Halfway to You(4)

A moment passes. Two. Ten. Silence fills the small porch space. Maggie’s breath clouds around her face, and she folds her arms, shivering. Her phone buzzes in her purse, but she ignores it. She’s considering sitting on the steps and waiting—however long it takes—when Ann’s shape darkens one of the stained glass sidelight windows framing the door.

The knob turns.

“Why?” Ann asks.

Maggie’s heart is suddenly in her throat. “Why . . . what?”

“Why do you think we were meant to talk?”

Maggie shifts her feet. She can’t explain to Ann the ineffable soul urge inside her, telling her this interview was meant to happen. If she did, she’d sound like a crazy person.

“Because . . .” Maggie trails off.

When she first mentioned to Grant that her relation to Keith might help her connect with Ann, she promised herself that she wouldn’t actually use it. It might’ve tipped Grant’s scales, but knowing that she hadn’t gotten this interview on merit alone had stung. She wanted to give herself a chance to prove her worth without the help of her relation, so she ultimately hadn’t told Ann about it.

But now, standing in the cold on Ann’s porch, Maggie knows Keith might be her only hope.

Ann tightens her shawl across her chest, crossing her arms against the chill. Slowly, she repeats, “Why do you think we were meant to talk?”

Maggie swallows audibly and forces herself to look—for the first time—straight into Ann’s rum-gold eyes. “Because Keith Whitaker was my uncle. And I think he would’ve wanted us to talk.”





MAGGIE


San Juan Island, Washington State, USA

Saturday, January 6, 2024

“Keith changes everything,” Ann says, leading Maggie back into the living room.

Floor-to-ceiling windows form a wide crescent, exposing them to the blinding glare off the ocean beyond Ann’s clifftop home. A philodendron hangs from one of the wood beams of the vaulted ceiling, a lush and tangled thing that reminds Maggie of Ann for a reason she can’t quite name.

Clutching her notebook and purse, Maggie loiters by the gray-blue sectional.

“Tea?”

“Yes, please.”

Ann floats into the conjoined kitchen. Beyond the windows, the soft brushstroke reflections of pine trees paint the ocean forest green. Above, seagulls tumble in the salt-white sky. Ann’s shift in demeanor—from closed off to at ease—is as confounding as the pirouetting birds.

Ann returns with a tea tray, leading Maggie to a pair of cobalt wingback reading chairs opposite the kitchen. “My favorite seats in the house,” Ann says, adding, “No recorder.”

Maggie hesitates, then drops the gadget into her purse on the floor. She isn’t in a position to argue, but the recorder’s absence makes her fidget. She wipes her damp palms over the tops of her thighs, then crosses her legs and clasps her hands.

Ann smiles, pouring Maggie a cup of clove-colored tea from a floral pot. “Cream?”

“Please.”

“Sugar?”

Maggie nods, watching Ann use a tiny pair of tongs to drop a cube into her cup.

Once the tea is prepared, she hands Maggie the matching cup and saucer and prepares her own in the same methodical fashion. If Ann is stalling, Maggie doesn’t mind. She takes a long sip—it’s chai, her favorite—and she’s grateful as the spicy-creamy sweetness eases the corded muscles on either side of her spine.

Ann watches her with those gold, cunning eyes. With the sunlight streaming in, they appear almost amber. Maggie has seen plenty of photos of Ann from her younger days. She used to have copper-brown hair, but now that she’s in her sixties, her hair is silver, a stunning moonglow. Wrinkles streaking out from her eyes and along her freckle-dusted cheeks suggest a wisdom that is beautiful and epic and storied. What makes Ann smile? What makes her squint in anger or appreciation? Maggie wants to know the influence of each one of those creases.

Ann leans back, settling into the wings of her chair. “So, you’re a Whitaker.”

Deep breath. “I didn’t want my relation to Keith to sway you into doing this podcast.”

“But you do now?”

“I . . .” Maggie trails off, diaphragm fluttering.

“That was a rude question,” Ann admits. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“Th . . . thanks.” Where is this conversation headed? Without her recorder listening, it could go anywhere.

Ann folds her arms loosely. “I sort of lost track of all the nieces and nephews. Who’s your relation?”

“Tracey and Bob.”

Ann dunks a gingersnap in her tea, keeping eye contact as she bites down. The action is casual but seems calculatedly so. “Biological?”

Maggie flinches, a pinprick. The Whitakers have a trove of buried pain and secrets. As Keith’s longtime client and friend, how many of those secrets was Ann privy to, before she and Keith grew apart?

Be careful, Tracey said.

“I’m sorry,” Ann says, waving a hand through the air as if to erase the question. “I know they struggled with infertility, that’s all.”

Maggie shrugs it off, but in truth, she wouldn’t know how to answer.

Her parentage is a question she’s faced all her life: alone as a confused child, silently as an angry teen, and with resignation as an adult. It started when she was in elementary school. One night, she overheard her parents arguing. In fleece-footed pajamas, Maggie had padded halfway down the stairs, only to pause when she heard her name. “I refuse to allow Maggie’s father to interfere,” Tracey had said to Bob. Even as a child, Maggie’s mind had snagged on the phrasing. Maggie’s father.