The Search for Maggie Ward

by Andrew M. Greeley

  “Furthermore, I refuse to believe that after a certain point, in the not too distant future, you cannot better fight the demons of your past with someone else’s intimate and loving help. Is that clear?”

  I removed my hand. She was a stove too. Sizzling hot despite the temperature of the room.

  “You really are writing, aren’t you?” She grinned wickedly. “Your speeches are much more literate than they were last summer.”

  “And you, young woman, are just what Sister Mary Regina said you are—a provoking little bitch!”

  She ducked away toward the end of the bed and then realized, with some disappointment perhaps, that I wasn’t going to seize her. “I bet she didn’t say ‘bitch’ … and, lest you really try to throw me over your knee and on Christmas Eve too, yes, I understand what you’re saying. So everything is clear between us.”

  “Clear, Maggie, but uneasy.”

  “Very uneasy.”

  “Two points before I let you get some sleep in your lonely bed.” I ticked it off on my finger: “What about your suicide? How come I knelt at your grave in San Diego last summer and pleaded with God to grant you in the next world the peace you did not find here?”

  “What?” She leapt out of the bed in terror. “My grave? I’m not dead, Jerry. Really I’m not. I mean I thought when the waves kept rolling me back to shore that I was dead and that God didn’t want me yet. Even in Tucson when I saw you, I still felt, well, kind of mostly dead. I was so depressed. My parents, little Andy, Andrew, they didn’t want me back at the hotel … I was worthless. So I tried to kill myself, and well”—she was pouring out the story now, perhaps with more emotion than even to Dr. Feurst.

  “Don’t you dare,” CIC repeated his warning, “or I’ll take the good conduct medal away.”

  “Well … I suppose I had a kind of nervous breakdown … ‘yah, a small, werra small psychotic interlude,’ Dr. Feurst calls it.… I was walking around in a daze”—she turned crimson—”until a very sweet boy …”

  “Young man. Packy is the boy.”

  “Young man … woke me up. I knew I was alive. And God had thrown me back from the waves not because He didn’t want me but because He did.”

  She was glowing now with happiness and hope. This is not going to be easy. “CIC, are you a seraph now?”

  What else?

  “Sergeant Wendel saw you walk into the water. He tried to swim out to save you. He couldn’t find you. The police and the Coast Guard searched in vain. Several weeks later a body washed up on the shore. The Weavers, brokenhearted and I suppose wanting a decent burial for you, were convinced it was your body. The chaplain from the Navy Yard said a few prayers at your grave. So did I.”

  “For some other woman”—hand on her face in horror. “Poor thing … why … but that’s not up to me to judge, is it? And all the time I was up at the Beverly Hills working as a hostess, until someone from San Diego remembered me from the picture in the papers when … when Andrew died and they had to let me go. Oh, what terrible things I’ve done! How can the Weavers ever forgive me.”

  “One phone call will do it and make their Christmas. Jean Kelly too.”

  “I can’t … I’m so ashamed …”

  “You were not yourself, and”—I was CAG One—”you will call them tomorrow, Maggie Ward, and that’s an order. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir, Commander, sir.” Her smile of adoration struck at the foundation of my resolutions.

  I rose from the chair. “They love you, Maggie Ward. They understand and they are eager to forgive.”

  “I’m being forgiven by everyone this night before Christmas Eve,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t deserve it.”

  “Probably not,” I agreed. “But that doesn’t make any difference. And by the way, it’s after midnight so it’s now officially Christmas Eve. Which reminds me, there is a condition for my forgiveness for the merry chase on which you led me.”

  “A condition?” She grinned at me warily.

  I strolled toward the door. Casual, relaxed, confident.

  “Yep.”

  “And that is?” She followed me, also casual—and cautious.

  “My second point, previously listed but not described.” I ticked my second finger. “You are to eat Christmas dinner with us tomorrow evening. Otherwise my brother, that terribly attractive boy, as you call him, will disown me for life.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.”

