“Was the card…personal?” Mark inquired, his tone delicate.
“I wrote a message, just kind of updating him on what had gone on since I’d last seen him. I told him about the delivery, apologized for not saying goodbye. I told him that I’d gone back to school and bought a camera. But because I wasn’t sure how he felt about me, it wasn’t until the very end that I admitted that I still thought about him, and that the time we had together meant the world to me. I also told him that I loved him. I can still remember writing those words and being absolutely terrified of what he might think. What if he didn’t bother to send a card? What if he’d moved on and met someone new? What if he’d eventually come to regret our time together? What if he was angry with me? I didn’t have any idea what he was thinking or how he would respond.”
“And?”
“He sent a card, too. It arrived only a day after I sent mine, so I knew he couldn’t have read what I’d written, but he followed the same script I had. He told me he was happy at West Point, that he’d done well in his classes and had made a number of good friends. He mentioned that he’d seen his parents on Thanksgiving and that his brothers had already started exploring various colleges they might want to attend. And, just like I’d done, in the last paragraph, he told me that he missed me and he still loved me. He also reminded me of our plan to meet on my twenty-fourth birthday in Ocracoke.”
Mark smiled. “That sounds just like him.”
Maggie took another sip of her eggnog, still enjoying the taste. She made a note to keep it stocked in her refrigerator, assuming she’d be able to find it after the holidays. “It took a few more years of Christmas cards for me to believe that he was really committed to our plan. To us, I mean. Every year, I’d think to myself that this was the year the card wouldn’t come or that he’d tell me it was over. But I was wrong. In every Christmas card that arrived, he counted down the years until we could see each other again.”
“He never met anyone else?”
“I don’t think he was interested. And I really didn’t date much, either. In my last years of high school and community college, I was asked out here and there and occasionally I went, but I never had romantic interest in any of them. No one measured up to Bryce.”
“And he graduated from West Point?”
“In 2000,” she said. “Afterwards, like his dad, he went to work in military intelligence in Washington, D.C. I’d graduated from high school and finished taking classes at community college as well. Sometimes I think we should have followed his suggestion and reunited right after he graduated, instead of waiting until I was twenty-four. It all feels so arbitrary now,” she said, a melancholy look coming over her. “Things would have turned out differently for us.”
“What happened?”
“We both did what I’d recommended and became young adults. He worked at his job and I worked at mine. Photography was my whole world early on, not just because I was passionate about it but also because I wanted to be someone worthy of Bryce, not just someone he loved. Meanwhile, Bryce was making adult decisions about his life, too. Do you know that old army commercial? Where the song goes, ‘Be all that you can be…in the army’?”
“Vaguely.”
“Bryce had never given up on the idea of becoming a Green Beret, so he applied to SFAS. Aunt Linda wrote and told me about it. I guess Bryce’s parents had mentioned it to her and she knew I’d want to know.”
“What’s SFAS?”
“Special Forces Assessment and Selection. It’s at Fort Bragg, back in North Carolina. Long story short, Bryce was assessed with flying colors, eventually went through the training, and ended up being selected. All of that happened by the spring of 2002. Of course, by then, the military had made special forces a priority and wanted the highest-quality people they could find, so I’m not surprised Bryce made it.”
“Why was it a priority?”
“Nine Eleven. You’re probably too young to remember what a cataclysmic event that was, a turning point in America’s history. In Bryce’s Christmas card in 2002, he said that he couldn’t tell me where he was—which even to me was a tip-off that he was someplace dangerous—but that he was doing okay. He also said that he might not be able to make it to Ocracoke the following October, when I was to turn twenty-four. He said that if he wasn’t there, not to read anything into it—he’d find a way to let me know if he was still deployed and would arrange for an alternate time and place for us to finally meet.”
She fell silent, remembering. Then: “Strangely, I wasn’t all that disappointed. More than anything, I was amazed that after all those years, both of us still wanted to be together. Even now, it still seems implausible that our plan worked. I was proud of him and proud of myself, too. And of course, I was incredibly excited to see him again, no matter when that would be. But once again, it wasn’t in the cards. Fate had something else in store for us.”
Mark said nothing, waiting. Instead of speaking, Maggie faced the Christmas tree again, forcing herself not to dwell on what had happened next, a skill she’d mastered over the years. Instead, she stared at the lights, noting the shadows and tracking the movement of traffic outside the gallery door. When she was finally confident the memory had been fully locked away, she reached for her handbag to retrieve the envelope she’d stashed inside earlier, right before she’d left her apartment. Without a word, she handed it to Mark.
She didn’t watch as he no doubt studied the return address and realized he was holding a letter from her aunt Linda; nor did she watch as he lifted the seal on the envelope. Though she’d read the letter only once, she knew with utter clarity what Mark would see on the page.
