Maggie Moves On(99)

“We will talk about it.”

Maggie blew out a breath and tried not to think of all the uncomfortable conversations she had to look forward to. This was why she liked her life the way it had been. Simple. Quiet. No one demanding to talk to her all the time.



It was nice having the house full of women for a change, Maggie decided two glasses of wine later. Mama B had shown up with a Crock-Pot full of pierogies and immediately turned on some girl power music on her Bluetooth speaker. Blaire brought four bottles of wine and a huge tossed salad. Kayla and Niri brought margaritas and cookies, respectively.

The occasion felt both festive and solemn as Dayana walked them through the ending of what was supposed to be a fairy-tale life.

“It’s okay to want more for yourself,” Blaire said, scooping a piece of fresh bread through the olive dip.

Dayana glanced at Maggie. Neither of them had mentioned their family name or how one sister had grown up in luxury. “What if I’ve always had everything I could have ever wanted? Maybe this is the price I have to pay.”

“That’s bullshit, sweetheart,” Mama B announced. Her fiery, homegrown wisdom was the perfect complement to Blaire’s careful, clinical observations. “It doesn’t matter if you have a gold-plated toilet. It’s not wrong to want a faithful husband.”

“I think what the moms are saying,” Kayla said, “is that it doesn’t matter how much you have, if it’s not what you want. You can’t just decide to be happy with less than.”

The discussion moved on to divorces and attorneys and then what Dayana wanted next.

“I want to go back to work,” she confessed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. Keaton is the best thing to ever happen to me. Insert all the other things a modern mother is supposed to say about her child being the center of her universe. But dammit. It’s not enough for me. I don’t want a three-year-old to be my best friend. I don’t want to give up on a career I love just because a human fell out of my vagina.”

“Listen up, next generation,” Mama B said, pointing her wineglass at each of them in turn. “Babies do not complete you. Babies do not make you a fully realized woman. Neither does a man. That’s a truth we all have to learn the hard way.”

Maggie’s phone vibrated. It was a text from Dean. He’d sent a picture of Silas, hat on backward, watching the game while cradling the sleeping Keaton against his chest.

Dean: If I had ovaries they’d be exploding. Marry this man and have his beautiful babies.

Maggie felt something warm and weird swoop through her chest. She didn’t like it at all. She didn’t have a biological clock. She didn’t have a desire to settle down. She liked her life just the way it was.

“Uh-oh. That’s a baby-making look right there,” Niri said, pointing at Maggie. “I should know—I had one of those the week before Jeremiah knocked me up. He was playing hide-and-seek with his nieces and bam! Pregnant.”

“Who needs another drink?” Maggie asked, flipping her phone over. Every woman around the table raised her hand.



The men returned from the baseball game just as the women were getting ready to leave, which meant it was another hour of tours and small talk and nightcaps before everyone who didn’t live there was on the road and everyone who did live in the house was settled.

Maggie found Silas on the sunporch, waiting.

“Ready to do this?” he asked.

“I am if you are,” she said, bracing herself. He thought this was a conversation about her family baggage. But there was more to it. She wasn’t the marrying type. The packing-school-lunches type. The juggling-a-family-calendar type. She’d never even thought about it before. It was time Silas came to terms with that.

“Let’s walk,” she suggested, grabbing a flashlight from the chest of drawers she had found on a side street in Kinship and refinished with Cody.

The moon was high and bright in the night sky. Lights glowed from Cody’s and Dean’s windows on the second floor. She glanced up at the window to the secret room and thought about how much she’d rather be in there alone, sifting through someone else’s treasures. Then realized that wasn’t entirely true.

She’d laughed over delicious food and good drinks with smart women who talked about real things. And now she was taking a moonlit walk with a man who made her question everything she’d always wanted.

She took a breath and a leap. “My dad was married when he met my mother. They were both attending a conference and had a one-night stand. I was the unintended consequence of that night. She didn’t tell him about me. Times were tight. Mom was a single parent, and having me derailed her dreams of a high-powered career.”

They veered away from the cliff where she’d talked to Dayana today and instead headed in the direction of the barn. Tall green grass whispered in the night breeze.

“She was proud of doing it on her own. That meant crappy jobs and crappier apartments. We moved around a lot until I was twelve and she got a ‘real’ job. In an office with work in her field. Benefits. Vacation time. It was supposed to be a new beginning. We splurged and took our very first vacation. We came here,” Maggie said, stopping in the shadow of the old barn.

She shined her light over the ruin and imagined it as it could be. Silas was silent next to her, listening.