The sound of silverware tapping against glass curved her lips, and the little she-devil winked at me as her father’s voice boomed amongst the packed dining room.
“Ladies and gentlemen, if you would give me just a brief moment of your time.” All chatter around us stopped as everyone gave Lyle Kennedy their full attention. “It is my great honor to announce to you that Phillip Warrington will be joining my company in four years’ time.” A smattering of clapping broke out as heads turned my way, before Lyle pulled their attention back to him as he continued, “Along with that, his mother and I have been in talks of the wedding of the century. After college of course,” he boasted, making everyone around me laugh as my ears rang with his death knell announcement.
Faces slid past me in a funhouse mirror sort of way. I stood, ready to bolt to the nearest exit, as Mother slid up next to me, wrapping her hand around my arm.
She leaned in, as if bussing my cheek in endearment, and said, “I’ve snagged you an heiress and you damn well better put a smile on your face. Or else.”
I felt the floor tilt and shift under me. Plates crashed around me as Sophia screamed from somewhere above me. Air whooshed out of my lungs as if shot from a cannon, and I closed my eyes against the world. My world.
I didn’t want to see it anymore.
I ALMOST SAVED A BIRD once.
It was a small Piper Plover, plump and as round as round can be, just pecking along the sandy shores of the beach in search for worms. I remembered hiding behind the tall grass swaying in the breeze under the setting sun, watching as it limped along the sand.
Its leg was injured, but even so, it continued to do what had been ingrained in it since birth. A large part of me wanted to catch that little bird, just so I could help it mend, but my father had always told me never to mess with natural order. God intended for things to happen the way they were meant to.
I wasn’t sure how long I had laid there, watching that bird as the sun kissed the shoreline and my father called out my name to return home, but when I did, I remembered passing a couple vultures resting on a branch nearby. I shooed them away, feeling an awful feeling in my stomach for leaving that small bird behind, but I was sure it would be fine.
It wasn’t until I found those vultures near the grassy area where I had lain the day before, pecking at something I knew I couldn’t bear to see, that I knew I had made a grave mistake.
I hated that the story came to mind the moment Hannah spilled the beans about Phillip’s life-altering moment during dinner the night before.
“I mean, you really should have seen it, Maggs,” Hannah went on, helping me pack up the extra bingo cards and colored daubers from that morning’s bingo activity. “Your boy straight up face-planted when Mr. Kennedy announced that Phillip would not only be joining his bagillion-dollar company, but was also practically being promised to his whore of a daughter.”
My stomach felt full of tumbling rocks.
I felt her watching me as I took in a deep breath and tried to redress the features on my face back into something not so sad and pathetic. Clearly, he was never going to be with me. I knew that already.
So why did it hurt so much?
“Maggs?”
“I’m sure it was a fiasco,” I hurriedly commented, knocking over the daubers I had reached for. My hands were shaking. I cursed under my breath, squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to take in a calming breath.
Hannah looked up at me. “Oh no.”
“What?” I said, forcing my hands to steady so I could get a good hold on the daubers.
“You like him, don’t you?” she asked, dropping her box and walking around the table to me. She didn’t even let me answer as her eyes probed over me like an x-ray machine. “Your cheeks look as red as fire engines.”
I reflexively touched them, alarmed that my feelings were that obvious. “No, they don’t.”
She laughed. “They do. They totally do.”
I rolled my eyes. Huffed out in frustration. The truth was lodged so deep in my throat, adhered by all the feelings I hadn’t yet placed with Phillip. All the could bes and should bes and would have beens that hadn’t yet happened. That hadn’t been given a fair chance to happen.
“Maggs?” Hannah said, worry staining her voice.
I didn’t know why I was having such a hard time with it.
Yes, I did.
I knew exactly why because, when I closed my eyes, I felt the way his hands fit as if they were carved just for mine. The way his eyes took in every part of me wholly and absolutely, and with so much excitement and wonder.
Because, when you finally found that someone you could share the very same lens you viewed the world through, and experience all the newness all over again, wasn’t that the best feeling? A feeling worth fighting for?
Watching them fall in love with the world? Seeing them finding the real truth to life? Witnessing another living, breathing human being becoming exactly who they were meant to be?
It was magical. Revitalizing. Beautiful
And I thought Phillip could be that one for me.
But I knew better. The Kennedys weren’t a name you could walk away from, and there wasn’t enough time for Phillip and me to discover all that I could show him.
Was there?
“Couldn’t it just be that I think he’s a great guy who doesn’t deserve the life he’s being shoved into?” I closed my eyes, thinking of the way he looked at me on the docks the other day. Thinking of how close we’d grown these past two weeks, and about how he was the first person I thought of when I awoke, and the last when I went to sleep.
Thinking of that poor little bird I maybe could have helped.
I felt catatonic.
“He has a choice, you know,” Hannah said, resting her hand on my arm. “This isn’t some country where we’re forced into lives we don’t want. We all have a choice.”
