Chapter 29
Maggie
It felt like they’d been in the emergency room forever.
Time stretched and folded strangely in hospitals — plastic chairs, buzzing fluorescent lights, the faint smell of antiseptic and burnt coffee.
Maggie shifted on the stiff bed, trying not to wince as the paper crinkled beneath her.
Her ankle was propped up on a pillow, swollen and bruised so badly it looked like someone had swapped it for a prop from a zombie movie.
Maggie tried for a grin at Izzy, who was slumped in the corner chair, head tipped back against the wall. “You know,” she said lightly, “I jinxed it. Back in Vegas I thought the Maggie injury curse was broken. But no. Apparently the streak lives on. Fucking swan. Elitist jerk.”
Izzy cracked one eye open.
Maggie added, “I mean, at this point the universe just thinks I’m greedy for attention.”
That earned her a smile, but it was the tired kind — the one Izzy used when she was running on fumes.
“I’m the injured one but you look wrecked,” Maggie said, softer now.
Izzy rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. You’re slouching like a teenager. You never slouch.”
Izzy studied her for a beat, then sighed. “I’m worried about you, Mags.”
Maggie blinked. “Me?”
“You’re in the ER with an ankle the size of a softball,” Izzy said. “You’re making jokes, but I see you wincing. You’ve been hurting for a while.”
Maggie looked away, throat tight. “It’s just an ankle.”
Izzy leaned forward, elbows on her knees. “It’s not just an ankle. It’s everything. And now you’re talking divorce like it’s already stamped. What’s the rush?”
Maggie’s head snapped back toward her. “Rush? Izzy, I’ve been living in limbo for months. Years, if I’m honest. Calling it divorce is the first honest thing I’ve done in a long time.”
Izzy held her gaze. “So that’s it? No room for anything else? You just burn it down?”
Maggie let out a brittle laugh. “You think I didn’t try? That I didn’t twist myself in every direction to make it work? You weren’t there in our kitchen every night. You didn’t hear the silence. You didn’t feel how heavy it was just to breathe in the same room with her.”
Izzy’s voice was quieter now, but insistent. “I’m not saying it wasn’t hard. I’m asking why you have to slam the door before you’re sure.”
“Because waiting is worse,” Maggie said quickly. Her voice cracked anyway. “Because every time I see her, I still want her, and it kills me. And I can’t keep living in the in-between. It’s torture.”
Izzy studied her for a long beat. “So you do still love her.”
Maggie’s chest constricted. “Of course I do.”
Izzy leaned back, tipping her head against the wall again, exhaling like the fight had gone out of her. “Then I guess I just don’t understand how you let that go. I don’t care what happened — I know you two still love each other.”
Maggie blinked hard, eyes stinging, and pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Her voice came out quiet but steady. “Sometimes that’s not enough.”
The words settled between them, heavy but final. Izzy didn’t argue. She just reached across the space and squeezed Maggie’s hand once, firm and warm, before letting her head tip back again.
Maggie let the touch linger, swallowing past the lump in her throat.
The curtain swished back before she could say anything more. A young doctor breezed in, clipboard in hand, her ponytail swinging. “All right, good news first — no fractures on the X-rays. Bad news”—she tilted her head at Maggie’s swollen ankle—“that’s one impressive sprain.”
Maggie let out a half laugh. “I don’t get a cast? Kinda feels like a rip-off.”
“No cast.” The doctor smiled. “But you will need a boot, crutches, and to stay off it. You’ll follow up with your PCP back home in Austin — if they want to do an MRI, they’ll let you know. For now, ice, elevation, and pain meds.”
Izzy exhaled audibly, relief flooding her face.
Maggie felt it too, even if she tried to cover it with another joke. “Great. Nothing completes your wedding outfit like a Velcro boot.”
The doctor chuckled, scribbled a few notes, and disappeared again.
They left with Maggie outfitted in her new orthopedic fashion statement, Izzy steadying her as she wobbled on crutches. The pharmacy in the hospital handed over a little white bottle of painkillers. Maggie made Izzy carry it, muttering something about her dignity already being in shreds.
On the drive back to the lake house, the fall air swept crisp through the cracked windows. Maggie rested her head against the seat, watching the trees blur by. “You know,” she said, “I was reading that Hemingway used to summer at this lake when he was a kid.”
