by Shealy James
Eliza’s smile was gone now. “He never had the chance. Mary Leigh went into pre-term labor. She had to have an emergency C-section. She started to hemorrhage, and her heart stopped. They couldn’t revive her.” She pulled out the autopsy report. “Jim insisted they find out what was wrong with her, so they conducted the autopsy.”
“That’s terrible. Maggie was ok?”
“She had to go to the NICU, but yeah, she was ok. Jim was a mess though, and I understood. I know what it feels like to lose the person you love so much. Once he laid eyes on Maggie though, it was like an ounce of strength returned.”
“I can imagine. She’s been his girl all along.”
She pulled out some pictures of Maggie as a baby. “She looked just like her mother. When he held her for the first time, she made a humming noise and grasped his finger like her life depended on it. It was like they agreed to take care of each other in that first moment of bonding.”
“How did Karen come back in the picture?”
Eliza exhaled a deep breath. “Well, this is where things get complicated. He wanted his daughter to have a woman in her life. At first we agreed to raise Maggie together, but he was worried about the twins feeling like they were left behind. Karen caught wind of everything that had been going on and provided him an out. If he agreed to stay married to her, she would raise Maggie as her own.”
“That sounds like a terrible agreement.”
“The other part of the agreement was that I live here and get a say in anything related to Maggie.”
“Did you?”
“In the beginning I did. I took care of her most of the time as a baby, but as she grew older, Karen kept me busier and busier. I missed a lot of what she was doing to her. I didn’t know how bad it had gotten. I still think Karen would say horrible things about Maggie during Junior League meetings, which caused some of the torture Maggie had to go through at school. None of it was true of course, but Karen was always so jealous of Maggie because Jim truly loved her and her mother.”
I shook my head. “This all makes so much sense now.”
“I know. I pleaded with Jim to tell Maggie the truth all of her life, but it wasn’t my place to do any of the telling. Jim always thought she would be happier not knowing. Karen just lost herself when Jim had his heart attack and was asking for Maggie when he thought he wasn’t going to make it.”
“What? I didn’t know about that. I don’t think Maggie did either.”
“Oh yeah. Why do you think Karen wouldn’t let Maggie stay here?”
“Because she’s a bitch.”
Eliza’s lips lifted slightly in a smile. “You won’t hear argument from me on that, but the real reason was that Jim was calling for her while gasping for what he thought were his last breaths.”
“Eliza, I must say, you really are a source of helpful Miller information.”
“I’ve been around a long time, Max.” She smiled warmly at me, the same way she did when we raved about her cooking or told her how wonderful she was.
“Thank god for that. Can you imagine how Maggie would have turned out had she not had you in her life?”
She smiled and countered, “Can you imagine if she hadn’t had you? Even with all of this craziness she’s a lucky girl to have a friend like you, Maxwell.”
Chapter 16
Maggie
I kind of wished I smoked, so I would have something to do with my hands. Instead of lighting up, I kept popping my fingers until they ached. I was sitting on the front porch in the cold when Daddy showed up. I had never seen my dad afraid before, but these were unchartered waters for him. For the first time in my life, he wasn’t in control.
Instead of letting him stand there, I walked over and hugged him. He pulled me tightly in his arms and held me while I sobbed. When I pulled away I saw tears on his cheeks. Daddy was crying too. I had never seen my dad get emotional over anything, not even at his dad’s funeral when I was a kid.
We sat down in the family room together, and Daddy started our talk by apologizing for keeping the truth from me. “We discussed it at length before bringing you home when you were a baby. I didn’t know the right way to handle it. Had I been able to predict something like this would happen, I would have taken a different course. I never wanted you to find out like this,” Daddy explained.
Daddy looked right at me when he spoke this time. “When you were a baby, you called Karen ‘Mama.’ It seemed wrong to stop you. She was all you knew. Then we never found the right time to tell you the truth. Maggie, I didn’t know how bad Karen had gotten with you. I probably should have been paying better attention, but I trusted her. She agreed to raise you as her own, and I knew how much she loved the twins. God, that woman would step in front of a moving train for them, but for you, she…I don’t even know…”
“I know, Daddy. I should have stood up for myself a long time ago. Max and Parker tell me that all the time.”
He smiled at the mention of my protective best friend and my over protective boyfriend. “You have good friends, kid. I’m happy for you. All I ever wanted for you was to have everything you ever wanted. I wanted you to love someone like I loved Mary Leigh. I think you found that with Parker.”
I frowned thinking about Parker. I wasn’t so sure Parker and I had found anything but heartbreak together. I wasn’t strong enough to hold onto to him. He was a force, and I was the friction that held him back.
I shook my head, ridding Parker from my thoughts. I had other worries right then.
“Tell me about her.”
Daddy smiled and told me how similar I was to her, and how she wanted me so badly when she found out she was pregnant. Apparently my mother loved to read and wanted to be a writer. My dad won her over by taking her to the ballet and to the theater. She had told him any man willing to do that must really love her, and he promised her he did. She loved his boat, and they spent a lot of time with Sam and Eliza on the water. He showed me the rest of the pictures in the box as well as some others Eliza had sent with him. She was everything he said she was: beautiful, happy…gone.
