Chapter Fifty-Four
Fifty-four
Maggie steps back inside the flat and slams the door closed behind her without meaning to.
She’s aware that it isn’t the door’s fault she had a bad day—the dead can be so bloody demanding.
She puts on her white cotton gloves to cover her hands.
She knows they aren’t to blame either, but they are still an ugly reminder of who she is and who she isn’t.
Maggie was taught to toughen up at a young age, but she is not impervious to pain.
A thick skin can wear thin when worn too often.
She remembers that she hasn’t eaten all day, so eases her tired feet into her slippers and shuffles to the kitchen to examine the contents of the fridge.
Everything she sees is disappointingly healthy, and that isn’t what she wants or needs right now.
She walks back out to the lounge to use the phone and dials a familiar number.
The framed photo of childhood Aimee stares back while she waits for someone to answer.
Maggie glares at the child, twisting the phone cord around her gloved hands as she becomes increasingly impatient.
“Fuck you,” she says to the photo, turning it facedown so she doesn’t have to look at Aimee anymore. “Not you,” she adds, realizing that someone has finally answered her call.
She leaves the exact cost of the pizza in a recycled white envelope on the doorstep, along with a Post-it note that reads, Leave food here.
She has taken off her makeup now and does not want to see anyone else again today.
She closes her tired eyes and holds the three smallest fingers of her left hand inside her right, pretending she is comforting Aimee as a child when she was scared of something.
Maggie wishes she could go back to that time.
After a couple of minutes, sitting waiting in the darkness on the other side of the front door, she opens it, bends down, and adds the words Thank you to the Post-it note.
She doesn’t want to be rude or take out her bad day on someone else.
After she has eaten almost an entire large pepperoni pizza, with extra cheese, she vomits it all back up in the bathroom, flushes the toilet twice, then wipes her mouth with a square of quilted toilet tissue.
She makes herself a green tea, adding a little cold water from the tap, then settles down on the sofa to watch the news.
She feels sick all over again when she sees Aimee’s face.
Even worse when she watches the report.
Aimee has been released from prison.