Chapter 3 Maggie #2
Maggie followed Crista into the kitchen, both of them fixing coffee. Without a word, they took matching white mugs back to the deck and sat across from each other in two comfortable chairs.
“I’ve been thinking about this house,” Maggie finally said after first sips were taken.
Crista went still. “What about it?”
“The fact that you kids can sell in November. Have you and Vivien and Eli discussed it?”
“I think they’re dug in,” she said. “To stay.”
“And you?” Maggie ventured. “You used to want to sell, but…”
Crista’s eyes flashed, but she didn’t finish the sentence for Maggie.
“Have you decided?” Maggie pressed.
Crista opened her mouth, closed it, then said, “Thinking about it.”
“About selling or…”
Crista looked at the house again, and her expression changed—something like longing crossed with resentment.
“It’s worth so much,” she finally said. “Do you have any idea what we could do with that money? We could pay off everything. We could—”
“You and Anthony are not struggling,” Maggie reminded her.
Crista’s eyes snapped to hers. “You don’t know everything.”
Oh. Maggie’s stomach tightened as she whiffed the scent of a secret. “Then tell me, Crista.”
Crista laughed once, shaky. “It’s not—”
Maggie cut in, calm but unmovable. “Crista.”
Crista’s eyes filled instantly, as if her body had been waiting for permission to fall apart. “No, Mama,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
Maggie leaned over, putting a hand on her daughter’s arm. “You can. You always can tell me anything. Will I judge?”
Crista snorted.
“Of course I will,” Maggie conceded. “And then I will move heaven and earth to help you.”
“You can’t move anything to help me,” Crista said, so softly Maggie wasn’t sure she’d heard.
“Is it the baby?” Maggie asked, her body tense as she waited for bad news.
Crista blinked, startled by the question.
“The baby’s fine,” she said, and her hand went to her slight baby bump in a protective gesture.
“And Nolie’s great, too. Letting her watch little Pittypat while you were down here was such a good idea.
It’s given her…I don’t know. A sense of taking care of something, which will be good when the baby comes. ”
“Well, if it’s not the baby or Nolie, then—”
“I think Anthony is cheating on me.”
The words were soft and careful, as if Crista was afraid they might hurt someone if spoken too loudly. Well, they did. Maggie felt them like a physical blow.
“No,” Maggie breathed. “Absolutely not.”
Crista flinched. “Like I said, you don’t know everything.”
Maggie leaned forward to make the obvious point. “Crista, you’re pregnant and that can wreak havoc on a woman’s moods. Anthony adores you. That man looks at you like you hung the moon. There is no universe in which he—”
“I thought so, too,” Crista sighed, sounding nothing like the drama queen she usually was, not emotional, just…certain. And scared to death.
“What are you basing this on?” Maggie asked.
Crista swallowed. “You know he was promoted. He’s running an entire engineering division now. He’s in meetings constantly. He’s…different.”
“He’s under pressure,” Maggie said quickly. “He wants to impress the higher-ups and earn that big pay raise. That doesn’t make him unfaithful.”
“He has a new administrative assistant,” Crista said. “She’s young. She’s pretty.”
Maggie scoffed. “Women have never been his weakness.”
“He takes calls outside now. He never did before. And he doesn’t want me to see his phone.”
“Work calls.”
“I picked his phone up once,” Crista said. “I saw texts with his admin. I was too scared of getting caught to read them. But the next time I looked, those texts were gone. The third time, there was a password.”
Maggie’s breath caught. “Honey, you shouldn’t—”
“And the debit card,” Crista interjected, ready to pop now that she’d taken off her seal of silence. “I found a brand-new one in his wallet. A separate account. One I know nothing about.”
Oof. That one hit hard. Maggie’s mind flashed to another man, another marriage, another set of hidden finances that had nearly destroyed everything. The money was the first sign that Roger had been up to…something.
“Well,” she said slowly. “That is…odd. But it does not automatically mean—”
“I feel it, Mama,” Crista said. “In my gut. Something is wrong. He’s not being honest with me.”
Maggie knew that intuition, too. “Have you asked him?”
Crista shook her head. “He’d say I’m hormonal. That I’m imagining things. And maybe I am. But what if I’m not?”
Maggie searched the face of her beautiful, fragile, complicated daughter.
“You do have a tendency to…overdramatize,” she said gently.
Crista’s eyes filled. “This isn’t drama. This is my marriage. What should I do?”
Maggie closed her eyes and considered every aspect of the question and how best to answer it.
“Stay here,” she said finally. “Stay for a few weeks and be with your family. Let him miss you. Let him remember what life feels like without you and Nolie in it.”
Crista stared at her. “You want me to leave him?”
“I want you to breathe,” Maggie said. “And I want him to remember what he stands to lose.”
Crista fell back against the sofa.
Before she could respond, footsteps sounded behind them. They both turned to see Vivien in the doorway, already dressed, her purse on her shoulder, her face drawn as she nodded to them.
“Is everything okay?” Crista asked, searching her sister’s expression.
“Peter’s son, Connor, was in a car accident last night,” she announced quietly. “He’s okay. Concussion. Broken bones. They kept him overnight. I’m going to the hospital.”
Maggie rose instantly. “Oh, I liked that young man. How awful.”
Crista groaned as if this was just more bad news on her heart. “I talked to him for a while last night. Really nice kid with a disarming sense of humor for a dentist-to-be. I can’t believe he…”
“He’ll be okay,” Vivien assured them, looking from one to the other. “It was serious but could have been much worse. Eli knows,” she added. “I told him last night. I’ll be back in a bit.”
She blew a kiss and headed out the front door. When Maggie heard the door close, she exhaled and leaned forward, knowing their private time together was going to come to a close.
“This family will hold you,” she told Crista. “No matter what.”
Crista nodded, tears threatening as if Connor’s bad news had somehow made hers worse.
“And about the house, Mama? You can see why I started thinking about…selling. If we get…” She swallowed noisily. “If I’m right and we aren’t together…” A sob squeezed. “I’ll need money,” she managed to finish.
Maggie leaned over her, hands on Crista’s shoulders. “Lots of ‘ifs’ in that shaky plan, Crista. If you are wrong…”
Crista exhaled. “Then I wouldn’t sell this dream house. But I’m not, Mama. A woman knows things.”
She couldn’t argue that. But Maggie also couldn’t believe Anthony would cheat. She simply couldn’t and there had to be a way to get to the truth.
She’d just have to find it.