I wished I had known her, but seeing her through Daddy eyes almost made up for the fact that I didn’t. He spoke like she just passed yesterday, not twenty something years ago. Daddy’s eyes glistened with tears, but as he spoke, love poured out of him. It was no wonder he had always loved me like he did. He saw her in me. I was all he had left of his soul mate.
After talking for hours, we ordered dinner. Sitting at the kitchen table eating our favorite Greek pizza and salad, we talked about what was going to happen next. Daddy had already decided this was the last straw with Karen. He said there was no reason to stay married now that we were all grown up anyway.
“Is that what you want, Daddy? Do you want a divorce?”
“The woman I loved died a long time ago, Mags. Karen hasn’t been the woman I married since the twins were born. The way she treated you is completely unacceptable, and I won’t have her in your life any longer.”
“Then why did you stay married this long?” I asked.
“For you girls. I thought it would be better for you three. I knew I would never find another Mary Leigh, and every now and then Karen would act like the friendly girl I met in college. Turns out she can be quite the actress though.”
“Do Catherine and Carolyn know? Have they known all along?”
“Yes and no. I found out this morning that your mother told them just after my heart attack. Carolyn told me how Karen was really awful to you at the hospital.” Daddy rubbed his face in frustration.
“You couldn’t have known. She only did it when you weren’t around, and I was too afraid to say anything.”
“What were you afraid of, Kid?”
“Losing you.”
He grabbed my hand. “Oh darlin,’ you should know that would never happen.”
“I do now, Daddy.” He smiled at me when I squeezed his hand.
“So, what’s next for you, kid? You have to do some adjusting
now that you know all of this.”
I nodded. “I need to do some adjusting anyway,” I told him as I thought about Parker and Max both moving on with life. Thinking of Parker only made my heart hurt. Now I knew Daddy had experienced love like I thought I had, I wanted to know more. “How’d you know my mother was the one?”
“She just was, kid. I don’t know if I can explain it. How would you explain how you feel about Parker to your children?”
Tears burned my eyes even though I was sure there weren’t any left. “I don’t know if Parker and I are going to make it. Our lives…we just don’t…I don’t know if he’s the one anymore. I love him, but I think I hold him back.”
“Oh, Maggie…” he frowned at me.
“Things haven’t been great since we started law school. It isn’t him though. I’ve been blaming him, but it’s me. I’m lost. I need people to tell me what I’m doing or else I feel completely out of control.”
“You don’t need anyone to tell you anything, kid. You only think you do. Look at everything you have accomplished. You graduated college and got yourself into law school. You made wonderful friends and found a man who undoubtedly loves you like you should be loved. Not everything is going to be sunshine and roses. You two are young and are going to experience hard times.”
“How do you know?” I asked pitifully.
He set down his glass of water and looked straight ahead. “She made me feel,” he said then looked over at me. “When we were apart, I merely existed. I did what my father expected of me and ran my business. I did what Karen expected of me with the twins. I fulfilled every responsibility I had. Had I never met Mary Leigh, it may have been enough to live like that, but I met her. She was different. The girls I knew were calculated. They went to college to meet their husbands, but not Mary Leigh.”
He paused for a moment and swallowed hard before speaking again. “She loved everything she tried. If she didn’t like it, she didn’t do it, and boy, she’d let you know. She would try anything once and lived for adventure, but she could just as easily lie in a field and stare at the sky. The thing that really hooked me though was the way she loved. She found a stray dog once. It was dying when she found it. I remember her making me take her to the emergency vet and hold her while she cried. She had known the dog a matter of hours, but you would have thought she had loved that dog for years.”
Daddy chuckled. “She named him Bingo. You know, Bingo was his name-o,” he sang remembering my mother fondly.
“When she found out she was pregnant, she was never scared. Even though I’d made promises to her I had yet to fulfill, she was sure you were a good thing. She believed in me even though I had let her down.”
Daddy’s love for my mother was undeniable. It wasn’t her memory he loved either. He still loved the woman who had stolen his heart so many years ago.
“I want to know her, Daddy. I want to know where I come from.”
He looked at me for a moment. I noticed his eyes were surrounded with more wrinkles, but somehow they seemed lighter. A slight smile graced his lips before he reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. He carefully pulled two keys off his key ring and laid them on the table.
He pushed them towards me and said, “These belong to you. I kept her house. A housekeeper has been keeping it up monthly, but it’s yours.”
“Where is it?” I asked.
“Across the street from the beach house.”
I gasped in surprise. All these years I had been so close to the truth.
“I needed to be close, but no one could know. I couldn’t risk Karen taking that away from me.”
“Daddy…” I whispered.
“Go, Maggie. Take some time and get to know your mom. Figure out where you come from and who you are. Take a break from Parker and even Max if you need to, but come back to them. They love you. We all do, but you need to find some peace with all of this.”
I nodded knowing I was going to take him up on his offer of exploring the history that should have shaped me.