  “It’s an order.”

  “I said no and I mean no.”

  “I’ll come and take you by main force.”

  “I’m working in the morning.”

  I was standing in the corridor, my foot firmly in the doorway. “I can eavesdrop on phone calls as well as the next person. I followed you home from work tonight without you noticing me, didn’t I?”

  “Yes,” she admitted grudgingly.

  “Pack is a very strong boy. You won’t even make it to Bughouse Square before we kidnap you.”

  “You wouldn’t dare.”

  But she wasn’t sure.

  “We would.”

  “I’d love to come, Jerry.” She smiled sadly. “I’m afraid to, but I’ll come anyway.”

  The face lighted up in the Christmas-tree smile.

  “That was a quick change.”

  “I promised I’d stop lying. Besides,” she whispered, teasing a weak spot she’d found, “your brother is so cute.”

  “Provoking bitch. What time should I pick you up?”

  “I’m working. I’ll take the subway and the El.”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You won the big argument, can’t you let me win the small one?”

  “I don’t understand, but okay. Don’t try to run out on us.”

  “I keep my promises now, Jerry. At least I try. I’ll phone you when I leave work—I can get away by twelve—and if you want, you can meet me at the Merrion station.”

  “Go to Forest, the next stop, the end of the line.”

  “All right.”

  “Promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.” She crossed her heart. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

  I touched her lips very lightly. “Merry Christmas Eve, Maggie Ward.”

  “Same to you, Jerry Keenan. And a Happy New Year.”

  I paused. “About that I have not the slightest doubt.”

  I did.

  “Jerry,” she called after me as I walked down the first flight of steps. “One more thing.”

  I walked back up. “You want to be kissed again?”

  “No. I mean yes, but that’s not why I called you. There’s one more detail that you missed.”

  Were we going to talk about Clinton? I hoped not. That difficult conversation should wait till after the joys of Christmas.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s about the Beverly Hills. You see, the nice manager at the Del Coronado said he’d call, and then I tried to kill myself like a little fool.” She made an impatient face at her own stupidity, not ready to administer self-absolution yet. “So when I got out of the water and dried off, I got my suitcase out of the locker at the bus station and rode up to Los Angeles and they hired me anyway.”

  “I kind of assumed that.”

  “Well, as I said, they fired me when they found out about the charges against me in San Diego. The manager there liked me too … managers seem to like me.…”

  “Everyone does but your aunt and uncle and those ugly nuns and a girl named Maggie.”

  “So he recommended me for a job in Tucson.”

  “At the Arizona Inn.”

  She nodded miserably. “I wanted so much to spend a little bit of time with you that I lied horribly. I told myself that after you dropped me off in Phoenix I could take the bus back to Tucson. I’m so ashamed.”

  “And I’m inordinately flattered.” I cupped her chin in my hand and kissed her again, with a little more
insistence this time. “I don’t think a woman has ever wanted to spend any time with me, much less such a beautiful woman. Merry Christmas.”

  “If God forgives”—tears again—”as easily as you do …”

  “And a Happy New Year.” I closed the door firmly. “And a hundred more of them.”

  Not a bad beginning, I told myself, as I strode down Sheffield Avenue under the full moon. Not bad at all.

  But the horror was only chained, not destroyed.

  CHAPTER 37

  I WOULD HAVE SAID THAT MAGGIE WARD TOOK MY FAMILY like Grant took Richmond. But Grant took Richmond only after several years of combat and only with the help of Sherman’s armies coming up from the south. Maggie captivated my parents, brother, and sister instantly and without any help from me.

  I was willing to help; I wanted them to like her.

  She didn’t need my help. After a few moments she knew it and raised a supercilious eyebrow at me, so that I knew she knew that she could do without my assistance in winning over these easily won people.

  “Margaret Ward, this is my mother, Mary Anne Keenan.”

  “You have such a beautiful home, Mrs. Keenan, and an even more beautiful family to match it.”

