I apologize for changing the subject abruptly, but there’s no easy transition for this: I can’t remarry you. Not now, and not in the future. I understand that you did love me even though you claimed otherwise, and I believe that you still do. I accept that your affair was a bad decision, and your leaving was a worse one. I know you regret both. I don’t think I told you this yet, but I forgive you, fully and completely.
This email will hurt you, and that’s the last thing I want to do. But I also want you to have a firm answer, so that you can move forward and find new happiness. I know that you will.
I’d like for us to be on good terms one day—if not friends, then two people who love their children enough to behave like they are. I’ve loved hearing about the changes you’ve made in your life, and I’m proud of you for having the courage to make your dreams come true. But I think we shouldn’t be in contact for a while. I need the space and clarity to continue learning how to live without you. I don’t know how long, but I’ll tell you when I’m ready to be in touch again. If there’s anything urgent that you need to communicate in the meantime, have Zoe or Jack reach out to me.
Adam, you have given me love, my beloved children and our family, and many of the best years of my life. For all of that—and so much more—thank you. Please be good to yourself.
Love always,
Maggie
I closed the computer and exhaled. It pained me to turn down Adam and the new life he was offering. But it wasn’t the absence of a guarantee that led me to say no.
It was the knowledge that I no longer needed a guarantee to be happy. I hadn’t wanted to be alone. Now that I was, though, I knew that there was a whole new world out there waiting for me. And within this world happened to be a man whom I wanted to take a chance on. I wasn’t sure if it was too late to take that chance, but like Rose, I was going to have to give it a go.
I ran to the bathroom to make sure I didn’t have dirt on my face. Then I grabbed my sunglasses and a water bottle, went to the shed to fetch my bike and helmet, and set off down the road.
The late afternoon sun beat down on my skin as I biked, sending beads of perspiration rolling down the back of my neck and between my breasts. Still I pushed on.
I had traveled three miles when worry began to make its familiar trek through my mind. It was ridiculous to do this at this stage in the game.
The heat beat down on my shoulders as I hit the fourth mile, and I nearly had to walk my bicycle up the last hill. But I kept pedaling until Charlie’s house came into view.
A “For Sale” sign with a “Sold” banner had been staked into the sloping front lawn. How could this be anything other than a literal sign I had waited too long? Charlie was leaving. He had moved on.
Yet I got off my bike, left my sunglasses and sweat-soaked helmet in the basket, and walked to the porch. I was about to knock when the door flew open.
“Maggie?” Charlie stood there staring at me as if I were a ghost. He had grown a short beard since I had last seen him, and was wearing a pale blue polo shirt. He looked even better than he had before.
“Hi,” I said quietly.
Behind him, boxes were stacked throughout the house. “I was about to go out, and I saw you through the window,” he said. “I would say it was the bike that tipped me off, but I’d spot your face from across Times Square.”
Would he? In spite of all the cynical thoughts running through my mind, my heart began to swell.
“Sorry I didn’t call first,” I said. I had considered it, but I didn’t want to have a conversation with him, even a brief one, over the phone. My mother had always said an apology didn’t count unless you could see the other person’s face.
“That’s all right. I’m surprised to see you, though. It’s been two months.” He grimaced self-consciously. “Not that I’ve been counting.”
“I—” I started, just as he said, “We—”
“Go ahead,” he said to me as I said, “You first.”
We both laughed. Then I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left things the way I did. I was struggling over the situation with Adam, but that wasn’t an excuse for leaving you hanging like that.”
“I’m sorry, too,” he said, putting his hand on my arm. “I should have reached out to you—at least to check in, if not to tell you I missed you.”
“Why didn’t you then?” I asked.
His eyes locked with mine. “A proposal from your ex-husband isn’t exactly a small deal, and I didn’t want to run the risk of influencing your decision. I hoped I would hear from you sooner, and when I didn’t, I assumed you told Adam yes. But you’re here . . .” He grinned at me, all dimples. “So maybe I was wrong?”
Minutes ago my limbs had felt leaden. Now every one of my nerves was buzzing. “You were wrong. That part of my life is over.” I looked at him and laughed, even though I could feel tears pricking my lids, too.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m just . . .” I stammered, because I was not sure how to explain the joy I felt, having just realized that what I had mistaken for a tale as old as time was only a small part of a much longer story. “It’s really good to see you,” I said.
“And it’s even better to see you,” said Charlie, pulling me to him. Then he leaned forward and kissed me like he had been waiting months to do so. So I kissed him back to show him he hadn’t been the only one waiting.
“Maggie,” he said when we had parted, “it’s almost August. Isn’t your friend Jean coming home soon?”
I nodded. “Yes, tomorrow.”
“So where are you headed next?”
I looked at the road in front of his house, and up at the vast blue sky, and then back at Charlie. “I don’t actually know,” I said. “Do you want to come?”
He smiled. “Yes.”