“Do we?” I asked, looking up at her. We all knew how society moved. The way people traded one thing for another. Happiness for success. Morals for attention. Love for advancement.
I never wanted to be like that. Never wanted to land in a world where love was kept on the sidelines and respect was a vintage style we sometimes dressed up in for dinner parties and job interviews.
I couldn’t picture Phillip as that person. Couldn’t see him behind a big desk in a bustling city, married to the standard bimbo, and still feeling whole and happy on the inside.
And that made me feel as empty as his proposed future.
“If you feel that strongly, then maybe you should tell him,” she said.
“What would that do? This isn’t a fairy tale where words can change destiny,” I said, grabbing the basket and heading for the back room. “This is real life. Messy. Uncoordinated. If the Kennedys want him as a son-in-law, then it would take something stronger than words to keep him from succumbing”
“You mean something as strong as falling in love?” she proposed, taking the basket from me with a lifted eyebrow.
My heart faltered at that. Love. A feeling that was so inconstant and unstable. An emotion that had no true definition because, to everyone, it meant something just a little bit different. It weighed a little more or less.
“Falling in love doesn’t happen within weeks of meeting someone,” I said, opening my locker.
She flapped her hand dismissively at me. “Falling in love doesn’t have a timeframe,” she corrected, shutting my locker door so she could lock eyes with me. “Think of it like this—falling in love is like learning how to swim. It’s scary at first, learning all the ins and outs with kicking, paddling, and holding your breath, but then, suddenly, something fires in your brain and the gears click into place. It can happen, just like that.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if she was right. If that was what was happening between Phillip and myself. If I had unknowingly submerged myself within all that was him and had only just learned how to make my way back to the surface.
She knew she ha
d me at that. It was written in her gloating smile.
“So,” she said, turning back to her locker. “When do you see him again?”
“Now, actually.”
“Are you going to bring the engagement up?”
I thought about it for a moment. “No,” I finally said. “I want to see if he tells me or not.”
“Good choice. Bet he does.”
“You think?” I asked, shutting my locker, keys dangling from my fingers.
“Totally.”
IF YOU LOOKED JUST RIGHT, summer in the Sag Harbor part of The Hamptons was like peering into a magazine straight from the fifties. Block parties. Children running the strip for a new comic or a piece of penny candy. American flags and ice cream shops.
It was a priceless haven preserved by all the locals. A home where romantics could truly flourish. So, when Phillip asked me to show him somewhere I went to often, a place that was special to me, I knew exactly where I needed to take him.
We passed through a few shops in town, filling up a basket with local snacks and treats we could nibble, and then drove until we were just outside of town in Cedar Island.
“We’re going to have to hike the rest of the way,” I said, shutting the car engine off.
“Where to?” Phillip asked, grabbing the basket up from the floorboard of the Jeep.
“You’ll see,” I replied with a smirk, grabbing an old quilt.
He followed me through the patch of trees and over the dunes hidden by tall, lush green grass. Our feet dug into the warm sand, step after step, leaving traces of this memory behind.
As soon as we cleared the area, my favorite place came into view.
“A lighthouse?” he asked, a smile lingering around the edges of his mouth.
“It’s abandoned now, but yeah. I come here every so often to get away and think,” I said, taking his other hand and pulling him closer to it.
“Are we even allowed to be here?” he asked, slightly hesitant.
I looked over my shoulder at him, the left side of my mouth puckered up. “What do you think?”
He laughed nervously. “And if we get caught?”
“Hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.
I took him around the side to where the red door had been kicked in at some point and pushed hard against it.
“It’s pitch black in there,” Phillip said, peeking over my shoulder. “Is it even safe?”
“I haven’t died yet,” I answered, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside.
We took to the circular stairs rusted with age, heading up for the lantern appointed on top. I opened the hatch that led to the small deck that wrapped around the lantern, and then crawled through, setting the blanket down and turning to take the basket from Phillip.
“You seriously want me to crawl through this?” he asked, his head poking out.
I giggled. “Come on, Phillip. Don’t lose your gusto now.”
He sighed, and then pulled himself through the hole, inching until his body fit all the way through. But once he was through and on his feet, he turned to follow my gaze, which fell over the landscape below.
“Wow,” he said, watching the waves crash against the shore.
“Yep,” I said, taking his hand in mine.
He looked down at it, and then up at me. “Maggie—”
“We’re in a moment, Phillip. That’s all. Don’t think anything more or less about it. Just be in it. With me. Okay?”
His body relented with a sigh, and then he reached up and tucked a strand of my hair that was blowing in the wind behind my ear. “Okay.”
I let go of his hand. Turned and fluffed out the quilt for us to sit on. After we sat, resting our backs against the lantern for support, he opened the basket and pulled out the cheese and crackers we had purchased from one of the local shops.
We sat in silence for a while, eating and watching the sun descend like a lover returning home to the sea. And when we had our fill, the basket was set to the side and I was curled up against Phillip, sharing warmth. The clouds looked swollen with rain, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to leave and lose the moment.