Izzy snorted. “Hemingway was a real dick.”
“Yeah,” Maggie said, smiling faintly. “But it’s still pretty cool, I guess.”
Izzy tilted her head. “Yeah. It’s still pretty cool.”
Back at the house, chaos was still in full swing — laughter, voices, clatter from the kitchen. When Maggie hobbled in on her crutches, everyone surged toward her with questions and exclamations. She waved them off, embarrassed, cheeks hot.
“Really, I’m fine,” she insisted as Danica steered her toward the couch like a queen in exile. “A little sprain, nothing dramatic.”
They piled blankets around her and shoved a pillow under her leg as Gladys set up as part guard, part nurse on the end of the couch.
Danica handed her a cardboard box full of plastic champagne flutes. “You can sit there and assemble these,” Danica decreed. “It’ll keep you busy while we set up outside.”
Maggie sighed, snapping stems into bases while the TV murmured in the background. She felt ridiculous. Embarrassed. Sorry for herself. Everyone else was bustling with wedding prep and she was stuck on the couch, Queen of the Plastic Cups.
She was halfway through the box, lip caught between her teeth as she watched her third Golden Girls episode, when the front door burst open.
And there she was.
Gwen stood in the doorway, blazer rumpled, hair loose around her face, dress shoes scuffed like she hadn’t stopped moving since she left wherever she’d been. Chest heaving, eyes locked straight on Maggie.
Gladys barely lifted her head, annoyed to be woken up.
For a second, Maggie didn’t breathe. She held herself rigid, like maybe she could still bluff her way through this, keep the armor on. But then Gwen’s gaze didn’t shift, didn’t soften, didn’t blink — and the dam broke.
The tears came hot and sudden, blurring Gwen into shapes, spilling faster than she could swipe them away.
Maggie pressed her palms hard against her face, but it was useless; the sob ripped through her chest before she could choke it back.
The sound startled even her — ugly, unguarded, nothing like the brave, breezy front she’d been holding together for weeks.
She curled forward, shaking, words stammering out between hiccuped breaths. “Sorry — sorry, I’m fine, I’m okay—” But the words collapsed under the weight of her crying. For the first time, she wasn’t fine. She wasn’t pretending.
Gwen crossed the room in three strides, no hesitation now. She dropped her bag by the door, crouched, and pulled Maggie against her chest. Her arms were steady, anchoring, her blazer scratchy against Maggie’s cheek, her heartbeat pounding hard and fast.
“Hey,” Gwen whispered, low and rough, her hand threading into Maggie’s hair. “You don’t have to be fine.”
That undid her all over again. Maggie clutched fistfuls of Gwen’s shirt, sobs tearing loose in a way she hadn’t allowed herself in months. Gwen just held her tighter, rocking them both in the stillness of the room, as if she could absorb the shaking right out of Maggie’s body.
Because this — this was what she’d accused Gwen of never doing. Not showing up. Not putting her first. And now she was standing in a lake house two flights away from home, when she should’ve been in a glass tower conference room nodding at renderings.
The swell of relief was so sharp it almost hurt.
Then panic hit Maggie like a second wave. Her heart jerked. “Wait. Where are the kids?”
“The kids are fine,” Gwen said quickly, her voice steady in a way that made Maggie’s stomach twist. “My mom’s with them.”
Maggie exhaled, some of the panic ebbing — but it left her lightheaded, like standing too fast.
“Tell me everything. Start from the top,” Gwen asked, softer now, eyes searching Maggie’s face like she could read every hidden answer there.
Maggie blinked down at her, dazed. The champagne flute stem was still in her hand, forgotten, the cheap plastic biting into her palm. She wanted to say something sharp — you don’t get to swoop in now, you missed so much already — but what came out instead was a shaky laugh.
“There’s this demonic swan,” she muttered. “That’s the top.”
Gwen’s brow furrowed, like she thought Maggie was joking. Then she glanced at Izzy, who raised both hands solemnly. “True story. Swan’s got a vendetta.”
Pete walked in from the back deck and paused to proclaim, “Gwyneth!”
Gwen laughed, giving Pete a wave. Her gaze went back to Maggie’s ankle, then up to her face, all careful intensity. The kind of look Maggie used to fall into. The kind of look that made her feel seen, even when she didn’t want to be.
And damn it all, Gwen was here. Gwen had come.