MAGGIE
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear your voice,” Vicky says. But she sounds troubled. She takes a long breath. “How are you, Mags?”
“Doing okay.” She tells her about being at Red Maple. She tells her about checking on her parents. She tells her about her last-minute college application and how she’s not sure if they’ll let her take classes in the fall or not.
Vicky doesn’t offer anything, just listens in her usual Vicky way.
“Not far from you, actually,” Vicky says. “Can you meet me today?”
When she finally gets to the top of the stairs and knocks on the apartment door, she hears movement as someone unlocks the bolt and then the chain. Maggie feels nervous.
When the door opens, it’s not Vicky, but Vicky’s dad.
“Maggie,” he says. He has always been such a kind guy. “Nice to see a familiar face.”
Maggie studies him. Has he known all this time where Vicky’s been? Has he purposely not told her parents? She walks inside, and the apartment is perfect. All white with bookshelves and plants and a skylight.
There is a gold deer statuette on one of the shelves, and Maggie stops for a minute and sees that it says Red Maple on it.
“Good eyes,” Vicky says behind her, and when Maggie turns, she sees a very pregnant Vicky making her way toward her.
Maggie doesn’t know how to process it. It’s like seeing someone she knows with a sudden pair of wings or a unicorn horn.
“This is what I wanted to tell you,” Vicky says, and she points to her belly, as if it wasn’t the first thing Maggie noticed.
Her dad is in the small kitchen making grilled cheese sandwiches, and Maggie sits next to Vicky on the love seat. Maggie shakes her head. “When are you, um, due?” Her eyes widen as Vicky’s belly moves. She can see something moving inside, and something jutting out.
“Want to feel?” Vicky takes her hand, and Maggie marvels at the sensation. A foot or an elbow. Maggie is stunned. She didn’t know this apartment existed. She didn’t know what she imagined Vicky doing all this time. Working, being sad. Living somewhere far away. She knew nothing.
“I was due more than a month ago,” she says and rolls her eyes.
“So. Many. False. Alarms. They keep checking my blood pressure, but the doctor doesn’t want to induce yet.
She says when the fruit’s ripe, it’ll fall.
She’s even had mothers who went up to fifty weeks and were fine.
My dad is ready to burn the place down. He’s so terrified.
” She looks over at Maggie. “I was getting worried, though, when I didn’t hear from you last winter.
I thought you were mad or something, and I just couldn’t bring myself to call and have one of your parents answer.
It scared me, which sounds silly, but I think I have some type of survivor guilt.
Also, Chip wanted you to be the one I told.
I didn’t tell anyone else except my dad and this nurse at Pocono General who was really good to Chip, and to me. I’ve just kind of been hibernating.”
“I think I have something like that too. Survivor guilt.”
“Hmph. What did we do to outlive him, right?”
Maggie nods. She looks around. There are Captain & Tennille and Earth, Wind & Fire posters on the wall.
And an ashtray from Ocean City on the small table, as well as play tickets, movie stubs, and a macrame owl that says FLORIDA on it.
A framed black-and-white photograph of Vicky and Chip hangs on the wall, but it’s zoomed in on their faces, and Maggie’s not sure where it was shot.
It almost seems like Red Maple, but she could be wrong.
Vicky watches her. “After he died, I felt so lost. I got on buses and just rode up and down the East Coast. I tried to do as many things as I could to forget about him.” She rubs her belly. “But it got harder and harder.”
Maggie feels the baby move again and stares at her. “We have to keep trying to move the pieces around.”
Vicky nods. “Maggie, I’m going to name the baby Henry if it’s a boy. Henrietta if it’s a girl. I like both names.” Maggie hears the oven door open, a few kitchen cupboards slam.
“Vicky,” Maggie says. “Henry. Um, Henry.”
“After the father’s middle name.” She smiles. “You think this baby could be anyone else’s?”
Maggie feels tears come. The same way they came two days ago when she and Bridget went to the salon in Tannersville and the woman started washing her hair, and she felt herself collapsing and couldn’t explain why.
“Vicky, I didn’t even know you two…” She wipes her face.
“I mean, I knew you two liked each other so much…. Oh, Vic.”
Vicky shows her the ring on her finger. It’s just basic gold but beautiful.
“We had a small little ceremony. He didn’t want your parents to feel bad.
Phil drove us home afterward because my car was in the shop.
We didn’t talk about it after that. That day you saw us fighting at the hospital was because I’d said that we should tell all of you, that you deserved to know, and he thought it was too much to unpack.
He said I’d have plenty of time to tell you after he was gone, and that upset me.
Until then I thought getting married would be an antidote.
I thought it would save us from him leaving, and once we told everyone, the universe wouldn’t allow such a tragedy. ” She shakes her head. “Silly me.”
Maggie closes her eyes. “I’m so sorry you’ve had to sit with this on your own. And all this time, I was so close, I could have been here for you.”
Vicky smiles. “I think it was good we all had some time to let it settle, you know? He told me to bury his ring with him so he would have it forever. And at the viewing, that’s what I did.
I walked right up and put it in his casket with him.
” Her face looks tired now, and Maggie moves closer to her.
Maggie can’t think of any words. She looks at Vicky and listens to her father whistling softly in the kitchen. “Did Chip know?”
“No. I didn’t find out until… after. I just thought I was late from stress.”
Maggie’s thoughts are swirling. She can’t put it all together. The wedding, the baby. A small part of her feels betrayed, but the whole point of Red Maple, the whole point of leaving, was that he found something that was just his. It was his life, and he was allowed to decide.
He needed that.
And now, this. The world is mystifying, Cat Ayers has said to her.
But a baby. A baby. When she thought Baxter was Chip’s, it seemed too good to be true.
And now you could knock her over with a feather.
This prize behind the final door. She wonders if Vicky feels scared, if she feels way too young for this.
Chip would have been a father. Dumb, silly Chip. No, her mind can’t even allow it.
But here they are.
She remembers Vicky reaching down and taking her hand in the hospital, and she does the same now. Her hand feels warm and pleasant. She squeezes her knuckles.
Vicky’s dad comes out with the grilled cheese sandwiches on a plate, two pickles beside them. “Is she all caught up?” he says.
Maggie nods and smiles. She looks into Vicky’s eyes. “We need to tell my mom and dad.”