Chapter 23. Maggie
MAGGIE
“Okay, time to settle down now,” Maggie said in mock seriousness, though she was serious.
James had been showing her his karate moves for the past half hour, and she had no idea how to get him to stop.
Teaching privileged kids at an elite boarding school was one thing—trying to get her nephew to brush his teeth and put on his pajamas was another.
Isabel poked her head through the doorway. “Whoever gets into bed in under five seconds gets a cookie!”
James froze mid-kick, then vaulted onto the bed.
Maggie didn’t care that James would be eating a cookie after having just brushed his teeth—cavities be damned, anything to get him to sleep. She turned to Isabel and said, “You’re good at this.”
Isabel shrugged. “Younger cousins.”
As James changed into his pajamas, Isabel whispered into Maggie’s ear, “Any update?”
Maggie checked her phone again and shook her head no. She’d been trying to keep it together because she didn’t want to upset James even more, but it wasn’t easy.
When the officer explained that someone driving by had seen Finn slip on the ice farther down the street, everyone was confused.
Wasn’t he upstairs in the attic sick with a stomach bug?
But Alice understood quickly that he’d snuck out and must have been on his way to his friend’s house when he fell.
He’d hurt his collarbone and had a concussion that prevented him from remembering where he’d come from and where he was going.
After the ambulance brought him to the hospital, the officer had been going around to every house on the street trying to find Finn’s family.
While Alice and Kyle frantically jumped into the car to follow the police officer to the hospital, Maggie and Cait stayed behind to help the caterers pack up and to say goodbye to their guests.
James was worried not only about Finn but also about his grandfather, both of whom he’d always seen as superheroes.
When Cait took the twins upstairs for a bath, Isabel suggested a movie.
She and Maggie sat on opposite sides of the sofa in the attic TV room, with James fidgeting in between them.
Periodically throughout the movie, James would sit up and ask one question after another about Finn—Why didn’t he tell us he was going to Leo’s?
Is he going to be in trouble?—that Maggie did her best to answer.
Since returning from the train station, Maggie and Isabel had not had a chance to finish their discussion.
Throughout the evening, Maggie kept apologizing to Isabel—not just for her mistake with Sarah but for everything that had happened with her family—and Isabel would say, “I know.” Maggie was grateful that Isabel hadn’t just locked herself in the cottage, but she had no idea where things stood between them.
As Isabel went downstairs to get some cookies, James asked Maggie if she’d read him a story, so she grabbed an old book about a soccer team from the shelf and slumped onto the bottom bunk next to him.
She read the words on the page—even adding in some inflection—but her mind was so distracted with worry about Finn and where things stood between her and Isabel that she had absolutely no idea what the story was about.
Halfway through, Isabel returned holding a tray filled with glasses of milk and a plate of the Mikado biscuits Nora kept stashed away.
“Thank you,” Maggie said, trying to keep the emotion out of her voice. “I’m so grateful you’re here.”
Isabel nodded, but her expression was inscrutable.
“Keep reading,” James said, dunking his cookie into his milk.
After she finished the book and the cookies were eaten, Maggie finally received a text from Kyle on the family thread reporting that Finn’s CAT scan had come out clean, but he’d broken his collarbone and they needed to stay for a few more hours until he passed the final neuro exam.
“That’s a relief,” Isabel said.
Maggie agreed. She gave James the news, then kissed him good night, praying he’d actually go to bed as she turned off the desk lamp.
“Can you keep it on?” he asked.
Maggie turned the light back on. “Are you scared?” she asked. She was doing her best to keep her patience. “I was always scared as a kid.”
“No,” he said. “I want to wait up for Finn.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Maggie assured him.
James sat up on his elbow. “Why did Papa call me Topher? Who is that?”
“Your uncle,” Maggie said. “Do you not know about him?”
“The one who died?”
The matter-of-factness of James’s delivery was like a punch to Maggie’s gut. “Yes,” she said. “He was my brother. And your mom’s.”
“Do I look like him?” James asked.
So, so much , Maggie thought. But before she could answer, James chimed in again.
“I think there’s a picture of him on our refrigerator,” he said, “but I’m not sure.”
Maggie handed the tray to Isabel and sat back down on the bed next to James. “There are lots more pictures here, too. Your mom will show you in the morning.”
James looked at Maggie again. “How come he died?”
“Well,” Maggie said, feeling entirely out of her depth, “everyone dies, so, you know—”
“Finn said it was suicide, but I don’t know what that is.”
“That’s when someone ends their own life,” Maggie said.
“On purpose?”
“Yes.”
James thought about this for a moment. “Is that like an Irish goodbye?”
Maggie stopped herself from laughing. Topher would have found that hilarious. “No,” she said. “Where did you learn that?”
“Finn said an Irish goodbye is when you leave without saying goodbye.”
“Well, I mean, yes, but—”
“Did Topher say goodbye?”
“No,” Maggie said. “He didn’t. So, yeah, maybe you’re right.”
James nodded and, in a soft voice, said, “But why did he do it?”
Maggie paused. When were you supposed to tell kids about this kind of family history?
How were you supposed to tell them? Certainly she wasn’t the right one to reveal it all.
She turned to Isabel, but unlike the cookie bribe, she didn’t seem to have an answer here.
“That, I don’t know,” she said finally. “No one does. He made a terrible decision without thinking.”
James was quiet, then said, “Do you miss him?”
“Every day.”
James bit at a loose piece of cuticle on his thumb. “I don’t want to look like him,” he said.
This saddened Maggie, but she also understood.
She wanted to tell her nephew something good about her brother to show him that he was more than the story of his death, but she worried that would only lead to more questions, and that she might have already gone too far.
Instead, she brushed the reddish flop of hair from his forehead and said, “I always thought you looked more like your mom, not Topher.”
James lowered his head onto the pillow. “Yeah,” he said. “People tell me that all the time.”
Before she and Isabel left, Maggie turned to say good night once more. “Everyone gets scared sometimes,” she said. “But we’re safe here.”
Isabel went to the bathroom, and Maggie was heading back to her room when she ran into her mother.
“Why are you wearing your coat?” she asked her.
“I’m going to meet your sister at the hospital,” Nora said, her voice tired.
“I’ll come with you—”
“No, we don’t need to crowd the room. But can you check on your father in a bit? Maybe bring him a cup of tea? He’s resting but he feels awful about the stupid raccoon.”
As he should , Maggie thought, but instead, she said, “Of course.”
“Thank you, love.”
As her mother turned away, Cait appeared from the dark hallway and asked if she could speak to Nora quickly before she left for the hospital. From her bedroom, Maggie tried to listen to their murmurs, and when she heard Nora gasp, she hopped out of bed and found them in Cait’s room.
“What happened?” she asked. “Is Finn all right?”
Her mother turned, and to Maggie’s surprise, she was smiling. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Cait just had something to share with me.”
Cait looked at Maggie. “I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Big news, but too early to go viral. I have some things to figure out yet.”
On a normal evening, Maggie would have pumped her sister for more information, but Isabel had emerged from the bathroom. All Maggie wanted was to shut their door, take Isabel into her arms, if Isabel allowed her, and not have to deal with anyone or anything for the rest of the evening.