by Lisa Duffy
It was ruined. Unsalvageable.
She stared at it. Tears formed in her eyes. She stood up, her hands clenched into fists, just as her mother walked into the garage.
She cried, pointed at the picture while her mother shushed her, told Maggie to please—calm down!
Later, her father had come home from work and spoken to her brother.
At the dinner table, Ben apologized, but she saw the glint in his eye. The fun of it for him.
Anger burned inside of her. Hot and wild, churning her insides.
Her father had sat down, spread his napkin on his lap. Her face was down, staring at her plate, her cheeks red with rage.
“Kitten,” her father said to her. “Look at me. Come on. Where’s my girl?”
She looked up, and he reached over and tickled her.
“Be nice, now. Don’t ruin dinner,” he said. “You’re so pretty when you smile. Isn’t she, Cin?” he asked her mother, who nodded.
“Of course she is,” her mother said. “She’s the sweetest, prettiest girl in the world when she wants to be.”
Even now, leaning against the door, more than forty years later, Maggie feels her insides clench when she thinks of that night at the table.
How she turned up the corners of her mouth to please her parents. To be the nice girl they wanted her to be.
Sweet Maggie.
All her life that’s who she’s been.
There’s a mirror on the wall next to the door. Maggie looks at her reflection.
She scowls at herself. Allows the lines on her face to deepen. Ugly. That’s what her parents would say about her right now.
“Go to hell,” she says to the mirror.
The problem is, she doesn’t know if she’s talking to her parents.
Or her reflection.
12
Two things happen in one day that make Sky’s life better: Xavier hurts his ankle, so he can’t take the ferry over to Ichabod for the Fourth of July weekend, and Frankie’s mother throws her back out and has to stay in bed.
Which means Frankie gets to sleep over. All weekend. And Xavier won’t be around to pick a fight with Leo about it—or anything else.
So even though she knows her mother would have lectured her about how it’s wrong to be happy because of someone else’s bad luck, she’s looking forward to the weekend.
Which says a lot.
Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. She’s been dreading it—thinking about her and Leo and Xavier—the entire weekend stretching out in front of them. What would they even do? Apparently, Xavier hates the beach.
And that’s where she’s spent every Fourth of July for her entire life.
Her mother and father would pack a picnic. They’d go to the beach late in the afternoon, stay until the sky grew dark, and watch the fireworks from their beach chairs.
The memory of it has had her insides twisted up all week. But now that Frankie gets to stay with her and Xavier won’t be around, the weekend has her smiling in what seems like the first time in forever. And the truth is, she’s tired of crying. Tired of thinking about anything sad.
It’s the Fourth of July, and she wants to have fun. Let the colorful explosions and loud booms in the darkness spark something inside of her.
So when Frankie whispers that they should go to the cliff and light off the sparklers she stole from her brothers, it’s just about the best idea she’s ever heard.
Frankie leans over and says this to her just as Miss Maggie hangs up the phone with Leo. It’s the third time he’s called to give an update on when he thinks he’ll be home. Miss Maggie told him to just stay with Xavier for the night—Sky and Frankie can sleep at her house.
“Well, I’m the lucky one who gets you beauties tonight,” Miss Maggie says to them. “Run home and get what you need for the night. I’ll start dinner.”
“Is it okay if we make a quick stop at the tree house to get the sketchbook I left by accident?” Frankie looks at Sky so she won’t open her big mouth and blurt out that no, Frankie didn’t leave it there.
It’s in her backpack where it always is.
But Miss Maggie’s head is in the refrigerator and she calls out that it’s fine. Dinner won’t be ready for another hour.
“Thanks, Miss Maggie,” they say at the same time, opening the back door.
“Girls.”
They freeze.
“Do me a favor,” Miss Maggie says, standing now. “When you call me that, I feel like I’m back in school. Drop the ‘Miss’ for the summer. Agreed?”
They nod and slip out the back door, jogging over to Sky’s house.
They scatter once they’re inside. Frankie to the bedroom to get her backpack and Sky to the hutch in the living room, where she finds a lighter in the drawer.
Outside, they run as fast as they can to the granite slabs at the edge of the cliff.
Frankie puts her backpack down and unzips it while Sky looks around. She’s been out here alone plenty of times, usually in the dark. But something feels different.
Behind her, leaves swirl in a sudden breeze. The faraway BOOM of a firework makes her jump.
She looks behind her. Once. Then again.
There’s nothing but trees, but she shivers, puts her arms around herself, the sharp edge of the lighter digging into her ribs.
“What’s wrong?” Frankie asks. She holds a sparkler out to Sky. “Why do you keep looking over your shoulder?”
“I thought I heard something.”
Frankie smirks. “It’s called a firework. You know—pretty light, big noise.”
“Ha ha,” she says while Frankie takes the lighter and puts the flame to the tip of Sky’s sparkler and then her own.
