Chapter 4
NOW: DIANA
Diana didn’t really know what to make of her current situation. As they walked up the back stairs off the kitchen and down the hallways that ran through the house on the second floor, she kept glancing back to ensure she wasn’t actually somewhere with a large head wound.
Maggie McDonald was here, in her house, after years of not seeing each other.
Sure there had been a few texts every now and then, but Maggie had done a good job of making it clear that nothing was to come from those texts.
It seemed to Diana like each text was just a poke to make sure Diana was still there, that she still had a connection to her.
It wasn’t lost on her that once they’d gotten on social media, Maggie had friend requested and followed each one of her accounts.
But when Diana, who rarely posted anything personal and mostly used it for business purposes, didn’t post anything personal for a while, it would always result in a text from Maggie.
Diana would also be lying if she said she hadn’t taken advantage of that pattern.
“So here you are, and Maya is just across the hall,” Diana said as they reached the pair of guest rooms that sat to the front of the house. “Yours has an ensuite bathroom, but Maya will have to use the one in the middle of the hall, we passed it on its way here.”
“Oh, uh, maybe I should give her one with her own bathroom? This is a lot for her and I want to give her as much space as possible.”
“Suit yourself, her room also has a double bed instead of the king size in this room,” Diana said knowingly.
“Well, I guess she’s also only here for a few days before she goes back to school, and hopefully by the time the holidays come around we are out of your hair.”
“Stay as long as you need, you know I’ve got plenty of room. Besides, it will be nice, especially once Lily goes back to school and the staff are on break.”
“Wow, the staff gets holidays off now too, huh?”
“Yeah well, as I mentioned there are a lot of differences between how I do things versus my parents.”
“The Flores, are they still—”
“Retired,” Diana smiled, fondly remembering her favorite staff members. She'd promoted them several times once she took over the orchard. They had saved up and bought their own property in Tulum and had their own small tourist B&B going on.
“Shame, would have loved to say hi to them,” Maggie said. There was an awkward silence that slowly settled around them, threatening to suffocate them.
“Uh well, I will let you get settled, give you some time, I—”
“Thank you, Diana, really. I know, I know we don’t really talk and this is all—” Maggie cut her off with such fervor, then seemed to lose steam.
“It’s okay, Mags, talking isn’t the only way to communicate, and sometimes, more is said with nothing than with something.”
The weight of those words hung in the air before stretching out between them, their history, everything unsaid laid bare if they looked closely enough.
Diana decided now wasn’t the time.
“Well the girls will likely sleep up in the treehouse tonight, I can fix us something for dinner or—”
“Let me?” Maggie said hurriedly, “It’s just you are already doing so much for me and Maya and I don’t want to just be here as a guest. I want to contribute.
After all,” Maggie let out a self-deprecating laugh, “who knows how long all of this will take.” She waved her hand in the air as if that were enough to paint a picture of whatever she meant by “this”.
Despite herself, Diana felt her lips quirk up into a smile. “I do remember you being a mean cook.”
“Yeah well, not all of us had a household chef when we were growing up,” Maggie said, but there was no bite to her words.
Instead, there was a glimmer in her blue eyes, and Diana thought she could just make out a glimpse of the young woman she once was, the second woman to light Diana’s heart on fire, the one who’d doused it forever.
It no longer made Diana angry, nor did it even make her sad.
It was something that was just a fact, one she'd shared with her partners again and again over the years.
“So,” Diana said, taking a long pull from her wine glass.
“So,” Maggie said, drinking her ice water.
“Lasagna is fantastic, thank you,” Diana said, taking another bite before washing down the richness with more wine.
Maggie had even made the lasagna vegetarian for her.
She wondered if Maggie remembered that lasagna was her favorite, and how Maggie would sneakily make it for her because her mother never wanted her to eat something that could potentially make her “unfit”.
Like god forbid she lost her figure and whomever her mother deemed as an eligible bachelor didn’t want to marry her because of it.
Well she had kept her figure, and fuck all that did for her.
Though these days, her figure was more about her joints than aesthetics.
Diana couldn’t give a shit about that. Vermont got cold.
Being skinny in the cold just seemed wrong.
Maggie let out a soft laugh. “You’re welcome.” She took a breath and looked into Diana’s eyes. Diana felt her heart skip a beat. “That was a pretty loaded ‘So’, so what were you actually going to say, Dee?”
Diana’s heart made another skip at the old nickname. It had been over twenty years. Twenty years and this woman could still do that to her. It didn’t make sense to Diana. But here she was anyway.
“I guess I just wanted to know, well…” Diana took another sip of her wine.
“Want to know all of it, huh? That’s fair.” Maggie gave a nod of concession. “I suppose I do owe you that, I mean it’s been, what?”
Before Diana could help herself, she replied, “Hard to know what counts right? Should I say twenty-seven years?”
There was another heavy silence that bloomed in that moment, as they let the weight of the time sink in.
“Well not entirely,” Maggie began weakly, and Diana felt anger ignite in her.
She scoffed. “Sure Maggie, because we had so much more than a few stolen moments along the way, you really going to give all of those weight?”
As soon as Diana said the words, she regretted them. The look of hurt in Maggie’s eyes was always something she could never stand, and so she had always let Maggie get her way, no matter what or when she asked. And hadn’t that always been the problem?
It ain’t like it is a problem you’re willing to solve though, Diana admonished herself.
Because she realized in that moment, that those stolen seconds, virtual messages, and flitting instances may have just meant everything to Maggie.
“Mags,” she tried with an old nickname of her own.
“It’s okay, you’re right, I deserve that. After everything, look at me, look at where I ended up.”
Now it was Diana’s turn to hurt.
“Sorry if this is your worst case scenario—”
“Dee that’s not what I meant, it's just, I just meant—”
“You know,” Diana said, pulling back from the table and standing.
“We don’t have to do this. You know I’d never turn you away even after everything.
Okay? We don’t have to get into the finer details that we both know are no longer relevant at this point and time.
” And with that, she scooped her plate —because the lasagna was damn good— and wine and made her way to her office.
Closing the door behind her, she let out a deep breath that came out shaky as she tried to steady herself.
What was she thinking?
She was thinking that the length of time since they’d been two kids in love didn’t matter. But if she had been honest with herself, of course it did.
She had once assumed that whatever short and sweet thing had happened between them was a scar that had healed long ago. Today she realized that it was a scar that she’d never let heal properly, and it was like three decades worth of scab had just been pulled at.
Yes, if she was being honest, Jay had been the beginning, but Maggie had been the end. Maggie had been the garden bed that everything else had been planted in. She had expected sunshine but instead got nothing more than an unexpected blight.