Dear Maggie,
It’s late at night, rain is falling, and though I should have been asleep hours ago, I find myself at the table wondering whether I have the strength to tell you what I must. Part of me believes that I should talk to you in person, that maybe I should fly to Seattle and sit down with you at your parents’ house, but I’m afraid you’ll find out from other sources before I’ve had the chance to let you know what happened. Some of the information is already on the news, and that’s why I overnighted this letter. I want you to know that I’ve been praying for hours, both for you and for me.
There is, after all, no easy way to tell you. There is nothing easy about any of this, nor is there any way to diminish the overwhelming grief I feel at the news that I received today. Please know that even now, I ache for you even more deeply, and as I write, I can barely see the page through the tears in my eyes. Know that I wish I could be there to hold you, and that I will forever pray for you.
Bryce was killed in Afghanistan last week.
I don’t know the specifics. His father didn’t know much, either, but he believes that Bryce was caught in a firefight that somehow went wrong. They don’t know when or where or how it happened, because information is scant. Perhaps in time, they’ll know more, but for me, the details don’t matter. For you, I doubt they matter, either. In times like this, it’s hard even for me to understand the plan that God has for all of us, and it is a struggle to hold on to my faith. Right now, I am shattered.
I’m so sorry for you, Maggie. I know how much you loved him. I know how hard you’ve been working, and I know how much you wanted to see him again. You have my deepest and sincerest condolences. I am hopeful that God will grant you the strength you’ll need to somehow get through this. I will regularly pray that you eventually find peace, no matter how long that takes. You are always in my heart.
I’m so very sorry for your loss. I love you.
Aunt Linda
* * *
Mark sat in stunned silence. As for Maggie, she kept her unseeing eyes fixed on the tree, trying to steer her memories down other paths—any path besides the one that led to her memories of what had happened to Bryce. She’d faced it once, had fully experienced the horror, and had vowed not to relive it. Despite her rigid self-control, she felt a tear slip down her cheek and swiped at it, knowing t
hat another would likely follow.
“I know you probably have questions,” she finally whispered. “But I don’t have the answers. I never tried to find out exactly what happened to Bryce. Like my aunt said in the letter, the details didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that Bryce was gone, and afterwards, something broke inside me. I went crazy. I wanted to run away from everything I knew, so I quit my job, left my family, and moved to New York. I stopped going to church, stayed out every night, and dated one bum after another for a long time, until that wound finally began to close. The only thing that kept me from going completely off the deep end was photography. Even when my life felt out of control, I tried to keep learning and improving. Because I knew that’s what Bryce would have wanted me to do. And it was a way of hanging on to something we had shared.”
“I’m…so sorry, Maggie.” Mark seemed to struggle to control his voice. He swallowed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say except that it was the darkest period of my life.” She focused on steadying her breath, her ears half-tuned to the sound of Christmas Eve revelers in the street. When she spoke, her voice was subdued. “It wasn’t until the gallery opened that a day passed when I didn’t think about it. When I wasn’t angry or sad about what had happened. I mean, why Bryce? Of anyone in the entire world, why him?”
“I don’t know.”
She barely heard him. “I spent years trying not to wonder what would have happened had he just stayed in intelligence, or had I moved to Washington, D.C., after he graduated. I tried not to imagine what our lives might have been like, or where we would have lived, or how many kids we would have had, or the vacations we would have taken. I think that’s another reason why I jumped at every travel gig I could get. It was an attempt to leave those obsessive thoughts behind, but I should have known that never works. Because we always bring ourselves with us wherever we go. It’s one of the universal truths of life.”
Mark lowered his gaze to the table. “I’m sorry I asked you to finish the story. I should have listened and let you end it with the kiss on the beach.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s how I’ve always wanted to end it, too.”
* * *
As the clock continued its countdown to Christmas, their conversation gently drifted from one topic to the next. Maggie was thankful that Mark hadn’t pressed further about Bryce; he seemed to recognize how painful the topic was for her. As she described the years that followed Bryce’s death, she marveled that the strands that informed so many of her decisions always stretched back to Ocracoke.
She described the estrangement from her family that occurred when she moved away; her parents had never given much credence to her love for Bryce, nor did they grasp the impact of his loss. She confessed that she hadn’t trusted the man Morgan had chosen to marry, because she’d never seen him gaze at Morgan the way Bryce had gazed at her. She talked about the growing resentment she felt toward her mother and her judgmental pronouncements; often, she found herself reflecting on the differences between her mom and Aunt Linda. She also spoke about the dread she felt on the ferry to Ocracoke when she finally worked up the courage to visit her aunt again. By that time, Bryce’s grandparents had passed away and his family had moved from the island to somewhere in Pennsylvania. During her stay, Maggie had visited all the places that had once meant so much to her. She’d gone to the beach and the cemetery and the lighthouse and stood outside the house where Bryce once had lived, wondering if the darkroom had been converted into a space more suitable to the new owners. She was rocked by waves of déjà vu, as though the years had rolled backward, and there were moments when she almost believed that Bryce might suddenly round the corner, only to realize it was an illusion, which reminded her again that nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.
