Summary: A story about how Margaret (aka "Marmee," the girls' mother) coped after Beth's death. I think most stories in this fandom are about the sisters, so I wanted to write one focused on another character.

Look up to the heavens. Who created all the stars?
He brings them out one after another, calling each by its name, and He counts them to see that none are lost or have strayed away.
– Isaiah 40:26.

Margaret March once told her daughter Jo that she had had a fierce, fiery temper when she was younger. With much hard work, she had learned how to control it, how to douse the fire, rather than stoke the flames and let them rage. It had been so long ago that she thought her temper had died within her, but after Beth dies – after the funeral is over, and she's seen her daughter buried, and that first shocking numbness has passed – she feels the flame flicker back to life.

Part of her wants to rage over what she's lost, to scream and throw things until they shatter and break into pieces, like her heart. But she doesn't. Instead, she quietly goes on with the task of living, waking up every morning – sometimes, her first thought is still, I must go and check on Beth – and helping Hannah prepare breakfast and do the chores. But inside, she feels as if she's very far away, watching someone else, some strange woman, play-act at her life.

Robert tells her that time will ease their pain, and she nods at his words. But when she looks at him, a bitter voice inside her whispers that he could never understand. No man can know how it feels to be a mother who's lost her child. Then she looks away, guilty and horrified at herself for thinking such a thing about her husband.

A letter arrives from Amy in Switzerland, written shortly after news of Beth's death reached her. Her words are shaky and crooked, as if she had been crying when she wrote them – and indeed, Margaret knows this is the case from the several small, salt-scented stains spotting the paper here and there, where Amy's tears had fallen.

The envelope is addressed to Mrs. M. March – in the proper, grown-up manner of sending mail – but inside, the letter is composed to Marmee, a betrayal of the part of Amy that still feels like a little girl and still aches for her mother's comfort.

Amy writes that even far-away Vevay – that grand, beautiful lake city that Beth never knew of – suddenly feels flatter and duller after her death. Indeed, all of God's creation, the whole world over, seems a gloomier place without Beth March in it. She writes of how much she wishes to have been home with her family when Beth passed, and how constantly she is thinking of them all. She mentions that Laurie visits her often, and his presence is a dear comfort to her.

Margaret rereads the letter several times, then closes her eyes and thanks God that Amy has Laurie to comfort her, and the distance to soften the blow.

But she also begins to feel that there can be no comfort for her, that nothing – no length of time, no matter how great – could possibly soften the blow that's struck her heart. She wants to pray over this, but whenever she thinks of God, the same bitter thought occurs to her as when she looks at Robert. He could never understand. He could never know how it feels.

On the first Sunday after Beth's funeral, Margaret doesn't go to church. The thought of walking through the little church cemetery and seeing her daughter's grave, still with newly-dug earth and fresh flowers, is unbearable. But the other, darker, reason is that she feels angry with God for taking Beth away from her. She could never tell this to another soul, and can barely admit it to herself, so she carries her anger within her, where it burns like a terrible secret. She worries how Robert will feel about her not attending – the man is a reverend, after all – but her husband says nothing.

The next piece of mail that arrives from Europe is a small package, postmarked from Paris and again addressed in Amy's elaborate penmanship to Mrs. M. March. Bewildered, wondering what sort of souvenir Amy could have sent her, Margaret unwraps it. Inside, nestled safely among crumpled paper, is a small candle in a votive glass holder. Neat words are printed across the front of the glass – Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris – and beneath them, an image of the Virgin Mary.

Margaret turns it over in her hands for a moment, admiring it. A faint, sweet aroma of incense still clings to it, brought all the way from the nave of that great cathedral in France to her house in Concord. Mary's head is bowed to the side in prayer, her eyes downcast, her face sad and beautiful.

Margaret sets the candle on the sunny shelf in her room where she keeps little trinkets that her daughters gave her for Mother's Day when they were children – an embroidery by Meg, a spool necklace from Jo, a few pretty seashells from Beth, and a sketch from Amy. Mary's downcast gaze makes it seem as though she's keeping a vigil over these childish gifts, and that makes Margaret feel better, as if Mary is watching over her daughters, too. The glass shines in the sunlight.

On the next Sunday morning, Margaret rises early and walks to Mass at the Catholic church. She's never been to a Catholic church before, and parts of the service are very different from what she knows. The priest wears a long white alb with a green stole, speaks in Latin, and stands with his back to the congregation. But in a chapel at one end, there's a statue of Mary. Margaret approaches it after services. There are no votive candles here, only a small potted plant of lilies at the statue's feet.

Mary looks much the same in the statue as on the candle that Amy sent – so somber that Margaret almost wants to comfort her. She wants to tell her, I understand. Both of them are mothers who know how it feels to lose a child, to have that aching, ragged hole inside you. Had Mary begged God to spare her child and take her instead, as Margaret had done when Beth lay dying?

She can't explain why she feels lighter, refreshed, as she leaves the church and walks home, as if a weight as been lifted from her heart. Margaret would never say so – she always taught her girls to keep their negative opinions of others to themselves, and she tries to do the same – but she always thought that the Catholic veneration of Mary seemed strange at best, blasphemous at worst. But walking home now, appreciating the fresh, sunny morning air for the first time since Beth died, it doesn't seem so strange. It feels right.

Margaret smiles at her husband and kisses him when she gets home. That afternoon, Meg and Jo are able to come over and help her pack up Beth's clothes to be donated to charity, as she would've wanted. And that evening, when she goes to bed, Margaret prays for the first time since Beth's death; she thanks God for sending her comfort and asks Him to keep watch over her daughters – the two here in Concord with her, the one in Europe, and the one in heaven.

FIN

P.S. I'm not an expert on Catholicism (far from it), but even though I'm Jewish, I was educated at Catholic schools for many years. I'd like to be on the safe side and apologize in advance in case this story offends anybody.