Chapter 3
Maggie studied her daughter, watching her tiny fist gripping the crayon, the tip of her tongue poking from the corner of her mouth as she concentrated.
Outside, gravel crunched beneath tires. Phoebe looked up, eyes large and round. A crease appeared on her otherwise smooth brow. “Daddy?”
Maggie made sure her voice came out warm and bright. “Yes.” She glanced at the kitchen clock: he was an hour late. Arsehole.
“Don’t want to go.”
“I know,” Maggie said, opening her arms to the warmth and weight of Phoebe’s body as she climbed into them. She pressed her face into her daughter’s neck, inhaling the sweetness of her skin.
Phoebe had never stayed at Aidan’s. Maggie had put it off, citing the need for breastfeeding, and later co-sleeping, but now that Phoebe was three, Aidan had insisted that he finally have her overnight.
It was fair, she knew that. She did. And Maggie wanted him and Phoebe to have a relationship—yet the thought of being apart from her was a physical, wrenching pain.
There was something instinctive and primal about the need for her daughter’s flesh to be pressed to hers, to feel her heartbeat each night through her cotton pajamas.
That’s why Norway had come at the right time.
Maggie couldn’t stay at home without Phoebe.
Every corner of their rented cottage was lined with reminders of Phoebe: the farmhouse door covered with curling paintings; the pine table where they had milk and cookies in the afternoons; the giant beanbag they flopped in for story time; the windowsill where they’d planted cress in tiny pots made from newspapers.
She heard the exhale of brakes as the car pulled to a stop in front of the house. The engine quieted. A door opened and closed. Footsteps on gravel.
Maggie pasted on a big smile as she carried Phoebe to the door, saying, “You’ll have such a fun week.”
The doorbell rang.
Maggie wrapped her fingers around the handle and steeled herself.
“Auntie Helena!” Phoebe beamed, wriggling out of Maggie’s arms.
Helena was standing in the doorway, in cropped black trousers and red lipstick, her dark bob sleek. She crouched low, opening her arms as Phoebe barreled into them.
“We thought you were Daddy!” Phoebe cried.
“Oh no. I’m much better-looking than Daddy.”
Behind her, Liz, dressed in full hiking gear, stepped forward and gave Maggie a huge hug.
Helena glanced up, eyebrow cocked. “Not here yet?”
Late, Maggie mouthed.
Helena rolled her eyes.
“I’m scared,” Phoebe said, sidling even closer to Helena, fingers reaching for the gold horseshoe that hung from a delicate chain on her neck. “Are you a pony?”
“Not today, because ponies can’t pass through airport security. But sometimes I am.”
Phoebe nodded sincerely.
“Now, tell me: why are you scared?”
Phoebe pointed at the bright purple case and folded duvet that waited in the hallway. A cuddly leopard was sitting guard on top. “I’m going to Daddy’s house. I might want to go home.”
Maggie felt her heart squeeze tight. She had to stop herself from reaching for Phoebe, telling her, You don’t have to go. We’ll stay here! Mummy won’t leave!
“Ah,” Helena said, her expression matching Phoebe’s seriousness. “Yes, I have that feeling sometimes. In fact”—she lowered her voice—“I have that feeling right now.”
“In true life?”
“Yes, in true life. You see, Liz is making me go to Norway and camp in the mountains—and I’ve not done that before, and I’m a bit scared that I might want to go home.”
Phoebe tilted her head, considering Liz.
“I’m not exactly making her . . . ,” Liz added.
Phoebe looked unconvinced. After a moment, she strode to her case, plucked the stuffed leopard from its perch, and held it out to Helena. “You can borrow Leopold.”
Maggie bit down on her bottom lip. Leopold was Phoebe’s favorite toy. She slept with him tucked beneath her chin, the fur on his collar worn thin from her loving him so hard.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Helena said, “you are the kindest. But Leopold might be nervous about staying somewhere new, too, so you need to look after him, okay?”
Through the open door, they all turned to see Aidan’s red sports car crawling down the narrow lane. The paintwork. He’d hate to scratch the paintwork.
He parked behind Liz’s Ford and cut the engine. A moment later he stepped out with expansive arms, beaming. “Phoebe!”
Phoebe pressed herself against Maggie’s legs, tiny fingers bunching around the skirt of her lemon dress.
“Hello, Aidan,” Maggie said, trying her hardest to smile and mean it.
“Maggie.” He nodded. “Liz. Helena.”
Helena was watching him with the disdainful expression reserved just for him. It was something to do with the poise of her jawline, her chin lifted just a few degrees higher than most people’s, giving the impression that she was literally looking down her nose at him. And in Aidan’s case, she was.
He scanned the exterior of Maggie’s terrace, and she could guess he’d be noticing the peeling paint where the stucco showed, or the overgrown window box she’d not had the chance to weed.
