned. “That name. So funny. But so endearing.”

“She was a great lady.”

“I know. I miss her so much.” Heather glanced around, misty-eyed, then reached for a tissue. “I keep these everywhere,” she confessed. “Women get to talking and then they spill their guts about everything, and we have a cry fest, and go through crazy boxes of tissues.”

Meredith considered that. “That part is different with a spa. People aren’t so close together. There’s more autonomy.”

“Is that good or bad?” Heather wondered.

Meredith made a face. “Until just now I considered it the norm, but you’ve given me reason to rethink part of the layout. Because I think people would miss this.” She nodded toward the closer, tighter spacing of the old-style salon. “And we don’t want that.”

“I don’t have a lot of money, Mere.” Heather faced her, square and honest. “I had to re-mortgage when Brady took off and there’s no leverage to do that again.”

“We’ve got start-up costs from Gram,” Meredith explained. She opened the proposal to page four and pointed. “What you’d be bringing to the table is customers. Familiarity. A base from which to build.”

Heather examined the papers, then sat back. “It’s a lot to consider.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve done things my own way for a long time.”

“And now there’d be two of us running things. And a crew to run.”

“A crew.” Heather’s eyes sparkled. “I’ve always thought how fun it would be to run a place.”

“And hard work,” Meredith advised her. “You have to handle all the down stuff, the negative stuff, the backstabbing-girl stuff.”

“Well, that won’t happen, so that’s not a problem,” Heather declared.

“No?” Mere eyed her, amused. She knew better.