”Margo?”
She turned away again. “I was the one who found her. Can we talk about something else? Please?”
How old had Margo been when her mother died?
Kit wanted to ask a thousand questions, but Margo wasn’t ready to answer them.
”What about your grandmother?” Kit tried, remembering with cutting clarity the last time he’d seen Sarah.
Margo sniffed. “I’ve never seen her. Mom ran away with Dad when she was seventeen. I’m not sure Grandma van Wyyck even knew where Mom was or that we existed. I …I had a picture. But everything I had was stolen. In New York. I even had to buy new shoes.”
Kit, too, mourned that photograph’s loss. “What was the picture like? How did she look? Did she seem happy?”
Margo seemed to come back from someplace even farther away than Kit had been. She studied him for a long moment. “You’re still in love with her. Aren’t you?”
Kit managed a pained smile. “Does it show?”
”Well, you’re crying…”
”Am I?” He swiped at his cheeks. “Damn…”
Margo dug in a pocket and held out his hanky. She’d laundered it somewhere. “Here.”
Kit managed a shaky laugh. “Thanks, imp. You’ve rescued my reputation as an unflappable time scout.”
She started to say something, then stopped.
”What? Whatever it is, say it. Or ask it.”
Margo frowned. “It’s nothing much. just… Everything I ever heard or read …Mom used to say you grew up a dirt-poor Georgia boy, had to scrap and fight for everything you had I used to think about that, sometimes. It made me proud, knowing you’d made it, but …I always thought…”