Westerly

Chapter Twenty #3

In the parking garage at the clinic for Opal’s monthly visit, Maeve and the baby were both clammy from early summer heat.

Sweat drizzled between Maeve’s spine and sundress, into thick cotton underwear she wore in case of inadvertent piddle.

Opal wore only a diaper and onesie. A car pulled into the empty spot next to Maeve.

Until that moment, seeing Wendy Walker emerge from her sedan in powder blue scrubs, Maeve suffered the indignities of motherhood without much complaint.

She used her thumb and middle finger to brush her damp hair away from her forehead.

Could she not catch a break? Once even? What she wouldn’t give for a new dress, for a bra that actually flattered her, for empty arms and air conditioning.

“Hey,” Maeve said, giving a weird wave she immediately wished she could take back.

Wendy jogged around the car to Maeve. “Oh, wow! There you are. I wondered if I’d ever see you around here.” She jiggled Opal’s toes and made a face until she gurgled. “How are you?”

“Good,” Maeve said, trying to think cold thoughts. “Opal’s had ear infections. And I keep peeing myself, incontinence, you know.” She clamped her mouth shut, shook her head. “Sorry.”

“We should get together some time,” Wendy said. She pulled a little notebook out of her bag. “What’s your number?”

Maeve flashed to Wendy playing basketball. “Lucky seven,” Maeve said.

Wendy gave her a quizzical look.

“That was your number. In high school. Number seven,” Maeve said. “Stupid. Sorry. My phone number, I know. I was just . . .”

Wendy laughed, and Maeve peed a little.

“C’mon. I’ll walk you in.” Wendy grabbed the diaper bag off Maeve’s shoulder, and they walked into the clinic together like it was the most natural thing, the two of them side by side.

Their conversations, usually over coffee in the hospital cafeteria before or after a doctor’s appointment, were reserved at first, catching up on details as if they’d been casual friends.

Wendy had finished high school back in Canada.

Her father took a sabbatical so they could move.

“After that night, Mom didn’t want to stick around.

” She’d gotten her degree in Ottawa, then moved to Freeport for the job in Brunswick.

She told Maeve she’d thought about getting in touch.

“But it had been so long. So much had happened.” Maeve understood.

She told Wendy about meeting Sam, that he was a “good guy” and a great dad, that Dylan loved him, that her parents seemed to like him fine.

Wendy gave her an odd look but didn’t ask the question Maeve wanted to answer. I’m straight.

It wasn’t until their third coffee date that they talked about Brett Overton, what happened to him, how Wendy walked into the house, shoes in hand, her mother’s precious dress ruined.

“She was—I don’t know—livid, I guess. I honestly thought she would hit me.

She asked where I’d been, and I told her with Brett.

Obviously, I didn’t know about the accident so she knew I was lying.

She pulled the phone cord out of the wall, it was ringing so much.

She packed the whole family up the next day, and we stayed in a hotel in Portland.

It was nuts. She watched me every second.

She told me she’d called your house. I always wondered if you’d tried to call me. ”

Maeve had gotten used to the idea that Wendy Walker, everything about her, had been some kind of dream.

She’d pushed it down, aside, away, anywhere so she wouldn’t have to look right at it.

There was before, and there was after. And now there was this.

Maeve didn’t know what it was. She added more sugar to her coffee, sipped while Opal slept in the infant seat next to her.

“Something else happened that night. At my house.” And she told Wendy about Conor O’Kane, how he’d come to the house.

She told Wendy about his accusations—“Frenching”—as if it hadn’t been so much more.

She looked around the cafeteria for eavesdroppers.

“You can’t tell anyone.” And then Maeve gave up the secret her family kept.

She’d never told anyone because to talk about it would mean she’d have to talk about Wendy, and she’d never, ever wanted to do that.

Until now. Until it was Wendy herself sitting right there.

Even Sam had no idea a man had died at her parents’ house.

The whole thing had been swept up in the rug that her father had thrown out.

Wendy’s hand was on her mouth the whole time. “Holy shit. How’s your little sister? She must have been fucking traumatized.”

“Molly? She’s fine. It wasn’t her fault. She just gave him a shove. I felt terrible! It was because of me that he was there.” Maeve hesitated then added, “Because of us. But it’s in the past. I don’t even think about it. I’m sure Molly doesn’t either.”

“That’s wild. I mean, I was severely depressed my whole senior year.

I felt guilty about Brett. Guilty that my family had to move.

Pissed at myself and my parents and, like, everyone around me.

I even considered a degree in psychology to sort myself out.

It took me forever. I still think about it.

So, you and your sister don’t even talk about it? Ever?”

“God no! You don’t know my family. We don’t talk about anything.”

Maeve kept her friendship with Wendy Walker from her mother for months.

It wasn’t her business and, besides, Maeve told herself, mentioning Wendy’s name would resurface everything that happened that terrible night.

No one wanted to talk about that. But Sam mentioned Wendy over dinner one Sunday, and her mother practically bit her fork in half.

“Wendy? The same Wendy from high school?”

Maeve had kept eating, trying to be cool about it. “I told you a girl from high school worked at the hospital,” she said, casually. “That’s who it is. We’ve been hanging out sometimes. It’s no big deal.”

“You didn’t tell me who it was,” her mother replied.

Sam seemed confused. “You don’t like her, Faye?”

