Maggie
“What?”
“This is Baxter.” She smiles down at the baby. “I just, I don’t know, maybe I got the wrong idea, but I wanted to be sure you didn’t get the wrong idea.”
“It’s not dumb.” Nancy looks pale. “Who wouldn’t want a piece of Chip still around? But you’re here, aren’t you? You’re walking where his footsteps were, meeting people who loved him.” She smiles. “Everyone must tell you the greatest stories.”
“This is Paige’s son,” Nancy says. “She tries not to let being a mom interfere with her job, but it’s hard when the dad isn’t in the picture.”
“Paige has a baby?” Maggie’s eyes are wide. “I had no idea.” A memory then. One of her first days, Maggie heard her humming in her office. She assumed she was just relaxing while no one was around. And the blanket in Rhonda’s office she assumed belonged to her girls. Rhonda must watch him, too.
“We all help out with him here and there. We call Baxter the Red Maple baby.”
“Even Elliot?”
Nancy laughs. “Can you believe it? But truthfully, he’s one of the best.”
Maggie watches Nancy push the stroller toward the high point of the property, where there is that small pond and dock.
She can’t wrap her head around Paige being a mother, but now that she knows, it makes sense.
She is responsible, concerned, attentive.
Distracted, too, like her own parents, even before Chip dying.
Maggie remembers her mother saying she felt conflicted for wanting to return to her job when she and Chip were little.
But Maggie’s grandparents loved watching her and Chip, so Maggie didn’t understand what the big deal was.
With no partner around, Paige probably doesn’t have a choice but to work.
Nancy and Elliot and the rest of Red Maple chipping in to keep an eye on Baxter while Paige does a job she’s good at feels like progress, and kindness.
Still, she’s a little sorry the baby isn’t Chip’s. And before that, when she thought he was Elliot’s, it had made her like him even more. He seemed more serious or something; or he seemed like he had a reason to feel better.
She’s about to go to the office when something tells her to stop by his camper quickly. Just say hi. She finds herself knocking on his door. In the distance, she sees a couple on the tennis court, missing the ball over and over.
He peers through the curtain at her and looks terrible.
She waits for the door to open, but he shakes his head. “Not a good time, Shirley Temple,” he calls through the glass.
“Open up,” she says. “Please.”
He looks exhausted. She looks at him with pleading eyes, and he stares back for a moment. She wonders for a second if it’s okay for Paige to leave her baby with him, but she can’t imagine Elliot would ever do anything to put Baxter at risk.
He exhales and unlocks the door. “You’re a glutton for punishment.
” He has no shirt on, and his eyes are red.
His camper is dark, with one dim light on.
It smells like a man—shaving cream and soap and deodorant.
She sees his books piled on the sofa, his small rumpled bed.
Barbells on the floor and his clothes scattered.
His bartending uniform is carefully draped over a music stand, his shoes polished next to it.
“Hey,” she says, stepping inside. She tries for a breezy tone. She has seen how quickly he can retreat.
“I’d say you wouldn’t understand, but you’ve been through some shit, too.”
“It’s a lonely road sometimes.”
He pours some water from the sink and guzzles it. “You don’t have to check on me. I’m just fucked-up, Maggie. I’ll pull myself together. Don’t give it a second thought. This is the way it goes.”
“The war?” She almost says still but bites her tongue. What a terrible thing to say. Still, as if any pain has a sell-by date.
He snorts. “Yeah, the war.” He finishes the water. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a dick. Good days and not good days, you know.” He tries to give her a smile. “But sleeping has helped me, so thank you for that. I hear you took some crap for spending the night.”
“I don’t care about gossip, Elliot.” She stands in the middle of the room and sees his high school yearbook on a shelf: Class of ’72. He graduated three years ago. My God, she thinks, he was just a kid when they drafted him. “You shouldn’t have been there. No one should have.”
He nods. “Sometimes I still see it all. Like I can’t focus, and it just haunts me.
A bad movie that won’t stop playing.” He takes a deep breath.
“I’m supposed to be getting better.” He sits in the chair at his tiny kitchen table and scratches his chest. She notices the dog tag he wears.
“Rhonda got me this camper just so I could have space, but I don’t know if it’s helping. ”
“You’re young, Elliot. You have a lot of chapters left.
” She thinks Chip never even got to be his age.
“They threw you into that horrible thing, and no one did anything to check on you afterward. You’re not wrong to feel lost.” She walks over and sits on the other chair and takes his hand for a second; he doesn’t pull away.
“It would be wrong if it didn’t bother you.
And I mean, look. You help Paige with her baby. How many guys are that decent?”
“She always makes sure I’m good before she leaves him with me.” He pauses. “You think I’m decent?”
“What do you think you are?”
“A lost cause.” She squeezes his hand harder.
“Rhonda’s one of the most noble people I know, and if she thinks you’re good, you’re good.” She mimes a queen’s wand. “You’re anointed or knighted or whatever.” He looks at her and smiles for a second.
“Swell.”
“I think sometimes when we keep too much inside, it becomes bigger and more harmful. Women are taught to be silent and shut up and let the men handle important stuff; men are taught to shut up and go into wars and stay on the Titanic and drown.” She shakes her head.
“I think it’s time we all stop shutting up and taking the crap they give us. ”
He laughs. “I hardly ever shut up.”
“You do, though. You’re not supposed to bear this alone, Elliot.
Do you know why I think I needed to come here?
Not to discover a secret, not to understand Chip better.
I think the best thing about being here is that I’ve finally started talking.
I’ve told people about my loss. I feel better because I’ve finally let some of it out.
” She looks at him. “You need to let it out, Elliot. Once it’s out, it can’t hurt you.
Saying it, saying a thing removes its power.
” She sees she’s making some headway. “Have you tried a doctor?”
“Jesus, Maggie, of course I did.” He stands.
“My grandparents took me to three different people, and you know what they all said? They said, ‘War’s hard, buddy.’ They said, ‘Yeah, too bad.’ The one guy implied I’m a pussy.
Another doctor, she said I had unresolved shit from my childhood, and I was failing to confront painful memories. ” He rolls his eyes.
“Are you?”
“Hell no. My memories from when I was young are A-plus mostly. I have a nice family. It was all solid.” He reaches down and grips the knees of his pants. “But in my mind I have a one-way ticket back to Indochina. I can get there instantly. I can’t stop it.”
She tries to sit straighter. “I think you just need to keep talking about what happened there. I’ll listen.” She picks a piece of lint from her blouse. “Or write it down. I’ll read it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t your fault.”
“You’re sweet but pretty naive, Shirley T.”
She shrugs. “Stop thinking in terms of macho shit and you’ll get better.
I saw your face light up talking to that baby.
Imagine someone trying to hurt him, imagine thinking he deserved it in any way.
” She touches his face for a second. “There’s no difference, and once you realize that, you’ll be on the right path. ”
She looks at the pile of books on the sofa: Vonnegut, Ginsberg, Baldwin, Frost. Then something catches her eye. Something shiny. She looks at it, and he follows her stare, then looks away.
She walks over and picks it up.
She’d recognize the harmonica anywhere.
“How do you have this?”
“I’m sorry, Maggie.” He starts to rock from one foot to the other. “I was, I was waiting to…” He doesn’t finish.
She rests the harmonica in her palm and doesn’t look at him.
She runs her finger over the comb. She looks at Chip’s initials, so small, scratched in the metal from when he was ten or eleven.
She thinks of all the music that came from this tiny thing.
“You did know him,” she finally says. But she doesn’t feel surprised for some reason.
She sees the worry in his eyes. “You knew him.”
“I did,” he says.