Chapter 1. Maggie #3
But Maggie was worried. Growing up, she and her mother had been close.
Her parents were in their forties when she was born, and as she was the youngest, they weren’t as overwhelmed with her as they had been with the older three.
Maggie mostly spent her time as she liked: with her face in a book.
It wasn’t until she was in high school and the only one left in the house that Nora started to pay more attention to her comings and goings.
Nora disapproved of how she dressed (like a tomboy) and who she spent time with (theater kids who dyed their hair and spontaneously broke into songs and monologues).
When Nora first suspected Maggie was gay, she frog-marched her straight to Father Kelly, the family priest, who counseled Maggie to find salvation by simply not acting on her feelings.
That was all it took for Maggie to stop talking to her mother about anything having to do with her heart.
When she came out officially, years later, in college, her mother cried for months, and since then they’d settled into a deepening distance.
Maggie had never mentioned Sarah to her parents, but she’d inserted Isabel’s name into some of her phone calls home over the last few months.
Though her mother never inquired further, Maggie tried to be grateful that, at the very least, her parents knew there was someone in her life.
The following morning, Maggie called home to say she’d be bringing Isabel for Thanksgiving.
“Will she not want to see her own family?” her mother asked.
Maggie’s stomach tightened. “She’ll see them in a few weeks for Christmas break.”
“Oh, well. How was I to know that?”
Being there the whole weekend was beginning to seem like a terrible idea. “We might only stay Wednesday and Thursday nights,” Maggie said. “We’ll see how it goes.”
Maggie gently nudged Isabel awake as she pulled off the expressway. The storm had picked up, but she was hungry and wanted to grab a late lunch in the village before heading to her parents’.
“Are you worried about your mom?” Isabel asked.
“I guess.” Maggie had actually spent the last half of the drive still thinking about her meeting with Headmaster Cunningham, but that was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “Yeah, maybe.”
“It’s going to be fine. I mean, come on. It’s 2015. We could legally get married now.”
Maggie laughed, carefully turning onto the snow-covered, ostentatiously charming Main Street of downtown Port Haven. “Maybe when it’s the pope sanctioning marriage equality and not the Supreme Court, my mother might be swayed.”
Port Haven village was only a mile away from Maggie’s childhood home.
When she was younger, she and her sisters rode their bikes to the diner to get milkshakes.
Back then, the village was just a narrow strip of brick buildings—Anchor Pizzeria, O’Reilly’s Tavern, a bait-and-tackle shop, and Captain’s Diner.
There was always a smattering of tourists throughout the summer, but everything changed in the early nineties when the New York Times ran a feature about the town’s “laid-back vibe” and “accessibility to Manhattan.” They designated it “an old whaling port and seaside village on the eastern end of Long Island, without the Hamptons’ pretension or price tag. ”
Within ten years, the town’s summer population had tripled.
Main Street was extended several blocks toward the beach, and it now boasted ice cream stands, a fudge shop, a winery featuring local vineyards, and more cafés than anyone needed.
In the past year alone, two new farm-to-table and dock-to-table restaurants had popped up.
Maggie’s parents were always talking about a developer who was petitioning the town to open a beach campground along the harbor.
But come November, most of the day-trippers were gone, and there was plenty of space outside the diner, where Maggie parked her Jeep.
As she searched for her wallet in her backpack, Isabel played with the faded mala beads that had dangled from the Jeep’s rearview mirror ever since Topher taught Maggie how to drive when she was in high school.
“These are beautiful,” Isabel said. “I’ve meant to ask where they’re from.”
Maggie studied the scuffed wooden beads in Isabel’s hands. “New Orleans? Ashram in India? Dollar store in Chinatown?” She shrugged. “Choose your own adventure. They’re my brother’s. Or were.”
“Ah,” Isabel said. She released the beads.
“This was his car first,” Maggie said.
“I didn’t know that.”
Topher must have told Maggie where the beads were from at some point, but the memory was long gone.
She barely noticed them anymore. She pulled them to her nose, almost expecting to catch a whiff of the lingering sandalwood and vanilla of Topher’s cologne, but all that greeted her was the smell of mildew.
“What would Topher’s word be?” Isabel asked.
The word came to Maggie faster than all the others. “ Liar ,” she said.
“Liar,” Isabel echoed, but with a question in her voice.
When the word was repeated back to her, Maggie wondered if it was fair. Not because he wasn’t one—he was—but because she was, too. They all were.