Maggie
She has been here for five and a half weeks or so now, gone to a bonfire, sipped whiskey with Christy and Mary Jo while they looked at magazines on the floor of their room, taken long walks on the horse trails through the woods, watched the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project on the news, tried Chef Alexandra’s escargot on a dare from Bridget, and turned up her radio every time she heard “Philadelphia Freedom” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.” She wakes this morning and realizes she has a day off.
Right before she woke up, she heard Chip’s voice and Birdy Girl’s bark, and she had this feeling of being in her house, its comforting smell of nothing—just a scent you know and breathe and love.
She could hear the kitchen cupboard doors closing and the slap of the screen door to the patio.
She could see her dad spreading margarine on his toast and calling to her mother to ask where the peanut butter was.
She could hear the loud dramatic groans Chip always made on school mornings: What’s all this racket, folks?
And she saw her mom back when she never seemed tired, when even if she burned her hand on the oven rack or broke a nail or stubbed her toe, would laugh it off.
She sits up in bed, and she sees a moth (it can’t be the same one, can it?) as a speck in the corner of the ceiling just waiting there.
She knows she needs to go home and see them. The ones who are still there.
Just a quick visit.
She doesn’t make her bed. She splashes water on her face and brushes her teeth and grabs her purse. It is so clear she needs to be there today, and she doesn’t know why.
She can walk to the bus stop, and hopefully there’s one to Easton soon. The hallway is quiet, and on the stairs she meets Phil, who is working the breakfast shift. “Another day, another dollar,” he says and shakes his head.
She passes the mailboxes and the vending machine, and she hears Sesame Street coming from the television in the small lounge and wonders who the heck is watching that.
Maybe no one. She pulls at a thread on her shirt, and it comes out easily.
The days have been so busy with weddings and the Fourth of July and sessions with Rhonda where she tries to organize her files and declutter her office.
Nancy was on vacation for a week, so Maggie hasn’t bumped into her much, but they did talk one night, and Nancy gave her a hug and cried and told her Chip was unforgettable.
Then she’d asked how Vicky was doing, which was puzzling.
Maggie wondered what Chip had told his girlfriend about his best friend from home.
Maggie hasn’t seen the baby since that one day, and she hasn’t asked anyone about him.
She wants to ask someone so badly, but she wonders if she is losing it.
Has her grief made her see the opposite of death: new life?
She opens the door, and the grounds are wet from rain.
She looks at Elliot’s place, one small light on, and wonders if he would drive her home.
She has spent three nights at his place to let him sleep, trying her best to stay awake, to “keep watch,” but she has nodded off each time, luckily waking before he does.
One morning, she came out of his camper, and Christy was on the lawn doing calisthenics in a leotard.
She looked at Maggie, still dressed in the previous day’s clothes, and wagged a finger at her.
“Shame shame, girl. I warned you to keep away from ghosts,” she said and laughed.
“I’m not ashamed of anything,” Maggie said with a flat face.
“That’s the spirit!” Christy did some Jazzercise kicks and cheered for Maggie like a fitness host on TV.
Maggie walks by the main building and sees Bridget through the window sitting at the piano, her face so serious as she hits the notes, and she notices Phil standing beside her, listening with a huge smile on his face.
Has she missed something? Are those two a couple?
She likes that for them, but who knows. Everyone is close here, it seems. She passes the apple and pear trees and is now on the lane.
Everything is quiet and still, and the rain has broken the humidity of the past few days.
Some of the trees shake drops of water on her as she walks, and she already feels tired, thinking of the mile or so from the Red Maple entrance to the bus stop at the tavern in Bradley Falls.
Nothing feels more urgent than getting to her parents, and she can’t say why. Once she was at sleepaway camp, and she called home and told her dad to come get her. She feels the way she did then.
She’s sorry she left them. She’s sorry Chip died.
It was wrong to come here, and she doesn’t think it’s helped much.
Phil said Chip was nice, and they all liked him.
Nancy said they fell for each other instantly.
Maggie doesn’t know what she wanted, but she wanted more.
She wants to know what happened to Vicky, and Chip’s harmonica, and what Chip got out of being here.
She walks with tears streaming down her face, and she hears the engine of a car by her and the sound of a window rolling down. “Need a ride?”
