Chapter 3
Maggie
To say Maggie was upset was an understatement.
Maggie. Was. Pissed.
She’d spent the better part of the past fifteen hours fuming, positively enraged that Gwen had put them in such an awkward position.
Why had Gwen even met up with her friends at all?
Why hadn’t she just said she couldn’t come?
Why did she have the audacity to look so gorgeous sitting at a brewery picnic table, her top two shirt buttons undone and her hair tousled?
Wait, no. She was getting sidetracked.
Maggie was furious, and she was going to flip a table in the only place where she let her guard down anymore: their couples therapist’s office.
Virtually, of course, given that Gwen was still in Denver.
Dr. Elowen had given them the option of telehealth appointments early on, and they were useful for when Gwen was traveling — which was always — or when Maggie couldn’t stand the idea of sitting in the same quiet room together — which was growing more often.
The video call window blinked to life on Maggie’s laptop, and there she was: Dr. Elowen’s serene office, all soft sage and warm lamplight.
Even over Zoom, it still managed to look like the set of a very gentle television show about feelings, not a room where Maggie had cried dozens of times over the past six months, both virtually and on that stupidly soft greige couch.
Maggie sat rigidly in her chair, arms crossed so tightly they were starting to go numb. Her mouth was tight. Her jaw ached. Her camera was slightly tilted, casting shadows across her face, but she didn’t fix it. She didn’t want to look polished. Not today.
Gwen’s square popped into place a few seconds later. She looked freshly showered, hair still damp and pushed back, the silvery strands at her temple highlighted against her dark locks. Ugh, Gwen even made aging look good.
No. Focus. Stay mad, she told herself.
Pete’s voice at the brewery still echoed in Maggie’s ears. “Guess who just agreed to come to Vegas?”
And there it was. The rage.
Dr. Elowen gave her usual soft greeting. “Good morning, Maggie. Gwen. I’m glad you both made time this morning.”
Gwen nodded. “Good morning.”
Maggie didn’t say anything.
“Maggie,” Dr. Elowen said, not unkindly, “you look like something’s sitting heavy. Want to start today by sharing what’s there?”
She let out a short breath. “Gwen is crashing my friends’ bachelorette party. She said yes. To the bachelorette party. Last night, on a call with everyone. Didn’t even hesitate.”
Gwen shifted in her square. “I didn’t want to be the one to tell them the truth about us. I didn’t want to make a scene.”
Maggie turned, eyes sharp. “You were the scene.”
Dr. Elowen’s eyebrows raised. “All right, let’s unpack this from the beginning. Gwen, would you like to start?”
As Gwen recounted being invited to the brewery, then peer-pressured into agreeing, Maggie couldn’t help rolling her eyes.
Dr. Elowen’s pen paused mid-note. “Gwen, tell me what motivated that decision.”
“I panicked. I didn’t want to derail the whole group. They all started in about how we’re their favorite married couple, and I just felt so complicit in this lie. I didn’t want to be the one to break it open.”
Maggie let out a bitter laugh. “There were plenty of other choices here, and you skipped straight toward the most difficult one.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?” Gwen’s voice was quiet but steady.
Maggie’s jaw dropped, and Gwen held her stare even through the screen. “Wh—”
Dr. Elowen held up a hand. “Let’s pause and recenter. Maggie, what was it about Gwen’s choice that felt so upsetting?”
Maggie blinked fast, like that might slow the heat rising behind her eyes. “Because I was blindsided.”
Dr. Elowen nodded. “So there’s anger in being surprised from both sides. Justified, I think. And underneath it, maybe hurt?”
Maggie didn’t answer, but her throat tightened. Angry tears welled in the corners of her eyes.
Dr. Elowen shifted. “Maggie, what did it feel like when Gwen said you made her complicit in a lie?”
Maggie exhaled slowly. She briefly considered crossing her arms and not answering at all. Instead, she twisted the edge of her shirt in her hands. “I don’t know. I’m still considering that.”
Dr. Elowen looked between them. “You’re both holding a lot of silence right now. But silence has its own weight. What would it mean to be honest with the people around you? With your friends?”
Maggie’s heart thudded. “I haven’t told them because if I do, it’ll take over everything, Danica’s and Pete’s wedding planning, Izzy and Kiera just got engaged. I was going to tell them, eventually. I just don’t want to be the sad subplot in their big weekend.”
