“But don’t you miss us?” Jess pleads, and I can tell that she’s crying. I stay bent over the water fountain, not daring to move a muscle.
“Of course I miss you!” her mother says. “I miss you so much, I can hardly stand it sometimes!”
“Then why don’t you come home?”
A loudspeaker above my head crackles to life. “All cast members back on the set!”
“Please try and understand, honey,” Mrs. Delaney says.
“Understand what? That acting is more important to you than we are?” Jess’s tone is bitter.
“Now, people!” barks the loudspeaker.
“I have to go,” says Mrs. Delaney. “We’ll talk about this more later, okay?”
She hurries back toward the set. Jess slumps onto a low stool nearby and buries her head in her arms.
I straighten up and watch her for a minute. Then I tiptoe over. “Um, Jess,” I whisper.
She doesn’t reply.
I sit down on the floor beside her. “I couldn’t help overhearing,” I tell her. I pat her awkwardly on the back. “Jess, I’m really sorry.”
Jess looks up. “I wish—I wish—” She shakes her head miserably. “I just wish everything could be the way it was before.”
“I know,” I reply, thinking of my father. “Me, too.” I pass her a tissue and she blows her nose. Then I help her to her feet and we go back to our seats.
Later, in the dark theater on Broadway, as we watch Marmee and Jo and the March sisters go through their trials and tribulations, I think about everything that’s happened these last couple of days. My hand slips into the pocket of my dress, where I’ve stashed my souvenir baseball. Zach Norton is going to be green with envy when he sees it. All of us got a little piece of our heart’s desire this trip, I think to myself. All except Jess. She’s the only one returning home to Concord empty-handed, leaving what she most wants behind.
I watch the play some more, and I get a little lump in my throat thinking about the sad part that’s coming soon when Beth dies. Mom was right, I did cry when we read that part of the story together. I couldn’t help it. It reminded me so much of Dad.
I look over at Jess. At least I know that the accident wasn’t something he chose to have happen. I can’t imagine what it must be like for Jess, knowing that her mother is choosing to live here in New York, instead of at home in Concord on Half Moon Farm. That would be hard Really hard.
Life is so unfair sometimes.
Jess
“Now and then, in this workaday world, things do happen in the delightful storybook fashion, and what a comfort it is.”
“Jess!” my father hollers up the stairs. “Will you see if you can round up your brothers? We’re going to be late! Oh, and make sure the chickens are in their pen too, while you’re at it.”
“Chickens, brothers—it’s always something,” I grumble, clacking down to the kitchen in my new sandals. “Never a minute to myself.”
There’s no sign of Dylan and Ryan in the house, so I head for the barn to look for them, stopping by the feed bins to grab a double handful of cracked corn to lure the hens.
“Come on, girls!” I call, making encouraging clucking noises at the flock scattered around our back yard. “Come and get it!”
The chickens cock their heads when they hear me calling and make a beeline for the enticing trail I’ve strewn at my feet.
“Good girl, Wynonna,” I say to the plump Rhode Island Red who reaches me first. “Oops, don’t trample Minnie Pearl!”
Nashville’s finest follows the trail I sprinkle behind me, right into the wire mesh enclosure of their pen. I fill up their water and check the feed level in the dispenser. My brothers gathered eggs this morning—that’s one of their chores—but I scout the nest boxes anyway, just to be sure. In this heat, it’s not good to leave fresh eggs outside for too long.
I find my brothers parachuting from the hayloft with Mom’s best linen tablecloth and drag them protesting back to the house, where I throw the tablecloth in the laundry hamper and clean the twins off as best I can. Sometimes I wish I could just throw them in the hamper too.
“Why do we have to dress up?” whines Dylan.
“Because it’s a party,” I reply calmly, brushing his hay-strewn hair.
“I hate parties,” says Ryan.
“You do not,” I tell him. “Remember your birthday? And how about Christmas at the Sloanes?”
He brightens. “Will there be another sleigh ride?”
“No, silly, it’s August.”