  “My father, Thomas Keenan.”

  “My son tells me that you’re from Philadelphia, young woman, but that you’re still a Democrat.”

  “The Wards were voting Democratic, several times every election day, when the Keenans were living in trees.”

  Dad grinned happily. “I bet we vote more often than you do.”

  “My sister, Joanne.”

  “Your dress is lovely, Joanne.”

  “Uh, thanks … I like yours, too.”

  “And my brother Patrick, generally called Packy.”

  “Sancho!”

  “Dulci!” He lifted her off the ground, swung her around in space, and kissed her mightily.

  “Hey, she’s my girl.”

  A flight of daggers flashed at me from her eyes. She was no one’s girl.

  The hell she wasn’t.

  “I did bring you a present.” We had seated ourselves in the living room for a drink before dinner. Maggie had asked for a “small glass of sherry.”

  Not only modest in her green knit two-piece dress (which left no doubt about any of her curves) and witty and polite but also refined.

  “I bet it’s in that package.”

  “May I give it to him?” she asked my mother with great respect.

  “By all means, dear. I’m sure we’re all dying of curiosity.”

  I opened the package, with fingers that perhaps shook a little. It was a soft, hand-tooled Florentine-leather notebook binding, in elegant maroon, with a fountain pen and holder attached.

  How many cold nights in her flat had it cost?

  “Someone as important as a retired commander should have a proper notebook for his journal.”

  “What about a lowly law-school student?” I kissed her forehead. “Thanks, Maggie.”

  “A lowly law-school student who is practicing to be a great writer,” she said severely.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be a writer, dear.” My mother seemed surprised, but no more so than if I had announced that I was going to a Black Hawks game.

  “Time we have a writer in the family.” My father; like Packy, couldn’t take his eyes off my pretty friend.

  “Didn’t you buy her a present?” Joanne demanded with her usual subtlety.

  “Were you expecting a Christmas present, Maggie Ward?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” I feigned dismay.

  “Don’t tease her, darling.”

  “I don’t mind.” Maggie leaned back in her chair, completely confident.

  “Well, let’s see what we can find here behind the tree.” I rummaged around. “Do I have something left over? I wonder what’s in this box. Well, let’s take a chance. Do you want to open this one, Maggie?”

  I handed her a narrow, oblong box.

  “Beast.” She placed it on the arm of her chair.

  “Open it.”

  “Should I?”

  “Or we will,” Packy exclaimed. “Jer has never given a girl a Christmas present before.”

  “Well …” She clawed the wrappings off frantically. “I’m not very curious, am I? … Oh!”

  “What lovely pearls,” my mother said. “You have excellent taste after all, Jerry.”

  “Perfect for this particular girl,” my father agreed.

  “A double string,” a wide-eyed Joanne gasped. “They must be really expensive.”

  Patrick: “Put them on her, dummy.”

  So I removed the pearls from their cushioned box and, with as much ceremony as if I were crowning a queen, draped them around Maggie’s lovely neck. She sat passively, hands folded, without words for the first time since I’d known her.

  The pearls were too much. She shouldn’t take them.

  But she wasn’t going to refuse them either. “They’re beautiful, Jerry.” She kissed my cheek. “Thank you very much.… And, Tom, may I have another tiny sip of sherry.”

  Even before we began to eat the turkey it was clear that Maggie was not a quiet waif whom we had invited out of the abundance of our compassion to share Christmas dinner with us. She was rather an intelligent little imp who could not be restrained from being the life of the party.

  It was all an act, a brilliant performance by a skillful actress. In fact, she was a wounded and troubled young woman, fighting desperately to stay alive. But stubborn, strong-willed, proud girl child that she was, she would prove to the Keenans that she was as poised as they were and maybe a little more so. It required enormous effort and afterward she would suffer from emotional exhaustion. She’d probably cry all the way home.

  All right, if that was the price, she’d pay it.

  Dear God, how much I loved her courage.