Dr. Elowen made a sound of acknowledgment. “You’re worried about inconveniencing your friends, yes, but also their perception of you. What do you think is your friends’ real perception of you?”
“You heard Gwen. They were all talking about how they look up to us as their favorite married couple.” Tears streamed down Maggie’s cheeks in earnest now.
“I hear you saying you think your friends see your marriage as perfect, and you’re not ready to let that facade go just yet?” Dr. Elowen’s voice had taken on a soft, coaxing sound.
Gwen was quiet, but her expression crumpled slightly at that.
Dr. Elowen paused, then looked thoughtful.
“Telling your friends the truth doesn’t have to feel like admitting failure.
It could mean admitting that you’re in a season of change.
That you’re trying to do something hard.
That honesty doesn’t have to be a final chapter.
It can just be the next page. None of that is a weakness, Maggie. ”
Maggie looked away, toward the sliver of backyard visible through the window. The crepe myrtle bloomed stubbornly in the heat. “I don’t know how to do that. Without breaking something.”
“What isn’t broken already?” Gwen asked quietly.
The words sat between them like a shard of glass.
Dr. Elowen let the silence stretch. Then: “So. Do you continue the lie? Or do you make space for a more complicated truth? One that might hurt but might also let you breathe again?”
Maggie hated how much she wanted that. The breathing. The clarity. The relief of saying, out loud, what she said in her head every night: This isn’t working. We’re not okay. I don’t know if we’ll make it.
Dr. Elowen’s voice came soft but steady. “You don’t have to make a decision about your marriage today. But you can decide whether you want to keep pretending. Or whether it’s time to let people see where you really are. Secrets are so heavy to carry alone.”
Maggie swallowed. “What if where we are is just… lost?”
Dr. Elowen smiled faintly. “Then maybe the next step is making a decision.”
Maggie stared at the screen. At Gwen. At herself, that tiny square of herself. And for the first time in a long time, she felt something shift.
Not fixed. Not healed. But maybe ready to try.
“Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll think about telling them. About starting with the truth.”
Dr. Elowen nodded. “That’s all I ask. The next honest step.”
What seemed simple in therapy rarely had a way of remaining simple. Just tell your friends, Dr. Elowen had said. How hard could it be to just be honest?
The conversation with Dr. Elowen had left her feeling like she’d been emotionally sandblasted.
Too much rawness, not enough buffer. All this talk about choices — decisions, action.
Maggie made decisions all day long. For the shop.
For the kids. For Gwen, more than half the time.
Her life was a one-woman circus act of to-do lists, quick pivots, and keeping fragile things from breaking.
She wasn’t indecisive. She was just tired.
She got through the rest of the day spinning ways the conversation could go in her head.
She’d call Kiera. FaceTime her. No, call.
It’d be better not to see her face. Or should it be Izzy?
Something about the earnest, calm way Izzy looked at her, held her through her grief…
had done so twice now. Maybe she’d better tell Kiera and Izzy at the same time.
She texted them while folding laundry after dinner, asking if they were around and free for a chat.
“Mama, bath time!” Rosie cannonballed into her legs, squealing as Jude chased after her, while Arlo buzzed down the hallway in sock feet, yelling something about an alien sighting in the laundry room.
“Do you think you got more avocado in your mouth or your hair tonight?” Maggie teased.
Rosie lifted a hand to her hair, then wrinkled her nose in a mischievous smile. “Maybe my hair.”
“Let’s take a bath in Mama’s bathroom, far away from those pesky alien invaders in the laundry room,” Maggie suggested, reaching to corral the boys upstairs with her.
After a particularly chaotic bath time where Jude showed off his newfound passion for singing the chorus of “Yellow Submarine” thirty-seven times, she let the boys pick out pajamas while she brushed Rosie’s hair, leaning in to press her nose against the gentle scent of watermelon shampoo.
Most days, she didn’t feel like she was good enough at anything, but here? She never had to question that this was exactly where she belonged.
They all crammed into Rosie’s bed to read a chapter of Fantastic Mr. Fox, then both boys separated into their own bedrooms. She wished everyone good night and had that familiar, bittersweet squeeze in her chest of feeling simultaneously grateful for the break and missing her kids already.