“How about presents?” asks Dylan, trying to squirm out of my grasp.
I grip him more firmly. “I don’t know. Maybe. If you’re really good.”
Both boys perk up at this news.
I open the fridge and take out a big plastic container. Lifting the cover, I show my brothers the rows of cupcakes. “There’ll be treats at the party too,” I tell them, and they follow me out to the truck as docilely as the chickens followed the trail of corn to their pen.
Sugar is waiting patiently by the passenger door.
“You can’t come, Sugar,” I tell her. “You need to stay here and keep an eye on the farm.”
With a deep sigh of resignation, she slinks over to the maple tree and flops down in the shade. She drops her head on her paws and gazes at me reproachfully.
My dad comes out of the barn, whistling. “Everybody ready?” he says. He smiles at me. “You look nice.”
“Thanks.” I’m wearing the blue sundress that Mom and Mrs. Sloane helped me pick out in New York for the theater.
We all climb into the truck. I hear a thud in the back and whirl around. I frown at my brothers. “You boys knock that off! You need to be on your best behavior today at the Hawthornes’.”
“Knock what off?” they reply, their eyes wide with innocence.
“Whatever it is that you’re doing back there.”
“Whew, it’s a scorcher,” says Dad, flipping on the air-conditioning.
We head into town toward the Hawthornes’, who are hosting an end-of-summer celebration for the Mother-Daughter Book Club. We pass Sleepy Hollow, but when we get to Monument Square, instead of turning right toward Emma’s, we turn left.
“Where are you going?” I ask. “Lowell Road is the other way.”
“You’ll see,” my father says mysteriously.
We drive along for a mile or so, and then he pulls into the parking lot in front of a big brown house.
“Orchard House? Why are we stopping here?” I ask “Its closed on Sundays.”
“Is that right?” my father replies, smiling. He’s very cheerful today.
He gets out of the truck. I open my door and climb out too. As I do so, Emma and her family pull in beside us.
“Surprise!” says Mrs. Hawthorne, leaning out the window. “Welcome to the Mother-Daughter Book Club picnic!”
“We’re having it here?” I say. “At Louisa May Alcott’s house?”
Mrs. Hawthorne nods, beaming. “I got special permission. I have a friend who’s on the board of trustees.”
My father goes around to the back of the pickup. “I’ve got the folding table right here, Nick,” he says to Mr. Hawthorne, unlatching the tailgate. He jumps back, startled, as Sugar’s head pops up. She looks at us happily, panting.
“Sugar!” I cry. “You little stowaway!”
“What are we going to do with you?” Dad scolds. “I can’t leave you out here in the truck in this heat.”
“I’m sure it’s fine if she joins us, as long as we keep her outside,” says Mrs. Hawthorne.
The Wongs’ hybrid sedan pulls in, along with the Sloanes’ minivan. It’s just Cassidy and her mother because Courtney is at cheerleading camp this week. We carry everything for the picnic around to the back of the house.
“Let’s set up in the shade,” says Mrs. Sloane. “It’s so hot out.”
As the dads and Darcy busy themselves setting up the long folding table and chairs, my little brothers
buzz excitedly around the food.
“Will there be presents?” asks Ryan again hopefully.
Mrs. Hawthorne smiles at him. “A very special one, just for you,” she tells him. “I promise.”
Before I can get her to tell me what it is, Mrs. Sloane calls me over to help her with the table. Cassidy and Emma and Megan and I spread out the tablecloth and set out paper plates and napkins and plastic silverware.
“Put this in the middle, would you, Jess?” Mrs. Sloane says, handing me a big mason jar with a bouquet of daisies in it.
“We’ll keep the food covered until after the tour,” says Mrs. Wong. “Well, all except for this little corner.” She lifts up a piece of foil and sneaks out two deviled eggs, which she passes to my brothers. “That’ll help tide you over, boys.”
The back door of Orchard House opens and Mrs. Hawthorne’s friend appears. “I’m ready any time you are,” she says.