What was I offering? I wondered as Charlie put his lips on mine again. I had no home, no actual destination in mind. And this man, who kissed me in a way that made me feel as alive as I ever had, might one day offer only the closed-lipped kiss of someone whose passion has gone missing.
But even if things with Charlie ended tomorrow, I would be glad that I had tried to find out what was possible for us. For today, I was just happy to be with him.
“Can I take you to dinner tonight?” he asked. “We’ve got a lot to discuss, and I have to tell you, I have seriously missed talking to you.”
“I missed talking to you, too,” I confessed. “And yes, dinner sounds lovely. But,” I said, pulling my damp t-shirt away from my skin, “I should probably head home and shower and change.”
“Why?” He grinned, sniffing me. “You smell good to me. Like a ripe peach.”
I grinned back. “Do you want to pick me up?”
“Six thirty?”
“Perfect.”
He looked at my bike, which I had left propped in the driveway. “It’s crazy hot out. Can I give you a ride back?”
I thought for a moment. “No, I’ll head back on my own.”
“Okay.” Charlie pulled me to him and wrapped me in his arms. “Maggie? I’m really glad you came over.”
“I am, too,” I said.
On the ride back, a deep sense of peace came over me. As I pedaled, the road before me faded and I was again with my mother. We were in her hospice room, and she wore a scarf on her head; her skin, which hung on her brittle frame, was almost gray. Though the doctor had not said as much, we knew these days were her last.
“Going to be soon,” she rasped.
“Oh, Ma,” I said, clutching her hands. “Are you afraid?”
“Course I am. Only a fool doesn’t fear death, and even then he’s a liar.”
“You can hold on.”
“Oh, love. No amount of holding’s going to keep things from changing.” Her voice was faint, her breath ragged as fluid pushed against her cancer-riddled lungs. The morphine helped her feel like she wasn’t suffocating, but it put her to sleep for long stretches of time, and she lo
athed using even the smallest amount. And yet I was selfish: I encouraged her to ease her pain, because I thought maybe this would keep her with me a little longer.
I blinked back my tears and entwined my fingers in hers. “How lucky we are,” I said, “to have had each other.”
She smiled at me the best she could. “How lucky to be able to say goodbye.”
“Not goodbye,” I insisted. “Not yet.”
I can’t remember if she nodded, or if I have since filled in that detail in my mind. “It’s just about time for me to go see what’s next,” she said. Then she unlatched her fingers and slowly placed her hand on top of my own—a gesture that reminded me that she was my mother, and on this matter, she knew best. “You’re my heart, Maggie. It’s been so very good, being with you.”
This would be the last thing she would say; she slipped out of consciousness that afternoon and, three days later, passed out of this world and into the next.
The warmth of the sun on my shoulders felt like my mother gazing down on me. I pushed into the pedals and lifted my face to the wind, thinking about the time I had been given. If I, too, had only fifty-four years on this planet, it would have been too short. And yet it would have been enough.
For now, I had the good fortune of more chances to fail and succeed, more love to give and receive—more life. And while I didn’t know what my future held, I would follow my mother’s lead. I would summon my strength and go find out what was next.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks first and foremost to Tiffany Yates Martin, whose brilliant editorial guidance helped transform a sketch of a story into a novel. Tiffany, I could not have written this without you.
Jodi Warshaw and Danielle Marshall, it’s such a pleasure to work with you both; thank you for bringing my fiction to readers. Thanks, too, to Gabriella Dumpit, Dennelle Catlett, and the rest of the Lake Union team.
Elisabeth Weed, I’m lucky to call you my agent.
Kathleen Carter Zrelak and Goldberg McDuffie, and Michelle Weiner and Creative Artists Agency, a million thanks for championing my work.
Shannon Callahan and Laurel Lambert, you’re my secret weapons in writing and life. Thanks for reading draft after draft and keeping me afloat.
I remain deeply grateful for the support I receive from my friends and family. Thank you to Julie Lawson Timmer and Dan Timmer, Stefanie and Craig Galban, Jennifer and Jeff Lamb, Joe Lambert, Anna and Vince Massey, Stevany and Tim Peters, Alex Ralph, Sara Reistad-Long, Nicole and Matt Sampson, Michelle and Mike Stone, Pam Sullivan, Janette Sunadhar, and Darci and Mike Swisher. Special thanks to Jennifer Lamb for answering my endless string of questions about social work.
JP, Indira, and Xavi Pagán, you give me a reason to write.
Lastly, thanks to my beloved grandmother, Patricia Pietrzak, who passed away before she was able to read this novel but who was with me for every page.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2017 by Myra Klarman
Camille Pagán is the author of four novels: Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties, Forever is the Worst Long Time, The Art of Forgetting, and the #1 Amazon Kindle bestseller Life and Other Near-Death Experiences, which was recently optioned for film. A journalist and former health editor, Pagán has written for Forbes; O, The Oprah Magazine; Parade; Real Simple; Time; WebMD; and many other publications and websites. She lives with her family in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Visit her at www.camillepagan.com.
Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties: A Novel Page 23