Chapter 6
NOW: MAGGIE
This had all been a terrible idea. Maggie couldn’t stop the thought from cycling through her mind over the last couple of days.
Maya had gone back to school, as had Diana’s daughter, Lily, and her friend Hanna.
The property was once again abuzz with staff in preparation for the continued fall rush.
The staff was busy raking up the rotting apples and the windfall so that people didn’t slip and hurt themselves as they came to do more apple picking.
The gap between her and Diana seemed to be growing as they tiptoed around each other until Maggie had reminded Diana that she wanted to contribute. Diana had said she’d get back to her.
Again, this had all been a mistake.
She had reached out to Diana. Maggie hated the part of her that did it because she knew Diana couldn’t say “no” to her.
She hated the part of her that needed to be confirmed every time.
It was selfish and awful, and yet she couldn’t stop.
Diana Blake had rooted herself in Maggie and even though she kept snipping the new buds before they bloomed, she’d never been able to cut everything off at the root.
After their first awkward exchange, she’d cleaned up the kitchen and packed away the vegetable lasagna. It had been Diana’s favorite from what she’d remembered, something she had made as a type of peace offering. But there was no offering that could make up for everything. For her selfishness.
She looked over the still kitchen, questioning if she should make dinner again. There was still time to decide, but it was also late afternoon.
She wondered briefly what Maya was up to and then fought off the urge to text or call her.
It was funny, Maya was now about the same age as she had been when she had decided to try and be the daughter her mother had always wanted.
Sure, she still did so in a rebellious way, with Damien and all, but she had started dating him in earnest around her age.
She fought the urge to text her daughter and check in, knowing that it was more due to her loneliness and forced confrontation of shame than anything else.
Her daughter deserved better. Her daughter had always deserved better.
But hadn’t that been it? Maggie’s selfishness knew no bounds.
Letting out a full breath, Maggie decided to venture on to the property and begin putting in some work to ease her mind and her guilt.
Maggie tried to focus her attention on the task at hand: raking.
“You’re still shit at this.” Diana’s voice cut through Maggie’s spiral and she looked around at the ground around her and her lack of fruit pile.
“What?” Maggie said dumbly.
“You’re still shit at this. It’s raking, McDonald, not rocket science,” Diana said to her, and when Maggie met her eyes she could see that there was glee in them. The realization sent a wave of relief through her.
“I’m trying okay, you know I never was one for, one for—” Maggie mumbled, trying not to fumble this moment of broken tension.
“God you’re still such a princess,” Diana filled in and Maggie felt her face grow hot.
“I am not, you jerk,” she said but the last part came out as a laugh.
And then Diana was laughing too. And then they were both absolutely losing it, laughing the type of manic laughter that followed the relief of tension, as if they’d missed falling over a cliff or something.
Maggie laughed long and deep and realized it was the first time she had laughed like that in a while. She felt tears prickle in her eyes, and she closed them to keep from ruining the moment with her constant misery.
Once they had stopped, Maggie opened her eyes and felt a few tears fall. But she wiped her eyes and hoped Diana mistook them for tears that had formed because of the laughter. Maggie didn’t miss that Diana was wiping her eyes too, and wondered for a moment what kind of tears she was wiping away.
There was a silence between them filled only by their heaving breath. This silence, though, was warm and comfortable and Maggie thought if she experienced one more wave of relief she’d topple over under the rush of it.
They stared at each other, Diana’s eyes laser-focused on Maggie’s.
They were about the same height; Maggie was maybe an inch or two taller, though under the gaze of Diana Blake, she had always felt an inch or two shorter.
Not in a diminishing way, but Diana’s personality seemed to loom over her, shrouding her in all the things Maggie had never been able to muster up for herself.
God how Maggie had missed it. It was wild to her, to miss something she hadn’t had for the majority of her life.
In this moment, her thirst for it seemed endless.
“I was so mad at you Mags, I’ve been so mad,” Diana said with great, heaving breaths.
“I know, if it makes you feel any better, you can’t be angrier with me than I have been at myself,” Maggie said.
“It doesn’t, not one bit and you know it doesn’t.
Goddamnit Mags, what are you even doing here, why are you back why—” Diana cut herself off and closed her eyes as if to steady herself.
When she reopened them, Maggie could see her steel herself, “Mags, I am tired of being angry. And truthfully, little me, younger me is too. I’m not going to be angry, okay?
Obviously there is a lot going on that brought you here, and when you are ready to tell me, I will listen. ”
With that, she lifted her rake and walked off towards the main house. Maggie waited till she could no longer hear her light footfalls on the damp earth before she sat down and buried her face in both of her hands.
The smell of rotting fruit and earth were little comfort to what she thought was the ending she had been avoiding for decades. And here it was. Diana had spelled that out for her. She was going to have to deal with everything she had buried in that garden bed, the one where Diana’s roots still lay.
She gave in and let herself weep.