“Let me see your arm,” I said.
He held it out.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a sharpie.
“What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry. It’ll wash off,” I said with a small laugh. “Close your eyes.” I pulled his hand against my lap and turned it so the inside of his forearm was exposed.
He chuckled and tilted his head back against the lantern, shutting his eyes.
“When I come here, it’s usually because I’m in one of those moods,” I said, uncapping the sharpie with my teeth.
“What mood?”
“You know—the kind when you’re feeling all overwhelmed and emotional? When you just need to feel like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself?”
“Bigger than yourself? I don’t think I follow,” he said, squinting at me as if trying to understand.
“To feel free. When thoughts and feelings are spewing from your soul and you just need to get them out.”
His chuckle deepened a little. “Can’t say I’ve felt that way before.”
“Shame,” I said, pressing the pen against his skin. “Well, anyway, I come here. Sometimes, I write my feelings. Other times, I paint them. Sometimes, I scream them out into the breeze, hoping that maybe they’ll be carried away and heard by someone. Anyone who might understand.”
“Sounds deep,” he said, tilting his head down.
“Hey! No peeking!” I said, shielding the half-written words on his forearm.
“Sorry.” He put his head back up. “What are you writing anyway?”
“You’ll soon see, dear Phillip,” I said, moving the pen across his arm.
He settled back against the lantern. A moment later, he said, “What sort of things do you scream?”
“Sometimes about pain,” I said, my voice quiet.
“Pain?”
“Yeah. It’s a poisonous emotion to try to contain. You have to let it out, or it will consume you.”
“And what’s so painful that you have to come here and scream it into the wind?” he asked.
I bit the inside of my cheek. “When I was twelve, my mother passed away.”
His eyes filled with sorrow as he looked at me. “That’s a terrible loss for someone so young. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s okay,” I said, feeling like my heart was being run over by a freight train at the thought of her death. “It was sudden. An aneurism from a blood clot. She died instantly.”
I inhaled deeply as he braced against the side of my thigh, listening to my every word.
“At first, I was mad at God, angry at her for leaving me, so I came here and I screamed until I couldn’t anymore. And, after I had finished, I felt a small amount of peace. Enough so that I could breathe again. Letting all the pain and confusion that death brings out had helped me begin the healing process from losing her.”
I stopped, swallowing down all the memories that floated up my throat.
“I miss her hands,” I said, wanting to breathe life into her memory.
He turned slightly to look at me.
“I miss the calluses left behind from gardening. That was her thing—planting gardens for any who would hire her. My dad, the fisherman, and my mom, the gardener. I used to run my fingers over them when she held me when I was nervous, sad, or upset. And her freckles,” I quickly added as memories clicked in place. “I remember feeling special because I had freckles just like her. Even a matching one, right here.” I pointed to one located just below the corner of my left eye.
He leaned in for a closer look. “That’s a very distinguishingly beautiful freckle,” he said with a small smile, running the pad of his thumb over it.
“She used to laugh. All the time. It would fill the entire house. And my dad, he would tell a joke any time he could, just to hear it, and I would
giggle because she would kiss him and tell him that he should stick to fishing.”
I smiled as I let the memories of my mother fill me. “It’s funny… the things you remember about someone long after they’re gone. The small things that you subconsciously noticed when they were still alive.” I took a deep, encouraging breath. “It’s like she’s a puzzle scattered across my brain, and if I take the time to find all the corners and edges, then slowly, I can fill in the rest, until I have her back again, if only for a moment.”
“She sounds like she was an amazing woman,” he said, leaning his head back against the glass.
“She was,” I said, looking back down at his arm. “She was encouraging, adventurous, funny, smart… everything you’d want in a mom growing up.” I looked up to the sky. “And I know, even now, that she’s looking down over me. She just went from being my mom to being my guardian angel.”
“That’s a beautiful thought,” he said, sounding slightly saddened and mostly confused. We sat like that for a second as I continued to write, and then he asked, “What else do you scream about?”
I paused in my writing and looked up at his face. At the way the amber-tinted sunlight slid down the slope of his nose and down over his full lips. “Love,” I said honestly, unashamed.
“What about love?” he asked, his voice a little deeper than before.
I hated that Sophia’s face popped into my head. “About how love can sometimes feel like it has corners. Corners that you’re occasionally backed into, or become lost in.”
His lips went thin, and his Adam’s apple bobbed uncomfortably.
“I scream about how love can sometimes be confused with loyalty. How loyalty, an emotion that should be highly noble, can be just as deceiving as deceit itself. About those moments when loyalty backfires on you, and then you’re left with nothing but broken pieces of yourself that are scattered for others to pick up and mold at their will.”
His hand moved in my lap, and then he pulled it away completely, staring me down. “Just what are you getting at?” he asked, his chest heaving in and out.
Love Always, Page 11
