“That’s a mean thing to say about Maggie,” I said.
“Well it’s the truth. Did you want me to sugarcoat it? Guys are pigs, especially in high school. Look what they did to me.”
“And me?” I asked. “What was I? Invisible?”
“You were the cute kid sister,” he said. He turned off the tap and put the sponge down. “Ready to go?”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
“Hey.” He leaned back against the sink and looked at me through sympathetic eyes. “Look at you now. You’re an absolutely stunning woman. You’re gorgeous. A goddess. But you were a kid back then, and I didn’t mean anything more than that.”
“I know you didn’t,” I said, wondering how I had it in me to be so petty.
Tim and I had never talked much about high school except in the most abstract terms, but now I was plunging into the swamp of memories in the belief that I could slog through without being pulled under. I was wrong.
The conversation didn’t end once we were in the back seat of the limo on our way to Indian Springs.
“Have you heard about Jane’s sister, Leann?” Tim asked. “What she’s doing now?”
“I read about it online. The center she founded where they use horses in conjunction with therapy for kids?”
“Yep. They have twenty-five acres now. Thirty horses. A state of the art residential treatment center on site. Families are charged only according to their ability to pay. Fully staffed with trained and licensed professionals. Pegasus, it’s called. Nice name, don’t you think?”
I thought I detected a note of proprietary pride in Tim’s description. “It’s a perfect name,” I said, imagining the winged horse soaring high in the sky, children clinging to its silver mane and leaving their troubles far below. “Did you have anything to do with it?”
“Not me,” Tim said. “My foundation. I’d love to swing by and say hi while we’re there. Would you like that?”
“That’d be wonderful.” I hoped he couldn’t hear the absolute false note in my response. Who was I kidding? I was in no way prepared to return to Indian Springs. Meet Tim’s parents. Stop by and say hi to Leann.
Tim went on his phone to check his email, and I waited a full fifteen minutes before speaking again. “I’m either carsick or coming down with something,” I said at last. “Do you feel okay?” I put a hand to my forehead as if testing for a fever.
“I feel fine,” he said.
“Well thank God it’s not food poisoning then.”
He looked me up and down as though checking for illness, before bringing his free hand up to rub the back of my neck. He returned his attention to his phone and scrolling through emails.
“Tim, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go home. I think I’m going to throw up . . . or worse.”
This time he put the phone down on the seat beside him. “Really?” he asked. He placed his palm on my forehead. “No fever.” He clicked on the driver intercom button. “Change of plans, Simon. Grace is sick so we need to take her home.” The disappointment I detected in his voice almost made me reconsider my decision. Almost.
A week later the email popped up in my inbox.
“Is God willing to prevent evil but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
Two weeks later Maggie called to say she’d been diagnosed with breast cancer.
Maggie’s life became my life as her treatment options moved from theoretical to practical and finally to experimental, the latter of which took place at the University of California Medical Center under the supervision of the premier expert in his field. Doorways opened to Maggie that wouldn’t have otherwise opened were it not for the interference by Tim. Deductibles and copays not covered by insurance were picked up by Tim. All of this at his insistence—and only revealed to her parents, never to Maggie, at Tim’s request. And still it wasn’t enough in the end. Money can’t buy love. And it can’t buy life.
Maggie hung on longer than anyone thought possible, considering the virulence of her cancer. When she wasn’t strong enough to make the drive back and forth with her parents to Indian Springs, she stayed with me. My bedroom became hers, and even when she wasn’t around, I continued to sleep on the couch. Carly made two trips to Indian Springs to see Maggie, each time staying only a few days. She didn’t have the luxury of being a non-essential person at her firm. She was the firm.
“Tell me something . . . anything,” Maggie said. I’d just walked in the door after a day at work. I’d had a patient that day whose child would be born medically fragile. I was concerned about this patient’s ability to handle the inevitable devastation her unborn child would soon introduce to her world. For the first time in a long time, I was more concerned about someone other than Maggie. That changed the minute I saw her. Maggie was propped up in bed with the tiny TV on mute, an episode of Friends playing in the background. I knew she’d seen it a dozen times, most of them right from that bed.
I finally understood the term painfully thin—the painful part was having to witness it as an observer. Maggie had a scarf wrapped around her head, too embarrassed to let even me see her without hair. Her eyebrows were gone as well. Nothing was left to recognize Maggie except her eyes. And her laugh on the rare occasions it bubbled to the surface.
“What should I tell you, Maggie dear? A story?” I said in my usual light tone.
“Anything. I’m so bored, I could scream.”
“Okay, but you have to eat something first. Did you take your pills?”
“Yes, Mommy,” she said sullenly. I eyed the empty spot on the bedside table where I’d laid out her daily dose of medication, including pain meds. They were gone. The bottle of water was empty.
I went to the refrigerator to retrieve one of the variety of food items Maggie could manage to keep down. Applesauce. I sat on the edge of the bed and handed her the cup and a spoon.
