On the airplane, I sat staring out the window at the clouds below. The light had just gone off alerting the passengers that we could remove our safety belts. I didn’t move. In fact, I hadn’t moved at all since I sat down and buckled up. When the man sitting in my row released his seat belt and stood up to retrieve a briefcase from the overhead compartment, I realized that I didn’t remember what I had done with my own carry-on luggage once I had boarded the plane. Snapped out of the daze I had been in and in a panic I blurted out, “Sir, I’m sorry, do you see my bag up there? It’s a teal colored, um, quilted tote….from LL Bean.”
“Yes ma’am, it’s up here. Do you need it?”
“Oh, no, thank you. I…I couldn’t remember what I’d done with it.”
I tried to settle back into my seat. I could feel myself blushing as the guy looked at me like I was completely crazy. My row mate sat back down and I went back to staring out the window.
I love you, Maggie!
I burst out laughing unexpectedly, and had to put my hands over my mouth. I glanced over at the guy with the laptop. He was checking me out from the corner of his eye. That launched me straight into a fit of giggles that I could barely contain. I sputtered against my hand and eventually got myself under control.
Joe said he loved me. I had replayed it over and over again and now I couldn’t stop smiling. Had I ever felt like this? Had I ever been this happy, elated, overjoyed? I certainly didn’t think so. No. I had never once been this giddy. Three little words from Joe Carlisle had sent me spiraling out of control. What was even more shocking than Joe yelling out those three words was that I didn’t mind. Not one little bit. In the past, anyone speaking those words would have been immediately removed from my life. Not in a permanent “I-contacted-a-hit-man” kind of way, but in a “it’s-not-you-it’s-me” kind of way.
I pulled my cell phone from my purse and typed out a text to Joe, and he immediately responded:
Maggie: I saw a guy in the airport a few moments ago and the weirdest thing happened. He shouted across an ocean of people that he loved someone.
Joe: No shit?
Maggie: It was without a doubt the sweetest thing I’ve ever witnessed.
Joe: So, what did she say?
Maggie: Who?
Joe: The girl he shouted to…what did she say?
Maggie: Well, she was being shoved forward, and the distance between them kept getting bigger until they were so far apart all she could do was smile and wave to him.
Joe: Damn. Poor guy.
Maggie: My thoughts exactly. I mean, if it was me, I would…I dunno…let him know how I felt. I bet she’s sitting on the plane right now, texting him so he could get more than a wave. That’s what I would do. If I was her, I mean.
Joe: Yeah? So if you were her what would you tell him?
Maggie: I would tell him I loved him too. And I would feel awful about saying ‘I love you too’ for the first time via a text. That’s the hardest part about it. A person should be able to see the look on someone’s face when they tell someone how they feel. I bet she wishes she could see his face.
Joe: You love me?
How could he not know?
Because you haven’t told him and you left him standing alone in the airport with no reply.
Maggie: You have no idea how much. I didn’t even realize how much until this very moment. I love you madly. I am more when I am with you. I am alive when I am with you. I don’t know how to explain it, Joe, but I am better with you.
I am…me. And I’ve never really been me before. You let me be me, Joe, and I am better with you. You make me better. I am terrible at this because I’ve never done this before so maybe it’s a good thing I’m telling you this way. I do wish I could see your face when I tell you how much I love you. Because I do, Joe. I love you. So much.
Two minutes passed and Joe had not texted back. One hundred and twenty seconds. A lifetime. In the span of those two minutes, I stared at the screen on my phone, willing it to light up. I’d said too much. I had to get it out though. I rested my head on the headrest, wishing I could turn back the clock so I could tell him all these things in person. Not like this…not through some stupid text. He deserved better than—
Joe: You have no idea what this does to me…what you do to me. I keep reading the words over and over again. I’m sitting on the side of the road, staring at my phone, and all I can do is read and re-read all the things you just said. I can’t even get my thoughts together. Let me start over…
I held on to my phone like it was my lifeline while I waited for his next message. Goofy smile? Check. Heart pounding? Check. A text message rang in:
Joe: I am so in love with you, Maggie. This…you…it’s everything to me. It’s probably a good thing you can’t see my face right now. But…hold on
The next notification I received was an image of Joe on my screen. He was smiling, and his eyes appeared to be…glassy?...shiny? I wasn’t sure, but it was the most beautiful heartfelt look of his I’d ever seen. I clutched my phone and held it to my chest.