“You gentlemen are welcome to join us,” says Mrs. Hawthorne, but Darcy and our dads have settled into the lawn chairs in the shade, and my brothers are happily running around chasing Sugar.
“I think we’ll wait out here,” says my father. He lifts a plastic cup of lemonade in salute. “You ladies go enjoy yourselves.”
I’ve been through Orchard House a zillion times before—with my mother, with my school, with my Brownie troop, plus Emma and I ride our bikes over almost every summer—but somehow it’s different this time.
We walk through the house with Mrs. Hawthorne’s friend, and it feels more alive to me now. Louisa’s mood pillow, the dining room where the Alcott sisters put on their plays, May’s artwork and Beth’s piano—it’s like they were all just here, and stepped outside for a walk or something.
Upstairs in Louisa’s bedroom, we all grow quiet. Even Cassidy. Emma takes her mother’s hand.
“This is the desk where Miss Alcott wrote Little Women,” says our tour guide, pointing to a semicircular wooden table built between the two front windows. “Louisa’s father made it for her. It was unusual at the time because it wasn’t considered proper for women to have desks of their own.”
Emma reaches out and touches it with her finger. I wonder if she’s thinking of her own desk at home. Over the mantel is a painting of an owl that Louisa’s sister May drew for her. I examine it closely. It’s beautiful, and accurate, too. “May must have been a naturalist just like you, Jess,” says Mrs. Hawthorne.
Megan goes over to the bed, and examines the silk dress spread across it.
“That’s Anna’s wedding dress,” our guide tells her.
“Her real one?” asks Megan, eyes wide.
Mrs. Hawthorne’s friend nods. “Yes, the very one that Louisa used as the model for Meg’s in the story. We usually only put it out during May, which is wedding month at Orchard House, but I thought you girls might enjoy seeing it so I got it out of storage. Anna made it herself.”
Megan tugs on her mother’s sleeve. “Look at these tiny stitches, Mom!” she says. “Aren’t they beautiful?”
“And so even,” agrees her mother. “It’s amazing, considering she didn’t have a sewing machine.”
Looking at all the other girls, I can’t help it. Tears well up in my eyes. It’s so unfair that my mother isn’t here today! She would have loved seeing all this, especially the props for the plays, like Roderigo’s boots—the real ones that Louisa made. But she’s not, and I blink back my tears and remind myself sternly that my life is not a storybook. Not every tale has a happy ending. That’s just the way it is. People die, like Cassidy’s father did, and people leave us, like my mother did. It happened to the Alcotts, and to Little Women’s March family, too.
We tour May’s room, with the paintings and sketches on the walls. “The Alcotts encouraged all their daughters to develop their talents,” explains our guide, and the mothers exchange glances and smile.
Back downstairs, our tour comes to an end in the living room. I look around. The house looks bigger on the outside than it is. It’s actually quite cozy inside, like the Hawthornes’ little Cape Cod-style house. And simple, like Half Moon Farm. And pretty, like the Sloanes’ Victorian. And—well, it’s not at all like the Wongs’, except for the trees outside.
“I think I would have liked the Alcotts,” I say.
Mrs. Hawthorne puts her arm around me and gives me a squeeze. “They would have loved you, Jess!”
Back outside, we all thank Mrs. Hawthorne’s friend.
“My pleasure,” she says. “I have some work to finish up here in the office, but you all have fun, and let me know if you need anything.”
“Let’s eat,” says Cassidy.
We take our seats around the table. There are party favors on every plate, and we open them. The boys and dads all get wooden puzzles, and for us there are refrigerator magnets with quotes from Louisa May Alcott on them. Mine says “There is always light behind the clouds.”
Is that true? I wonder, looking up at the sky through the trees. The sun is shining brightly and there are hardly any clouds, just some high, thin ones way off in the distance. But there seems to be an awfully big cloud hanging over my life right now.
Mr. Hawthorne stands up and raises his lemonade glass.