At some point in her thirties, having consumed too many glasses of wine, she’d Googled Bryce’s brothers to see how they’d turned out. Both had graduated from MIT at seventeen and were working in the tech world—Richard in Silicon Valley, Robert in Boston. Both were married with children; to Maggie, though their photographs showed them to be grown men, they would always remain twelve years old.
As the clock’s hands inched toward midnight, Maggie could feel the exhaustion overtaking her, like a storm front rapidly approaching. Mark must have seen it in her face because he reached over to touch her arm.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t keep you up much longer.”
“You couldn’t even if you tried,” she said weakly. “There comes a time now when I just shut down.”
“You know what I was thinking? Ever since you started telling me the story?”
“What?”
He scratched at his ear. “When I think back on my life—and granted, I’m not all that old—I can’t help thinking that while I’ve had different phases, I’ve always just become a slightly older version of me. Elementary school led to middle school and high school and college, youth hockey led to junior hockey and then high school hockey. There were no periods of major reinvention. But with you, it’s been just the opposite. You were an ordinary girl, then you became the pregnant you, which altered the course of your life. You became someone else once you returned to Seattle, then cast that person aside when you moved to New York. And then transformed yourself again, becoming a professional in the art world. You’ve become someone entirely new, over and over.”
“Don’t forget the cancer version of me.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “And I hope you’re not taking it the wrong way. I find your journey to be fascinating and inspiring.”
“I’m not that special. And it’s not as though I planned it. I’ve spent most of my life reacting to things that happened to me.”
“It’s more than that. You have a courage that I don’t think I have.”
“It’s not courage as much as survival instincts. And hopefully learning some things along the way.”
He leaned over the table. “You want to know something?”
Maggie gave a tired nod.
“This is the most memorable Christmas I’ve ever had,” he stated. “Not just tonight; the entire week. Of course, I also had the chance to listen to the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. It’s been a gift and I want to thank you for that.”
She smiled. “Speaking of gifts, I got something for you.” From her handbag, she pulled out the Altoids tin and slid it across the table. Mark scrutinized it.
“Did I have too much garlic?”
“Don’t be silly. I didn’t have the time or energy to wrap it.”
Mark lifted the lid. “Flash drives?”
“They have my photographs on them,” she said. “All of my favorites.”
His eyes widened. “Even the ones in the gallery?”
“Of course. They’re not officially numbered, but if there are any that you particularly like, you can have them printed up.”
“Are the photos from Mongolia there?”
“Some of them.”
“And Rush?”
“That one, too.”
“Wow…” he said, gently lifting one of the drives from the box. “Thank you.” He put the first drive down, lifted the second reverently, and put it back. Touched the third and fourth ones, as though making sure his eyes weren’t deceiving him.
“I can’t tell you how much this means to me,” he said solemnly.
“Before you think it’s too special, I’ll probably do the same thing for Luanne in the next month or so. Trinity too.”
“I’m sure she’ll love it as much as I do. I’d rather have this than one of Trinity’s pieces.”
“You should take the Trinity piece if he offers it. Maybe sell it and buy yourself a nice-sized house.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, but it was clear his mind was still on the gift. He peered at the photos displayed on the walls around him before shaking his head in what looked like wonder. “I can’t think of anything else to say except thank you again.
”
“Merry Christmas, Mark. And thank you for making this week very special for me, too. I don’t know what I would have done had you not been so willing to humor my whims. And, of course, I’m looking forward to meeting Abigail, too. I think you said she’s coming out on the twenty-eighth?”
“Saturday,” he said. “I’ll make sure she comes to the gallery on a day when you’re here.”
“I don’t know if I’m going to be able to give you the whole time off while she’s here. I can’t promise anything.”
“She understands,” Mark assured her. “We also have a full Sunday planned and we have New Year’s Day, too.”
“Why don’t we close the gallery on the thirty-first? I’m sure Trinity won’t mind.”
“That would be great.”
“I’ll make it happen. As a boss who understands the importance of spending time with the people you love, I mean.”
“Okay,” he agreed. He closed the lid of the Altoids tin before looking up at her again. “If you could have anything you’d like for Christmas, what would that be?”
The question caught her off guard. “I don’t know,” she finally offered. “I guess I’d say that I’d like to turn back the clock and move to Washington, D.C., right after Bryce graduated. And I’d beg him not to join the special forces.”
“What if you couldn’t turn back the clock? What if it’s something in the here and now? Something that was actually possible?”
She considered it. “It’s not really a Christmas wish, or even a New Year’s resolution. But there are certain…closures that I’d like while I still have time. I want to tell my mom and dad that I understand they always did what they thought was best for me and how much I appreciate all their sacrifices. I know that deep down, my parents have always loved me and been there for me, and I want to thank them for that. Morgan too.”
“Morgan?”
“We may not have had much in common, but she’s my only sister. She’s also an amazing mother to her daughters, and I want her to know that in a lot of ways, she’s been an inspiration.”
The Wish Page 32