“Well, I told you about the clinic where we lived in Guatemala. The one my mom used to work at.”
“How it burned down last month?”
“Yeah. So you know they called Mom back to help with patients until they can rebuild. She’ll just be helping out a doctor who works out of his house.”
“Your mom’s a saint.” Maggie set the spoon down on the bed. “I don’t know how she does it.”
I picked up the spoon and scooped another mouthful, holding it up to her lips, which she parted reluctantly. “Anyway, Tim’s lawyer called me today at work. Tim’s foundation set up an irrevocable trust with Mom as the executor. And it’s enough to rebuild a first-rate clinic. I mean—Mom’s going to be . . . she’s going to be so happy,” I said while feeling slightly guilty about introducing the happy word in front of Maggie. But I needn’t have.
“Tim’s amazing,” Maggie said. “Your mom’s amazing. But you’re the most amazing friend anyone could ever have,” she said.
I shook my head and scooped another spoonful of applesauce.
“Grace,” Maggie held my wrist before the spoon made it to her mouth. “I was just thinking about that day at the pool, the first time we met. You remember?”
I put the spoon and the cup of applesauce down on the small table by the side of her bed. “Sure,” I said. “How could I ever forget?”
“I never thought . . . How could I have known you’d be so . . . such an important person in my life? Maybe the most important person in my life, Grace. And I want to thank you for everything because . . .” Her voice was strangled, her eyes wet from tears. “Because I need you to know that before I die.”
“You’re not going to die, Maggie,” I lied. “Because I can’t live without having you around.”
It was a lie she let me get away with
that one last time. “Grace, I know about Tim paying for my medical expenses. My mom let it slip. Promise you’ll never tell him what I did. Promise.”
“I would never do that. You have my word.”
“And Grace,” she said. “I’m ready to die. I’m okay with it, and I want you to be okay with it too.”
“How can I be okay with it, sweet Maggie?” I took her thin, bony hand in mine. “I could never be okay with it, but I’ll try to help you get there, okay?”
She sighed deeply, and I gently laid her limp hand on the mattress beside her. “You know, Grace,” she said. “We didn’t kill Jane, but we should’ve helped her even if it was too late. And we should’ve told someone what happened. Somebody out there knows, or at least suspects, but we should have told our parents.”
“We should’ve,” I said. “But it’s too late at this point. Too much time has gone by.”
Maggie was tired from talking. Her lids were beginning to droop, and I knew the morphine tablet was taking hold. “We always say that,” she said. “We said it after a day and then after a week. Then we said it after a year. And every year we keep saying it.” Her lips were barely moving. Barely forming the words. “Maybe it’s too late for me,” she said. “But maybe it’s not too late for you.”
My greatest wish was to provide hospice care for Maggie until the moment she passed. I thought, as a nurse, I would know when the time was near and be able to stay home with her until it happened. Her outlook was for days and weeks. I was sure I’d be able to spot the transition to days and hours. But that conversation would prove to be our last. The following day, a fever raged while her parents sat at her bedside during the time I was at work. They panicked and called an ambulance that transported her to the hospital. On the way there, Maggie lost consciousness and never regained it. She existed in that state for a week before she left us. I thought I’d be ready when it happened—after all, I’d had a year to prepare, slowly descending from one stage into an ever more hopeless one—but nothing could have prepared me. It was like falling into the dark icy depths of Lake Tahoe all over again. Only this time, there was no Jane to pull me to the surface. In the end, I wasn’t there in her final moments. But she wasn’t there either.
Tim sent Simon to fetch me the minute he heard. He insisted that I take a few days off and stay with him for a while. My apartment was filled with too many reminders of Maggie’s last days. We could deal with it together after some time had passed, he said.
A few days later, the email arrived just like clockwork.
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
I stepped into the private bedroom Tim kept for me at his house, although we always slept in his. I picked up the phone and called Carly.
“Are we really going to do this every year?” Carly concluded after our brief and bitter conversation. “How many years has it been? Twenty?”
“Maggie was better than you and me,” I said before hanging up, grasping for the most destructive, spiteful thing I could say. I had a feeling it would be my last and best hope to hurt Carly the way I wanted to. “She proved it by dying.”
Carly ended the call without another word, and I took a moment to compose myself, splashed some cold water on my face, and went out to join Tim in the game room.
“You okay?” He stood when I entered the room.
“Not really,” I said. He led me to the plush love seat and folded me in his arms.
“It’ll get better,” he murmured into my hair. “You’ll be alright. I’ll take you out to a nice dinner tonight, okay?”
“I don’t see how a nice dinner or anything else will ever make it better. I just don’t see how that’s possible.”
“You did everything you could,” he said, pulling me even closer. “You’ll realize that as time passes, and it will bring you comfort. Your mom’s coming in a few days. Simon will drive you to Luke’s, and you can spend time with your family. That’ll help too.”
