Chapter 17
NOW: MAGGIE
Maggie sat in the parking lot for a few more breaths before exiting her car, carrying the warm bag of food with her.
December was approaching in the form of cold, dry wind, riding the coattails of the chill that always settled into Maplewood after Halloween.
The crisp air always made Maggie remember that she once knew bravery.
After all, whenever it got to be this time of year she always thought about the last time she’d truly been brave: the night she was determined to kiss Diana.
They had been teens drinking and walking through the brisk night, and Julia had been doing Maggie a solid by steering the conversation towards Maggie’s crush, who she’d known was Diana.
Her bravery had only waned slightly when she’d learned of Jay but then Diana had said she could move on and love again, and that was all Maggie had needed to hear then.
This was not running towards the potential of something exhilarating, but all the same, she took a deep breath of chilly air and tried to summon her bravery as she walked.
This was part of her work with Dr. Lauren Love, and she was going to see her mother for the first time in years.
They’d spoken on and off, but mostly had drifted apart.
In her sessions with Lauren though, her mother had been a great topic of conversation, which shouldn’t have surprised Maggie because therapists seemed to always want to start at the beginning. And don’t all things begin with one’s parents?
In her case, her bio mom was the first woman in Maggie’s life.
She also was the one who constantly bombarded her with rules about who and what she could be and how to achieve it.
Lauren thought it might be a good idea for Maggie to confront some of these things to at least try even though Maggie had shared she didn’t think a conversation would get anywhere.
Lauren had pushed back and said she wouldn’t know unless she tried, but that was miles away from where she was at this point.
That perhaps she was going to have to just start with seeing her mother and with allowing her mother to see her.
See my failure, Maggie wanted to add in session, but hadn’t.
She hadn’t been at a place at the time to pick that notion apart again, given she had to wrap her mind around visiting her mother.
Failure though, is how her mother would see it.
And Maggie got a sick sense of satisfaction at being able to show her mother what had come from the whole heterosexual marry-a-well-off-guy thing, mixed with the dread of knowing her mother would find a way to make it not a failure of the plan, but of Maggie’s execution.
Maggie knew she had never liked the fact that Maggie had married a Black man, nor that her daughter was therefore also Black.
It was the reason her mother hadn’t been in her life for so long, not physically anyway.
She refused to subject Maya to the same treatment, and while she could do nothing for years but suffer the consequences of such treatment, she’d be damned if Maya ever had to experience the same.
What was even the point, if as a parent you didn’t do your best to provide something at least marginally better?
That said, Maggie knew a conversation about Maya was on the horizon, because now, she wasn’t entirely convinced she had done better.
She feared she’d just done a different kind of damage.
Her mother lived alone now that her dad had passed, and she’d traded the trailer for an assisted living community.
The whole community was comprised of rows and rows of small condos.
Each cluster of buildings had a central meeting location for seniors to socialize, but also contained medical and operational staff.
It gave a chance for the seniors living there to remain somewhat independent while also having the support they needed.
Maggie’s mother had joked that she finally was guaranteed to die in a better home than she’d lived.
Maggie didn’t think the statement untrue.
Walking up the path that led to the assisted living apartment her mother lived in, she practiced some intentional breathing techniques and remembered what she and Lauren had worked on: Your mother is one aspect of you, an important one, but not the only one.
You have lived as a whole separate being and deserved to.
She repeated the words to herself like a mantra, and before she knew it, she was at the front door she had only seen one other time, when she’d helped her mother move in after the sale of the trailer.
Taking a deep breath, Maggie knocked.
A gruff, “It’s open,” came from the other side of the door and Maggie pushed it open.
She found herself in the living room, her mother was seated on her couch, her body looking so frail and small.
Maggie knew it had been a long time, but the shock of her mother still momentarily froze her movements.
Her mother had always been thin, but now, she seemed to be in danger of disappearing.
Her once long brown hair was cut short in bob, the shortest Maggie had ever seen it.
She had a pair of glasses perched on her nose and wore a scowl.
“Well, she lives,” her mother said, her voice hoarse as if she hadn’t used it yet for the day, even though it was three in the afternoon.
“I live,” Maggie said, working off her boots by the door and moving deeper into the small apartment.
Maggie was surprised to feel that her mother had the heat up, something that had been a luxury when she was a child, and walked across the linoleum floor to a small table where she set her bag of food down.
“Where’s my granddaughter, or could she not stand to be with you today? Is that why you have come here after decades of Thanksgivings with not so much as a phone call?” her mother asked, her questions gliding over her like the threat of a serrated blade.
“Maya is at the house, she wanted to finish a few things before we eat later today. Thought I’d come by and bring you what we have done though. Just thought it’d be nice,” Maggie said, smiling weakly as she shrugged off her coat.
“Hmm I see you’ve continued to gain weight, not really what you want to do after a divorce, sweetie.
” Her mother said, eyeing the bag and not commenting further on Maya.
She’d never really shown any interest in her granddaughter, which was her loss in more ways than one.
Maya was twice the woman she was and a senior in college.
“So I’ve brought mostly sides, some sweet potatoes, collards, and some stuffing.
I also bought a separate turkey breast that I cooked for you.
It’s not the whole bird, but I think it’ll still be pretty good and it’s white meat, healthier and all that.
” Maggie stood by the bag of food waiting for a thank you she knew would never come.
Instead her mother wrinkled her nose and said, “Margaret,” the disapproving tone a warning for what was to come next, “so you’re back here, no man. Back where you started. I told you not to marry that boy—”
“Damien is a grown ass man, mother,” Diana said.
“You know what I mean. I wanted better for you and here you are standing there soft around the middle and husband-less, with nothing to your name.”
“I have a house,” Maggie pushed back.
“Yeah well, what’s the point of one if you have no one to put in it. What are you even going to do with the rest of your life here? Surely, you don’t think about seeing that Blake girl—”
“You mean Julia? She owns a retreat up north so no, I don’t plan on—”
“You know who I mean, the d——”
“Mother,” Maggie said warningly, surprised to hear it in her tone as she rarely ever fought back with her mother anymore. But she was not about to sit there and listen to her say horrible things about the people she loved, the only people who had truly loved her.
Her mother looked at her, her eyes going cold and disinterested.
“What a waste, all of it, all of you,” she finally said.
“If I had had everything you had I wouldn’t have had to endure what I did, wouldn’t have had a shit husband and ungrateful daughter, after everything I gave you, taught you, protected you from.
Ungrateful, and then you come here to offer me your leftovers and throwaway food, after all this time. Ungrateful I tell you.”
“Happy Thanksgiving,” Maggie said, and hated how wounded her voice came out.
She grabbed her coat and shoved her feet in her boots and left.
As she got to her car and started the engine, she cursed the idea of even seeing that woman, who seemed like she was in an endless rant of all the reasons why Maggie wasn’t good enough, and seeing her was just walking into that rant at different points.
She pulled out her phone and tapped the screen till Courtney Love’s voice came through her speakers.
She had been feeling nostalgic being back in Maplewood and had made a little playlist of some of her faves.
She needed a little unhinged anger to hopefully allow her to recalibrate before going home to her daughter.
Courtney would do that for her. As she pulled out of her spot she did agree with her mother on one point: aside from being alive, there was not a single thing she was grateful to that woman for.
“How was Grandma’s?” Maya asked. She sat at the table holding a bottle of white wine.
Even though she and Damien had let Maya start drinking her senior year of high school—just a little wine at dinner so she could learn to do so responsibly—it still wigged her out to see the adult version of that same girl across the table from her expertly pour them each a glass with all the grace of a mature drinker.