What he couldn’t see was the fun she and Phoebe had had planting those flowers together, tucking seeds into secret earthy beds in the spring, and afterward soaking their hands in a sink of warm water, popping soap bubbles with crescents of earth still pressed beneath their fingernails.
Aidan had always seen mess where Maggie saw joy.
“You all ready, trooper?” he said, stepping forward and ruffling Phoebe’s hair. “I’ve got a treat for you in the car!”
Already with the counterfeit love, Maggie thought.
“Let’s get you buckled in,” Maggie said bravely, scooping up Phoebe. She carried her to the car, pressing her love into her daughter, ingraining it, their bodies stamped with each other.
She fastened the belt as she told her, “I love you so much, baby. I’ll miss you. Look after Leopold, okay?”
Phoebe nodded. Then she whispered, “Look after Auntie Helena. She’s scared of the mountains.”
“I will,” Maggie said, smiling. She kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, and then she forced herself to step back, close the car door, mouthing, I love you.
Behind her, Aidan was remarking to her friends, “Maggie’s climbing this mountain?”
With a smile, Helena replied, “She was married to you for two years, so scaling a mountain should feel like a walk in the park.”
Maggie had a thousand things she wanted to say to him—If Phoebe wakes in the night, sing her “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” She crashes after eating too much sugar.
Don’t plonk her in front of the television when you get bored.
Don’t drink too much when you’re with her—but all she said was, “Please, keep her safe.”
Phoebe’s face was turned to the car window, eyes glistening with tears, Leopold squeezed to her chest.
No, she couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let her go. As she stepped forward, she felt Helena catch her hand. Liz linked her arm through Maggie’s other, her friends holding her up from each side.
Aidan started the engine. Phoebe’s palm was flattened to the window as if she were trying to break free.
“The dance,” Helena said, kicking out her left leg like a showgirl. “Do the dance.”
Maggie’s throat constricted. A sob was heaving up from her chest.
“Do the dance. Right now, Maggie. Do it!”
It was a dance from a musical they’d watched one afternoon last winter, and Phoebe had thought it was the funniest thing when Auntie Helena and her mummy copied the moves, cancanning their legs while making jazz hands.
Helena kicked her other leg, Liz joining in. “Come on!”
Maggie forced herself to kick out her right leg, then her left, falling into rhythm with her friends, the breeze filling her dress.
Making jazz hands, Helena said, “There we go! We’re dancing! We’re moving! We’re waving!”
Phoebe’s little mouth lifted into a smile, her fingers peeling away from the glass as she gave her own little jazz-fingered wave.
They carried on dancing as the car crawled down the lane, until it had disappeared altogether, and Phoebe was gone.
“It’s okay, Mags,” Helena said, “you can stop dancing now.”
Maggie felt her body collapse into her friends, who held on tight.
“That’s the hardest bit—the leaving. And you’ve done it.” Liz squeezed her as she said, “Now you get to look forward to the coming home, okay?”
—
Maggie sat in the back seat on the way to the airport. She’d stopped crying about twenty miles ago, but a tension headache still vised her temples.
In the seat pocket, she spotted an age-worn book from their school days. N-O-R-W-A-Y was spelled on the front in bubble writing, colored in the red, white, and blue of the Norwegian flag. Liz and Joni’s names were written beneath.
“Your geography project!” Maggie said, pulling it onto her lap. “You found it!”
“It was in the attic,” Liz said.
Beneath the title was a picture of a woman standing on a pinnacle that jutted from a sheer-sided mountain, arms spread wide to a clear sky, an arctic-blue sea stretching west, and below her, the trace of a silver river, cutting through a landscape made of undulating hills and valleys.
“So this is the mountain we’re going to climb?” Maggie asked.
Liz nodded. “That’s the one. Blafjell.”
Maggie remembered that, as teens, Liz and Joni had made a pact during geography class that, one day, they’d hike to that spot together.
It had been February. A relentless gray sky.
A world of school bells, damp satchels, and wet concrete.
The mountains had looked like a different world—one they wanted to explore.
She’d seen them pinky-promise, little fingers hooked together across their school desks.
“Still no word from Joni?” Maggie asked.
“Nothing,” Liz said.
Maggie caught the arch of Helena’s brow in the rearview mirror.
It would be the second year running that Joni hadn’t shown up for their holiday. She’d been silent on the group chat for weeks.
“She’s touring,” Liz said, loyally, but Maggie knew how disappointed Liz must have been. Joni was always good company: game for anything, happy to strap on a backpack, or laugh when she needed to shit in the woods. She’d have made everything golden and more fun because she was Joni.
“Let’s send her a photo,” Maggie said, passing her phone up front to Helena.
Helena leaned in so all their faces were in the shot. Liz took a hand briefly from the wheel to salute. Helena pushed out her red lips in an exaggerated duck pout. Maggie gave the peace sign. The shutter clicked.
Taking back the phone, Maggie stared at the image. Then she typed: There’s still time—and pressed Send.