The Wish(76)
Because, Maggie silently acknowledged, her mom made it hard, and she’d done so for as long as Maggie could remember. To her, Maggie was more of a shadow than a real person, someone whose hopes and dreams felt incomprehensibly alien. Even if they shared the same opinion on a particular subject, her mom wasn’t likely to find comfort in such a thing. Instead she’d focus her attention on a related area of disagreement, with worry and disapproval as her primary weapons.
Maggie knew her mom couldn’t help it; she’d probably been the same way as a child. And it was childlike in a way, now that Maggie thought about it. Do what I want, or else. For Maggie’s mom, tantrums were sublimated into other, more insidious means of control.
The years after returning from Ocracoke, before she’d moved to New York, had been particularly trying. Her mom had believed that pursuing a career in photography was both silly and risky, that Maggie should have followed Morgan to Gonzaga, that she should try to meet the right kind of man and settle down. When Maggie had finally moved away, she’d dreaded speaking to her mom at all.
The sad thing was that her mom wasn’t a terrible person. She wasn’t necessarily even a bad mom. Thinking back, she’d made the right decision to send Maggie to Ocracoke, and she wasn’t the only parent who cared about grades, or worried that her daughter was dating the wrong kind of guys, or believed that marriage and having children were more important than a career. And, of course, some of her other values had stuck with Maggie. Like her parents, Maggie drank infrequently, avoided recreational drugs, paid her bills, valued honesty, and was law-abiding. She didn’t, however, attend church any longer; that had ended in her early twenties when she’d had a crisis of faith. Well, a crisis of pretty much everything, in fact, which led to her spontaneous move to New York and a series of awful relationships, assuming they could be called relationships at all.
As for her dad…
Maggie sometimes wondered whether she had ever really known him. If pressed, she would say that he was a product of another era, a time when men worked and provided for their family and went to church and understood that complaining seldom offered solutions. His general quietude, however, had given way to something else since he’d retired, a near reticence to speak at all. He spent hours alone in the garage even when Maggie visited, and was content to let his wife speak for him during dinners.
But the call was completed, at least until Christmas, and it made her realize how much she was dreading the next one. No doubt, her mom would demand that Maggie return to Seattle, and she’d use every guilt-based weapon at her disposal to try to get her way. It wasn’t going to be pretty.
Pushing that thought away, she tried to focus on the present. She noted that the pain was getting worse and wondered whether she should text Mark and cancel. With a grimace, she made her way to the bathroom and retrieved the bottle of pain pills, remembering Dr. Brodigan telling her that they were addictive if used inappropriately. What a silly thing to say. What did it really matter if Maggie became addicted at this point? And how much was inappropriate? Her insides felt like a pincushion and even touching the back of her hand triggered little flashes of white in the corners of Maggie’s eyes.
She swallowed two pills, debated, and then took a third, just in case. She decided to see how she felt in half an hour before making a final decision about today and went to sit on the couch while they took effect. Though she’d wondered whether the pills would work as usual, like magic, the pain began to fade. When it was finally time to go, she was floating on a wave of well-being and optimism. She could always watch Mark skate, if it came down to it, and it was probably a good idea to get some fresh air, wasn’t it?
She caught a cab to the gallery and spotted Mark standing outside the doors. He was holding a to-go cup, no doubt her favorite smoothie, and when he saw her, he hailed her with a wide grin. Despite her condition, she was certain she’d made the right call.
*
“Do you think we’ll be able to skate?” Maggie asked when they arrived at Rockefeller Center and saw the crowds overflowing the rink. “I didn’t even consider the idea we might need reservations.”
“I called this morning,” Mark assured her. “It’s all set up.”
Mark found a place for her to sit while he went to wait in line and Maggie sipped her smoothie, thinking the third pill had done the trick. She felt a bit loopy but not as ebullient as earlier; in any case, the pain had diminished to an almost tolerable level. Moreover, she actually felt warm for the first time in what seemed like forever. Though she could see her breath, she wasn’t shivering and her fingers didn’t ache, for a change.
The smoothie was going down easily as well, which was a relief. She knew she needed every calorie, and wasn’t that ironic? After a lifetime of watching what she ate and groaning every time the scale ticked a pound upward, now that she actually needed calories, they were almost impossible to ingest. Lately, she was afraid to get on the scale because she was terrified to see how much weight she’d lost. Beneath her clothes, she was turning into a skeleton.
But enough of the doom and gloom. Mesmerized by the mass of moving bodies on the ice, she only vaguely heard her phone ding. Reaching into her pocket, she saw that Mark had texted, saying that he was on his way back so he could escort her to the rink and help her with her skates.
In the past, his offer of assistance would have humiliated her. But the fact was, she doubted she’d be able to put on the skates without his help. When he reached her, he offered his arm and the two of them walked slowly down the steps to the changing area, where they’d don their skates.