Free Meg's Best Man: A Montana Weekend Novella by Cynthia Bruner Page B

staying?”
    Her mother shrugged, a peaceful smile on her face. “It always works out. Something always works out.”
    “Where is Mark? What will he be doing before the dorms open up?”
    “He’s been staying with some friends in Cody. Nice folks. He set up the computer for a camp there, and when he’s done he’s planning to stay with Jacob and Catherine.”
    Meg nodded without comment. A decade younger than her, her little brother would be going to college a year early. It made sense. In many ways he was already raising himself. She worried about him, and these last few days without Internet access had been the longest she’d gone without sending him an e-mail or text in years. “I was really hoping he’d be here.”
    “He might still come,” her father said. “He’s just very busy. You know how he is. In fact, he’s a lot like you. I wish you two could take a little more time to relax.”
    Meg didn’t want to have this discussion again. She wished things were different for Mark, that he wasn’t on the run from home to home, living mostly with his face in the computer and always speaking in terms of video game metaphors. She wished his parents spent a little more time with him than they did saving the world. Meg closed her eyes. Of course homeless orphans in Burma would need her parents more than a seventeen-year-old almost-man. Anyone could see that. But where was the line? Every parent in the extended Parks family drew it differently. Her parents didn’t draw much of a line at all.
    For no particular reason other than a sudden desire to throw a wrench in the works, Meg faced her parents and said, “I published a children’s book.”
    “Oh, really?” her father said.
    “Honey, I’m so happy for you! Can I see it?”
    “I sold my last copy. I’m supposed to have more waiting for me when I get home.”
    “That’s great, sweetheart,” her father said. “You’ll have to send one to us when we get a post office box in Billings. We’ll be sure to let you know what it is when we get settled.”
    And that was that. She poured the hot water and some honey in her father’s mug and hot water and milk in her mother’s, and they went on to talk about the project they would be working on and how they planned to get clothing for the kids past a million impenetrable barriers. Meg tried to listen. Her heart hurt for the kids, children with no mom or dad and very little medical care. Although she tried not to, she was thinking, why did I wait to tell them about the book?
    Because they don’t really care . It sounded petulant, but in a way it was true. They were happy for her, they wanted her to be happy, and she knew they loved her very much. But her parents carried so much in their hearts that she always shared time there with other things. And when those other things were starving, dying, and persecuted… well. Publishing a book meant nothing compared to helping orphans, and she knew it. But the child inside of her wanted something else. Fanfare. Tears. Hugs. Something.
    And if she’d gotten it, she would have been embarrassed, and she would have felt guilty.
    “Margaret, is your little book a Christian book?”
    Meg bit her lip. It was to her, but not the way that her mother would want it to be. “No.”
    “Oh.” Her mother took a sip of tea. “This is wonderful, Margaret. Thank you for making this for us.”
    Her mother’s hair was so gray, and she seemed too young for it. She remembered seeing her mother each fall of her life and feeling shocked at the change in her. It felt as if her mother died a little each summer while she was away, and it had frightened her. It still did. She wanted to ask her mom and dad about retirement, health insurance, having a little apartment of their own where they could retire when they weren’t strong enough to travel the world any more.
    “God supplies our needs, Margaret,” her mother said. “I see that worried look on your face. It’s not your job to worry