“I feel responsible,” I said.
“Do you, Grace? Why would you feel responsible?”
“She was my friend?”
“That doesn’t make you responsible,” he said, lifting his voice into a near question at the end.
I realized how crazy it sounded, and yet it was true. It was how I felt.
“I’m going to lie down,” I said. “In my room.”
“You do that, sweetie. I’ll come wake you for dinner.”
Terms of endearment weren’t normal for Tim. When they did come, they were almost jarring, as if I could sense the psychic energy he expended in saying them. I might have chuckled under my breath in different circumstances, hearing Tim call me sweetie—an old-fashioned expression he had perhaps heard his father use on his mother. But nothing seemed comical at that moment, and it was touching to hear it. I retreated to my room, closing the door behind me and lowering the blinds. I didn’t exactly want to be alone with my thoughts, I was just overcome with a fatigue so powerful that it seemed necessary to envelop myself in darkness. I passed into a deep and dreamless sleep.
I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I woke, aware that someone else was in the room with me. Without moving, I gave my eyes a few seconds to focus before surveying the dark recesses of the room. Tim was sitting in an armchair tucked into the tiny reading alcove next to the window. A thin sliver of light haloed the blinds, framing Tim’s motionless figure. For a second, I thought he’d fallen asleep in the sitting position—I’d seen him do it before, in the most unlikely spots. But his eyes were open. He was watching over me. Or watching me.
“Have you had enough yet, Grace?” he asked so quietly that I questioned whether he’d spoken at all.
“Enough of what?” I propped myself up on one elbow.
“Enough of Carly . . . treating you like her lap dog, running to her, begging on your hands and knees for a scrap from her? Are you ready to join me now?”
“What are you talking about?” I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, wondering how he knew about my call to Carly.
“I’ve been waiting for you to come around because it will be so much more fun if we join forces.”
“Join forces?”
Nothing he said was making sense, and I wondered if I was still dreaming. Having an out-of-body experience. The old sleep paralysis—as if I looked down at myself, observing, but incapable of waking, from a dream so real as to be indistinguishable from life. I stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and fear while ideas shifted around inside my head. Disjointed thoughts. Memories. Suspicions. Like ice floes coaxed by the tide to collide into each other until they formed a solid, unbroken surface—everything fell into place. Everything made perfect sense. The miasma of my brain crystallized and then shattered into a million pieces, finally revealing what I knew all along.
“It was you,” I said. “All this time it was you.”
“I figured at some point you’d be so mad at Carly that you’d want to join me.” His mouth was a thin, hard line. How had I missed that hardness before? How had he so successfully hidden it? “And now it’s time for you to decide. Are you finally ready? Have you finally had enough? Just say the word.”
I slipped my feet into my sandals as though preparing to flee. It was an unconscious gesture that didn’t go unnoticed by Tim. He reached over and clicked the lamp switch. A rosy glow spread across the white wool carpet.
“Do you realize what you’ve done? To me? To Maggie? You haven’t done shit to Carly though.” The pitch of my voice was rising, bordering on hysteria.
“I’ve given you the gift of a conscience,” he said grimly. “Maggie too. I’m sorry if it cost Maggie her life, but consciences are tricky things. As for Carly, I never expected to impact her that way. I have other plans for Carly. This was my gift to you.”
“Thanks for the gift, Tim.” I was glued to my spot and he to his.
Had he made a move toward me, I would have run. “Maybe you’re a sociopath too—just like Carly.”
“Maybe I am,” he said. “Don’t think I haven’t thought that through and processed it. But sociopaths can be useful. Sometimes they can guide you out of a mess without the baggage of emotions.”
I shook my head slowly. “You’re no better than her.”
“I am better. I’m smarter than Carly. And more patient. How about you, Grace? Why did you do it? Your parents had given you all the gifts they had available. They’d instilled you with decency and compassion, and yet you did those things anyway. How are you better than us—Carly and me?”
“I wanted to belong,” I said. “Carly made me feel like I belonged.”
“Ah, there you go. Belonging is one of the most fundamental human drives—even more than procreating. It ranks just below hunger. I think you might have had the teeniest little crush on her too. No?”
“What do you know?” I asked.
“What do I know? I know that Maggie put drugs in my locker. I know that Carly, and therefore you and Maggie, had something to do with Jane’s accident. I know that Jane was furious with you for what you did to me, that Carly had such incredible jealousy toward Jane—a person whose shadow she wasn’t worthy to step on—that she couldn’t contain it. All this, I learned initially from Leann and had confirmed over the years through your unprotected emails and texts. I also know my old mentor, Mr. Sutherland, suffered the loss of his family because his wife suspected him of inappropriate sexual behavior with Carly. Granted, there were others, and probably at least some of the rumors were true, but Carly was the tipping point. I know other things too, Grace, but we can stop at that, can’t we?”
All that time, I thought. All those wasted years. The victim had become the victimizer.
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