Chapter 17
Parker
I sat at the bar while Grady and Billy picked up their entertainment for the night. Nick was in his hotel room talking to his wife. I would be in mine talking to Maggie if I could, but she wasn’t speaking to anyone. I didn’t know where she was, so I couldn’t go find her like I wanted. Just as I had been about to leave for the airport, Max had called and told me Maggie was gone. Jim had called and asked him to check on the house. Of course I was less worried about the house and more concerned about the fact my girlfriend wasn’t telling me she was leaving, where she was going, or when she was coming back. In a way I felt like I deserved it. Our relationship hadn’t exactly been solid, and I felt responsible.
I had been sitting in the bar ever since. Drink after drink I watched as Grady and Billy enjoyed themselves. Girls approached me, but they quickly retreated when they saw I wouldn’t engage. I was only thinking about one girl, the one girl I couldn’t talk to at the moment.
My phone buzzed, and I was hoping it was Maggie calling, but it was just alerting me to an email. I ignored it and slid my phone back into my pocket. It was probably some bullshit about school considering I hadn’t paid my tuition for the upcoming semester. I wasn’t sure if I was going back, especially now that Maggie was gone. I wondered if she planned to take a semester off or if she was quitting. Maybe she would only be gone a week or two and make it back in time for classes to start. It made me crazy that I didn’t know. The only consolation I had was that Max didn’t know anymore than I did. For the first time ever she left us both in the dark.
After a few more beers and a set of twins trying to rub their plastic bodies on me, I was done. I gave Grady and Billy nods to let them know I was leaving, and all I received back were lust-filled grins indicating their plans for the night. I shook my head as I dragged myself onto the elevator and found my way to my empty hotel room.
Sleep eluded me, so I propped myself up with my guitar in my lap and strummed whatever random tunes my fingers picked out. Now that I wasn’t headed home to take care of Maggie, we could record as scheduled, but it wasn’t those songs I played. I played notes of sadness and loss. That’s what I had done: I had lost her.
The banging on the door woke me up from my dreamless sleep the next morning. My guitar was still in my lap, and I was still sitting up against the cushioned headboard. My head pounded, and I desperately needed water and coffee, but one look at the clock told me it was the guys banging on the door to tell me I was late. I opened the door to find Nick drinking coffee looking like he had a full eight hours whereas Grady and Billy looked tired but perfectly relaxed. Apparently they’d both had good nights.
“Dude, you look like shit,” Nick announced.
I nodded. “Yeah. Feel like it too,” I responded as I walked back into the room leaving the door open.”
“You know the car is waiting?” Billy asked. “You’re never late.”
“Yeah. Give me five minutes,” I told them as I closed the bathroom door behind me. I felt the weight of Grady’s stare as I walked around the room. He knew I was supposed to leave last night, and he knew I didn’t. We just hadn’t talked about it. I didn’t want to talk about it.
I showered and threw on clothes, not bothering to shave or make any special efforts to look like anything but the train wreck I was feeling.
Grady eyed me all the way to the studio, so it didn’t surprise me that he pulled me to the side when we stepped out of the SUV and asked me what was up.
“Maggie left.” That was all I could say.
“What do you mean she left?”
“I mean she packed a bag, got in her car, and drove away.”
“Where did she go?”
I shrugged. “Don’t know and her dad’s not telling.”
“How long?” He asked the same things I was wondering.
I kept my eyes on the ground and shook my head. Grady didn’t need to see my face to know that my hangover, lack o
f sleep, and fear that I had lost Maggie was killing me. “Don’t know.”
“Sorry, man.”
“Yeah,” I nodded in return. Moving my head was easier than speaking.
“You gonna be able to play today. We can’t afford to be off.”
This time I raised my head and glared at him. “Grady, I wouldn’t be in this shit storm had I not left her to do this with you, so don’t question my commitment to you or this band.” I stormed into the elevator where the other guys were waiting to go up to the studio. Grady left the conversation alone.
We recorded all morning and the suits brought over lunch and listened to what we had put together. While they talked with the guys and critiqued our lyrics and sound with a level of positivity that invigorated the rest of the band, I sat in the background and finally checked my email. I was right; the school had emailed about tuition. That wasn’t what stole my attention though. It was the email from Maggie that had me walking out of the studio in search of somewhere private to read it.
“Parker?” Nick called when I jumped up.
I heard Grady say, “Give him a few minutes,” as I headed out the door and down to the courtyard in between the large concrete buildings.
Finally, when I was in a secluded spot on an uncomfortable bench, I opened her words to me.
Parker,
I don’t even know where to begin. I guess I should apologize for sending you an email instead of talking to you. This isn’t a “Dear John” letter. It is just a way for me to tell you everything without you fixing anything because that’s what you do. You make everything better. Unfortunately, I need to do this one on my own.
For the longest time I felt I didn’t fit in anywhere. Home, school, soccer…I was the outsider, the black sheep. I only had Max and Daddy for most of my life. Then I met you and Sarah and Becca, and we became something more than friends. I felt safe and connected, but life goes on and people move on to bigger and better things. I have never felt as lost as I did this year without those connections I had built with our friends. You couldn’t rescue me this time.