  Mom quickly became “Mary Anne.” As in, “Mary Anne, what beautiful china!”

  “Where did you go to college?” Joanne blurted out at the dinner table after grace.

  “I’m taking classes at the YMCA College between dinner and supper,” she replied calmly. “I work at the Lantern Room at the Drake and I just walk over there. I think next year some of the faculty will start a new university. They might call it Roosevelt. So it will have to be good, won’t it, Tom?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “A waitress?” Joanne’s lip curled in disbelief.

  Packy’s expression said that he wanted to strangle her, which was exactly how I felt.

  “I think I’ll be able to make up my high school work by summer”—Maggie speared a piece of white meat—”and be eligible for a scholarship.”

  “You didn’t graduate from high school?”

  My mother, who usually pretended that Joanne’s crudities didn’t exist, stirred uneasily.

  “I was married in my junior year and went to San Diego with my husband.”

  If you promise that you’re returning to your habit of telling the truth and you are Maggie Ward, you tell the truth.

  “You’re married!”

  Calmly Maggie scooped up a chunk of dressing. She knew that such questions would arise and was prepared for them. “He died in an accident while he was in the Navy.”

  Ah, but you don’t tell any more of the truth than you have to tell. My heart melted with sympathy for her pain.

  But the questions had to be answered eventually.

  “Thank God you didn’t have any children!”

  “My baby daughter died in her crib.” Maggie put down her fork. “The doctors said she was born with something wrong in her breathing.”

  “You poor kid.” Joanne reached out and held Maggie’s hand. “You’re really wonderful!”

  Packy rolled his eyes. For once the middle child had done something right.

  “Thanks, Joanne.” Maggie gripped her hand in return. “So are you,” she choked, “all of you.”

  “A toast.” My fathe
r raised his glass of white Chablis. “To Margaret Ward, a young woman from Philadelphia, but still a Democrat, who brought us much extra merriment on this merry Christmas. May we see her on many more Christmases yet to come.”

  “Hear! Hear!”

  Maggie lifted her glass in return, the fingers of her other hand unconsciously on her new necklace.

  “Thanks to all the Keenans,” she replied, eyes glistening, “for sharing a merry Christmas with me.”

  The dinner continued cheerfully, the major crisis surmounted. Maggie, the ingenious little witch, had turned a liability into a powerful asset. If I didn’t capture her for all future Christmases I’d be in enormous trouble with my family.

  She wanted to be captured, but was afraid of captivity. Understandably. All the close relationships in her life had been mangled. Every happiness had been snatched from her grasp. She was wise to proceed cautiously. Perhaps I ought to have a word with her doctor to make sure that I did not stand in the way of rapid progress to self-confidence.

  “Jean Marie Kelly says hello,” she said, smiling triumphantly at me during a lull in the conversation. “Ralph Nolan gave her a ring at midnight Mass. Astonished her completely.”

  “She took it, I hope.”

  “Snatched her hand away so he couldn’t change his mind.”

  “Jean Marie Kelly?” My mother treated every new name as if it might be a club member from Butterfield whom she ought to know and didn’t.

  “A friend of mine Jerry met last summer.”

  “Jerry is resisting the marriage craze of the moment,” my father observed, tilting the wine bottle in her direction.

  “I can’t say that I blame him,” she said, offering her glass for more wine. “Though he is getting a bit long in the tooth, isn’t he?”

  “How old are you, dear?” Mom needed all the demographic details. “Twenty-one?”

  “Nineteen in March, Mary Anne.” If you are committed to the truth, you are committed to the truth. “I just look older.”

  “Younger,” Packy insisted. “Child.”

  “Your parents?” Mom wanted to fill out all the details.

  “Mom died of TB when I was five. Dad was a lawyer like you, Tom. He sort of disappeared into the Great Depression.”

  “Dead?”

  She hesitated. “I’m not sure. Deep down inside me I hope he’s alive. But maybe I’m only fooling myself.”