Maeve could tell her mother was trying to regain her composure. “It’s not that. I never met her.”

Maeve leaped to the rescue. “Wendy was a really good basketball player. I was jealous of her and probably talked about her. That’s all.”

Her father cut into his pot roast, his head down.

“That’s the girl whose boyfriend died in that car accident.

” He hesitated, exchanged a look with her mother, who passed it on to Maeve like a game of telephone.

Maeve didn’t think she’d ever been more grateful that Molly had skipped the family dinner that week.

“Boyfriend?” Sam said.

Maeve kicked him under the table.

Sam had encouraged Maeve’s friendship with Wendy, said she needed to get out of the house more.

He had bowling buddies and went fishing and camping with a rep from a paper company he’d known for years.

Maeve kept to herself, complained about the bowling wives, most of whom were older than her.

She knew moms from Dylan’s school but didn’t like them or their preference for gossip.

So, when Wendy started coming around, when Maeve went shopping or to movies with her, Sam said Maeve seemed happier than she had in ages.

But when he asked why she never brought guys around or talked about dating, Maeve let on that Wendy liked women.

He’d wrinkled his nose, citing his Catholic upbringing and his discomfort with that “lifestyle.”

“She’s not, like, into you, is she?” he’d asked.

Maeve had balked, told him to look around. “I have a husband and two kids. I don’t think I’m exactly her type.” He’d laughed in a way that stung, like the idea that she could be attractive to someone like Wendy was ridiculous.

But she was not about to have a conversation about who Wendy preferred now.

“Forget it,” she said. “Who wants dessert?”

Maeve made a point to have one of the kids with her when she met Wendy for coffee or lunch or at the park.

But sometimes they talked on the phone while Sam was at work and the baby napped.

She knew what days Wendy had off and would call.

Sometimes Wendy would be home. Other times she had to leave a message.

Maeve knew Wendy had a girlfriend, Carla, in Freeport, that they’d been dating for less than a year, that she worked for L.L.Bean as a guide.

She’d shrugged off that twinge of jealousy by talking about Dylan and Opal, how they were growing, the cute things they did and said.

She talked about the house on the cove, what a gift it had been for her and Sam to be able to move in after her grandfather died, how she and Sam had really made it their own, and how much they liked living close to the water.

Wendy confided that she was estranged from her parents, that she’d come out to them freshman year of college, and that they couldn’t accept “her choices,” as she put it.

“But Carla’s mom is cool, and so is her sister, so they’re kind of like family in some ways. ”

They met at the park the following spring. It had been months since they’d seen each other, and Wendy talked about having brunch with Carla’s mom for Easter.

Something about the way she said it boiled Maeve’s blood. “Do you think you two will have kids together, then? Like get inseminated or something?”

She was pushing Opal in the kiddie swing, trying to be nonchalant.

Wendy took a step back. “Why are you being cruel?”

“How is that cruel? You like kids, don’t you? Why else would you be an OB-GYN nurse if you didn’t?” The next words shot out of her. She felt ugly saying them. But wasn’t Wendy rubbing it in? Her relationship with this Carla? “I mean, besides the obvious.”

“Oh, you are not implying that I went into obstetrics and gynecology because I’m a lesbian, right, Maeve? That’s not what you’re saying. Because that would not only be cruel but homophobic and kind of sick. And we’re friends, so that’s not what you’re saying, right?”

Maeve grabbed the swing to stop it and pulled Opal out.

The baby reached for Wendy, but she stepped back.

“I’m sorry,” Maeve said. “Really. I don’t know why I said that.

It’s—” If she admitted what it was, what would that make her?

She was losing her mind. “I’m jealous of your relationship with Carla, okay?

Is that what you want to hear? And before you get all weird about it, I can be jealous of the time you spend with her because we’re friends, and I don’t want to share you .

. .” She rolled her eyes. “God, that is not what I’m trying to say. I love Sam, okay?”

Wendy let out a knowing laugh. “Okay, Maeve. You’ve got yourself tied up in knots again.

Just like high school. And let me add, since we’re being, you know, straight with each other .

. .” She stepped forward and put her arms out to Opal, who fell into them eagerly.

“I love kids. I care about women’s health.

Carla and I—we’re good, but we’re not great.

She’s not the love of my life or anything.

And I’m a little jealous of you. I’d like what you have—a home, a family, someone who loves me for me, even a little girl of my own someday.

” She rubbed noses with Opal, who threw her head back in a giggle.

“Maybe you don’t get lonely, Maeve. But I do. ”

Maeve could not begin to tell Wendy about her loneliness, how murky it was, this feeling that she was wading in her own life, staying in the shallows because something scary lurked in the deep end.

She’d thought having a second child would round her out and quiet the nagging part that resented being a paper salesman’s dull wife, a part-time office worker, a woman expected to raise perfect children and keep a house running.

Opal had made it a little better—how could she not?

—but Wendy resurfacing made the other part so much worse.

So, yes, she did get lonely. She just couldn’t tell Wendy that without falling into the deep end.

“I’m sorry, Wen. Truly. Can you forgive me? For being a jerk.”

Wendy squeezed Maeve’s hand, her brow knit and sincere. “Always, Maeve. Always.”

They walked hand in hand to Maeve’s car as if the child Wendy held was theirs.