My God, this man owns me.
Maggie: Thank you.
Joe: For what?
Maggie: Everything. For letting me see your face. Thank you.
Joe: I wish I could see yours.
Joe: I love you Maggie.
Maggie: I love you too.
Joe: I don’t want to, but I need to get back on the road and get to the bar.
Maggie: Okay. I know.
Joe: Call me when you land.
Maggie: When I land.
Joe: This is hard…telling you bye. I don’t like it.
Maggie: Me either. This feels like we’re saying good-bye twice. The second time isn’t any easier. : (
Joe: We’ll figure something out. Okay…going for real this time. I love you.
Maggie: I love you too.
I settled back against the headrest and kept my eyes on the clouds, my heart aching already from missing him so much.
I was certain I would be walking in the clouds for a long time to come.
Maggie
Not even the mundane task of stopping to check the mailbox on the way up to my apartment could make me frown. My jaws had actually begun to ache, and I was pretty sure that everyone I had encountered on the airplane, at the airport, and even the weary souls I passed in the parking deck probably thought I had a medical condition that kept my mouth permanently frozen in a goofy smile. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nashville, about my friends, about Joe. The thought of his name alone sent electricity through my body that caused school-girl giggles to erupt.
I turned the key in the lock and let myself in, tossed the mail onto the coffee table and proceeded to unpack. I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t let my suitcase sit in the middle of the floor for two weeks after this trip like I usually did, so I threw in a load of clothes to wash and put everything else away. Once done, I made a quick stop by the kitchen to pour a glass of wine before sitting down to sort through the mail that had accumulated in my absence, quickly sorting out the junk and placing it in a pile for the trash. As I worked my way through the stack I picked up an envelope that, from the back, didn’t look like a bill. I turned it over and inhaled sharply when I recognized the handwriting without even looking at the return address. I could feel a numb, tingly sensation start to flow through my arms and legs. I sat there for a moment more and then with a shaky hand, placed the envelope to the side and stood up. I let out the air that was trapped inside my lungs, and began pacing back and forth.
What the hell?
I couldn’t imagine why he had written to me and I didn’t care. I had closed that door years ago and did not plan on opening it again. I didn’t owe him a thing. I walked across the room to the oversized chair and plopped down, pulling my knees up and wrapping my arms protectively around them. I glanced at the envelope and dropped my forehead to my knees. Two years ago I received the first letter from my father. I never opened it, and sent it back to him unread.
I’d done the same thing with the three letters that followed that one.
For the first time in years I felt a familiar mix of dread, hurt, anger, and sadness flow over me. All it took was seeing his handwriting and all those feelings I’d felt as a child came flooding back. All of the happiness I’d felt since leaving Nashville was slowly slipping away. Before, the letters only made me feel angry, and it was easy to send them back and ignore them. This time, however, something was different, and a sudden flood of memories overtook me.
“Daddy?”
No reply.
“Daddy, I can’t figure this problem out.”
I was sitting at the kitchen table doing my math homework and was stuck, once again, on fractions. Who wanted a fraction of something anyway? I shut the notebook and shoved it and the pencil with more force than necessary into my worn backpack.
