A Father Leaves...

Soon after Malcolm's 16th birthday, Grandfather Duncan passed away suddenly from a heart attack. The family was heart broken. According to Margaret's diary, Grandmother Trista spent a long time speaking to a person who wasn't there. When she wasn't talking to herself, she was speaking to an old ball she'd had as a child. Margaret encouraged her to put more effort into her beauty salon in order to get through the days without Duncan.

Grandmother Trista did so, and was going to bed one evening when she suddenly screamed "Duncan!" and fell to the floor. The children rushed into the room only to discover their mother, dead on the floor. Malcolm swore that his father's ghost had returned to take his mother's soul. Margaret was heartbroken. She missed her parents, but she also knew this meant her months of preparation for college had been all for nothing. With no one left in the house, she had to stay and keep it running while her brother, the heir, attended college.



Margaret did not graduate high school with honors as she had hoped. Losing both parents so suddenly, as well as having her dream of college taken from her, had left her listless and wandering. She finished school and encouraged her brother to do his very best. He was going to study painting at college, so in addition to his school work he spent all his spare time painting.



Margaret grew into a lovely woman. She threw herself into running the household, ran her mother's beauty business - which had passed on to her - and got a job in the culinary field. She had a new dream, a dream she dared not mention to anyone for fear that it would once again be taken from her. She wanted to become a chef and possibly own a restaurant or bakery one day. Of course, that would be after she completed her training and after making sure her brother finished college.