“A toast to the lovely ladies of the Mother-Daughter Book Club,” he says. “Oh, and gentleman, too.” He nods at my dad, who smiles and nods back. We all toast the book club and then we dig in. There are chicken salad sandwiches that Mr. Hawthorne made and deviled eggs and potato chips and Mrs. Sloane’s homemade pickles and sliced watermelon, and for dessert, my cupcakes.
“How about a game of croquet?” asks Mrs. Hawthorne when we’re finished.
As we’re setting up, Emma comes over to me. “Remember in the book when Fred Vaughn cheated at ‘Camp Laurence’?” she asks.
“I promise I won’t,” I tell her, promptly whacking her ball into the woods.
The afternoon shadows are lengthening as we head for the final wicket. It’s my turn again and I line up to take my shot, but before I can do so Sugar, who is tied to a nearby tree, suddenly starts to whine.
“What is it, girl?” I ask. “What’s the matter?”
Sugar’s gaze is fixed on Orchard House. She looks up at me beseechingly.
“Go ahead and let her off her leash, Jess,” says my father. He’s smiling. All the grown-ups are smiling, in fact.
I shrug and unsnap her leash. Sugar makes a beeline for the side of the house, barking joyfully I look over to see what’s caught her attention. A squirrel, maybe? But no, it’s not a squirrel. It’s something bigger. Something about the size of a dog. In fact, it is a dog.
“Spice!” I cry in surprise. Someone is with her and I can’t see who it is because the sun is in my eyes. And then all of a sudden I know who it is and I drop my mallet and I’m running, tripping over tree roots and pelting down the sloping lawn to where my mother is standing, her arms open as wide as the sky. I hurl myself into them.
“Mom!” I cry, and she pulls me to her. Her face is wet and so is mine and we’re both crying, and then my little brothers are there and she flings her arms around them as well.
“It’s like when Mr. March comes home from the war,” I hear Megan say in wonder.
“Only better,” adds Cassidy, who is beside her a little ways off with the rest of the Mother-Daughter Book Club.
Now Dad joins us and the five of us stand with our arms around one other, breathing each other in. Sugar and Spice are running in circles at our feet.
“Are you just back for the party?” I whisper, pressing my forehead into my mother’s shoulder.
I don’t look at her. I can hardly bear to hear her answer and at the same time I can hardly bear not to.
She lifts my chin with her finger and regards me tenderly. “No, honey,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m not just back for the party.”
I feel suddenly breathless. “Do you mean—”
She nods.
“But what about Larissa LaRue? What about Heart
Beats?”
“The only thing my heart beats for now is right here in my arms,” she replies, kissing my brothers and me and smiling up at my dad. “I had a talk with the show’s producers. Larissa LaRue has conveniently fallen into a mysterious coma, where she’ll remain for a while until we figure something more permanent out.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Something that lets me balance my love of acting with my even greater love of my family,” she replies. “Guest spots, maybe. Or maybe rearranging the shooting schedule so I can split my time between New York and Concord.” My mother looks at me, and her expression is serious. “I thought a lot about what you said to me in New York earlier this summer, Jess. The truth is, nothing is more important to me than you all are. There will always be stages to act on and parts to play, but there’s only one Delaney family at Half Moon Farm.”
Behind me, Emma sighs. “I love happy endings,” she says.
So do I, I think to myself. So do I.
And my heart splits with joy and soars upward high above the sundappled lawn, high above the rustling trees, high above Orchard House and Waiden Pond and white-steepled Concord, and skimming through the clouds—cirrus radiatus—spreads its wings and heads for home.
“In most families there comes, now and then, a year full of events; this has been such a one, but it ends well arter all.”
— Little Women
Mother-Daughter Book Club Questions
Each of the four girls is very different and unique in her own way. Which character do you identify with most and why?
Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is a classic that has been enjoyed by millions. Have you ever read it?
If so, what is your favorite part?
If not, does this book make you want to read it?
All the mothers have their own unique personalities also. Which one reminds you most of the parent or guardian in your life?
At points, some of the girls can be pretty mean to each other. Does this reflect reality in your mind?