It’s Rhonda in a pale-yellow Cadillac. Maggie wipes her tears. “Oh, hi.”
Rhonda keeps her hands on the wheel, and she looks like she’s wearing a nightgown with a coat over it. She looks down at herself. “I needed to grab something in my office, so I was just darting in and out.”
Maggie nods. “I’m going home for the day. I feel like I need to see my mom and dad.”
Rhonda tilts her head to the side and looks at her with the most compassionate, wistful expression. “Well hop in, and I’ll drive you. Where is home again?” She sounds like she wouldn’t care if Maggie said Alaska.
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I’m just going to take the bus. You need to get home.”
Rhonda looks down at herself and shrugs. “You think it’s just a coincidence I was here at this moment?”
Maggie sits in the car with Rhonda as she takes the back roads. The air conditioner blows on her face, and she feels more settled. Especially since Rhonda doesn’t think it’s a bad idea to go home for a visit.
“Perfectly understandable,” she said.
They drive, and Maggie hears things rumble in the back seat. Rhonda has a lot of piles of paperwork and folders behind them, and for some reason, an empty birdcage and some mismatched Tupperware.
Rhonda stares straight ahead and looks at the road. A mist covers the windshield, and she clicks on the wipers.
“More rain,” Maggie says.
“I like the rain.” Rhonda fools with the radio and twists the dial back and forth but doesn’t land on anything. She switches it off, and Maggie watches the antenna creep down. “It’s good thinking weather.”
Maggie feels like a balloon with all its air let out. “I thought I’d find more of him at Red Maple,” she says, not looking at Rhonda. “I don’t know what I was hoping for. It’s silly.”
Rhonda raises her eyebrow. “It isn’t silly.” Maggie looks at Rhonda’s bare knees as she drives, and she realizes her affection for this woman makes her overlook any flaws—she’s just who she is, smudged glasses and braless and fine.
“I’ve been looking for answers for a long while,” she continues. “Did you know your brother helped me find some?”
Maggie feels herself sit up straighter. “He did?”
Rhonda nods. “He showed me what the living are supposed to do.”
She puts on her blinker, and they turn onto the highway. The rain patters the windshield in steady splotches. “Can you tell me what he said?”
“Be glad to.” She looks at Rhonda’s hands on the steering wheel and that bracelet.
She must never take it off. Maggie waits for Chip’s life lesson to be explained to her, but Rhonda doesn’t say anything.
Does she mean she will at some point? Does she mean she’ll put it in a letter?
Maggie waits patiently as the car surges past houses and trees and road signs.
Maggie feels a sneeze come on, but then it goes away.
She looks at Rhonda, whose eyes are sharp and on the road.
She thinks of the pain of losing her girls, how hard it must have been to get back in a car, how disorienting it was to see the world go on, the sun shining, the birds singing, everyone still moving in the same orbit.
Rhonda turns the radio on and off a few more times, and Maggie realizes this might be a nervous habit.
The rain has stopped, and Rhonda reaches into her big purse on the seat between them and pulls out a white bag.
“Want a bite of cinnamon roll?” she says.
“I picked one up this morning, but it’s much too big for me. ”
Maggie’s stomach rumbles. “Actually, that sounds great.”
Rhonda plops the bag in her lap. “Dig in. Don’t be shy.” Maggie feels like she needs a fork and knife, but Rhonda watches the road and turns to her and smiles. “Go to town,” she says. Maggie tears it in half, her fingers sinking into the sticky bun and gives a piece to Rhonda.
Rhonda takes it and licks her fingers. “That’s the good stuff.”
“It’s phenomenal.” Maggie looks for a napkin, but there aren’t any. She licks her fingers after she finishes. “Wow.”
“A little bakery in town. We get some orders from them for breakfast and dinner.”
“I’d eat twenty more.” Rhonda looks at her for a second, and Maggie worries she’ll do a U-turn and rush back to the bakery. She likes how impulsive and determined she is.
But Rhonda keeps driving, and they are ten miles from Easton. She gets silent for a minute and then she clenches the wheel more tightly. “You know, one time I was alone in the house after what happened with Janie and Vanessa.” She glances at her. “I mean, I assume you know. I assume people talk?”
Maggie nods. “I do know, and I’m very sorry.”