I pushed the chair back, wincing at the sound the aluminum legs always made on the fake tile floor, and stomped into the living room. He was sitting there, in his recliner, open bottle of beer in one hand, his eyes closed. He wasn’t asleep; he was just ignoring me, like always, like every damn day since she left us two years ago. I thought about giving him a piece of my mind and decided it wouldn’t do any good anyway. He didn’t care. He would sit there with his eyes closed until I went to my bedroom for the night, then he would finish his beer then another and another, and in the morning when I left for school, he would be asleep in that damn recliner.
I walked down the short hallway to my bedroom, trailing my fingertips across the few framed photos that still hung on the wall. She was smiling in all of them, but she wasn’t happy. She couldn’t be, not really. I stopped at the one that had always been my favorite, taken by my dad on a trip to the local Botanical Gardens when I was barely two years old. She was sitting on a white bench and I had walked over to hand her a wildflower I had picked. Dad had posed me for the first fifteen or twenty minutes we were there, but resorted to taking candid photos once my attention span had run its course. He knelt down and snapped several shots of me walking toward her. I had seen them all in the pack of printed pictures a hundred times, but this was the one he chose to enlarge and frame. She had leaned over to embrace me, and the photo was zoomed in on her face as she hugged me. In the picture, I’m so little, and all you can see of me is the back of my head, my chubby little arm and toddler’s hand complete with all the dimples holding the wildflower. Even though I couldn’t see my face in the photo, I could see hers, and it held so much emotion for me. It always had. My mom. I loved her. Why didn’t she love me?
I rounded the corner into my bedroom and closed the door. I sat down on my bed, drawing my knees up, wrapping my hands around my ankles. I lowered my forehead to my knees and began to cry, feeling a mixture of hurt, sadness, and loneliness.
“Never again. I will never let anyone hurt me ever again.”
I got up and trudged to the kitchen to grab the box of Kleenex on the counter, barely able to see out of eyes that were red and swollen from crying. I blew my nose and took a few deep breaths.
And then it hit me. Oh my gosh! Joe! I was supposed to call him when I got home. Looking at the clock on the wall I realized an hour had gone by since I started going through the mail. I pulled out my cell phone from my purse and pressed the power button. Six missed calls.
I pressed the redial button and waited for it to connect. My thoughts were scattered and I couldn’t focus. What did my dad want? Why was he writing to me, again? And why was I getting this upset about it?
“Hello?” said an unfamiliar male voice.
Confused, I pulled the phone back from my ear and checked the screen. Joe Carlisle was across the top so I knew I’d hit the redial button.
“Hello?” Whoever it was spoke even louder and there was a lot of noise in the background.
“Uhhh, um, I’m sorry. I-I think I somehow dialed a wrong number,” I stammered.
“Maggie, is this you?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“It’s Hayden. I’m at the bar. Joe is in the storeroom because a delivery came in. He left his phone with me and wanted me to answer it if you called.”
“Oh. I was supposed to call him when I got home. Is he mad?”
“No, Maggie. He’s not mad. Worried, but not mad. He’ll be relieved to know you’re okay. You are okay, aren’t you?” Hayden’s voice had a tone to it I hadn’t heard before, softer and kinder than usual. “Maggie? Is everything okay? Hold on, let me step outside, it’s really loud in here.”
I could feel tears threatening again. My emotions were on a rollercoaster. Up one minute…down the next. Look up ‘emotional mess’ in the dictionary and you’ll see my picture.
I quickly pushed the mute button on my phone and grabbed a handful of tissues and blew my nose, realizing how nasal I must sound. No wonder Hayden was concerned. I cleared my throat, determined not to let him know how upset I was. “Okay,” Hayden asked after a moment, “you still there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, good. I thought I lost you. I couldn’t hear anything for a few seconds. Sometimes the cell signal out here isn’t the best.”
“I’m still here.”
“Good. So, is everything okay? You sound like you’ve been crying. I wasn’t sure inside, because it was so noisy. Out here I can tell you sound…off… like you’re upset about something.”
There it was again, the sincere tone in his voice and that brought the unbidden tears back to the surface. I couldn’t stop it. They poured over my lashes, down my cheeks and onto my blouse. I tried again to hold my breath and stop the flow. The sob that was clutching at the back of my throat, however, ultimately escaped.
“Oh my god, Maggie, what is it? What happened?” Hayden asked, panic in his deep baritone voice.
“I– –I’m sorry, Hayden. I’m s-s-sorry. I’m trying so h-hard not to cry.”
“Okay. Maggie, it’s okay. Take your time. I’m good out here. I can wait. It was really hot in the bar and it’s nice and cool out here. So, breathe. It’s going to be okay,” Hayden said in a hypnotic sort of way. It worked and I calmed down and was able to speak.
“Oh, Hayden. I really am sor–”
“Stop apologizing. I told you, I’m good out here.”
“I bet you’re freezing. Go back in the bar. Please tell Joe I called. I’m going to take a shower and I’ll call him afterwards.”
“Maggie, look, I know we aren’t close like you and Joe or you and Lily, and it’s probably none of my business what has you so upset. But, sweetheart, I’m real concerned about you right now and I can’t let you get off of the phone without knowing that you are one hundred percent okay. Besides, Joe would kill me. And I kind of like living, so you would be doing me a favor.”
I laughed at Hayden’s strategy to get me to talk. “I’m okay. I’m fine.” Tears flowed again, only this time with less ferocity, trickling slowly and not causing my breath to catch. “When I got home and checked the mail…there was…a letter. You know, I went to the mailbox.” I needed to get a grip, make better sense. I took another deep breath and blew it out. “Okay, I’m gonna start over. When I got home and started going through my mail, there was a letter…from my dad,” I stated with a calm voice.
“Okay. So was it bad news or something?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what it says. I haven’t opened it.”
Silence.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Hayden replied.
“It’s a long story, Hayden.”
“I’ve got all night. If you need to get something off your chest, I’m your huckleberry.”
I laughed.
He laughed along with me and said, “Look, Maggie, if you’d rather not share personal business with me, I understand. But I’m on this end of the phone and you’re on the other, and it sounds like you could really use a shoulder and an ear and I’ve got both, as well as a warm jacket and a comfortable seat by the front door here. I’ve got nowhere to be anytime soon.”
There was a bit of sadness in his voice, and I wondered briefly what sort of things would make a nice guy like Hayden sad. Everyone has a story, don’t they? With that I began to tell Hayden about my childhood. About my mother leaving and my father giving up and about how seeing my father’s handwriting this time had caused a flood of memories and heartbreak to come rushing in on me. Hayden didn’t interrupt; he listened quietly, only speaking when I got quiet for too long. Then he shared some things with me about his own family, gave me a little glimpse into what troubled his soul and afterwards, knowing we both had wounds, although they were of a different kind, made me feel we shared a kindred spirit.
“Maggie, I appreciate you sharing that with me, I know it probably wasn’t easy. I hope it helped. I’m not real good with words, but I do know that sometimes thoughts, memories, emotions…they’re like a pressure cooker and the longer we keep the lid on them the more they build up. Eventually we have to let some of that shit go.”
“You’re right. Thank you for the ear…and the shoulder.”
“Of course. Plus, Now I can tell Joe that you’re okay, and I won’t feel like I’m lying to him.”
“So, now Joe won’t kill you.”
“I’m free to live another day.”
“Thanks for listening, Hayden. You’re a good friend and I appreciate you sharing with me too.”
“I’ve still got Joe’s phone. If he’s made it back to the bar from the storeroom he’s losing his mind in there wondering where the hell I am.”
“You’re probably right.”
We said goodbye so he could go back inside. I sent Joe a quick text message and decided I would go ahead and take that shower first. When I’d washed away all of the fear and anxiety I would sit down and read the letter from my dad. Then I’d call the man who only a few short hours ago yelled across a sea of people that he loved me.
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