They stand as close to the edge as they dare. Arms outstretched, a shower of sparkles erupts in front of them, raining down on the jagged rock face of the cliff below.
Frankie cheers, and the sound echoes around them, her voice fading as the last twinkle disappears.
There’s a thick gray line sitting over the ocean, the sun almost hidden behind it. The air is suddenly cool. It’s not raining yet, but the sky is threatening to split open, and they still have a handful of sparklers left.
“Here,” Frankie says, dividing them into two bunches and handing a thick stack to Sky. “Let’s light them all together.”
Frankie holds out the lighter just as something rustles behind them, a crunch of leaves reaching them.
She whips her head around, looking at the forest. She stops breathing, listens.
“Did you hear that?” she whispers. Frankie nods, slides her eyes over to where Sky is looking.
“It’s probably a squirrel or something,” Frankie offers unconvincingly. “Why are you so jumpy all of a sudden?”
Sky pulls her eyes away from the trees, looks at Frankie. “It’s just this weird feeling I’ve had all week. Even yesterday when we were at the tree house, it felt like somebody was there. Sort of… watching us.”
“What? Like a ghost? Maybe your parents?” Frankie’s eyes widen in fake horror, and she scans the air around her. “Mr. and Mrs. Pope—is that you? Give us a sign if you can hear us!”
“Okay, cut it out. I didn’t say a ghost. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what?” Frankie asks, back to normal now. “Like someone spying on us?”
Sky shrugs. “You didn’t feel anything?”
Frankie shakes her head. “No, but I was painting while you were goofing around.” She rolls her eyes at Sky.
It’s true, actually.
Sky had asked Frankie to give her a painting lesson, but when they were set up in the tree house, Sky kept wandering over to the doorway, looking down at the trees. She hadn’t told Frankie she felt as though someone was out there. At the time, she couldn’t find the words to explain the feeling.
Sky puts her arm out, the thick stack of sparklers in her hand.
“Come on. Hold yours out too. We need to get back.”
Everything inside of
her is telling her to run, but she stays, waits for Frankie to flick the lighter.
Frankie runs her thumb over the switch, and a flame pops out, yellow and flickering. She lights the two bunches as fast as she can, and they both stick their arms out straight as flashes of white explode in front of them.
The sky ignites at the end of their fingertips. Sparks spurting in all directions. Fire twinkling in the air. A ball of brightness cracking and hissing, warming their faces, their eyes glowing in the reflection.
Sky laughs. Frankie cheers again, louder this time—loud enough that it echoes, bounces off the trees and the sky and the rocks.
Then she hears it. Clapping. Faint, but unmistakable.
Someone is clapping. Someone behind them. Close behind them. So close that a tremble starts in her legs and spreads through her middle, down her arms, up her neck.
She can’t move.
Frankie hears it too, and they lock eyes.
The sparklers fizzle out and the clapping stops. The night is dead silent.
She doesn’t know who runs first.
All she knows is that Frankie is right on her heels. Both of them sprinting through the forest. Trying to get home.
13
Foolish! That’s what she is. Careless and foolish and just… stupid. That’s what Mac would say. Plain old stupid.
She could blame it on the bottle of champagne she drank. A gift left on her doorstep by Greer, who said it was merely a Fourth of July offering, although she knew it was a thank-you for the picture she’d painted and left in the barn—the horse in the pasture behind the shed had been too beautiful to ignore. And what was she going to do with the painting? Take it to her grave?
But she knew what sent her into the forest didn’t come from the bottle. She drank two glasses while the sun hung low in the sky and the air was peppered with the sound of fireworks.
Then she heard voices and knew it was the girl. She crept in the forest, just wanting to look from a distance and remember what it was like to be that age. To be so young and free and wild.
The trees shielded her while she watched the girls light the sparklers. She inched closer when each girl held a thick bunch and kicked herself when leaves crunched under her foot and they turned, startled. She hid behind the tree, held her breath until they looked away.
When they lit the sparklers, the sky exploded with bright twinkles of light so intoxicating and beautiful, her eyes filled with tears. Then she heard it. Laughing and cheering. A celebration between the two girls. Her hands joined together, and she clapped. Over and over. Powerless to stop. She couldn’t stop the tears, or the tremble in her limbs, or the emotion that spread through her.
Joy, in its purest form. So sweet and good she couldn’t even feel bad that she’d scared the girls away. She only felt one thing. Thankful.
14
Leo had been looking forward to the Fourth of July. Xavier was coming to the island. They were going to have a leisurely couple of days. See some fireworks. Spend time with Sky as a family.
Then Xavier called from the emergency room to say his ankle was the size of a melon. By the time Leo caught the ferry and reached the mainland, Xavier was already home, icing his injury, angry that he’d had to call a taxi.
It takes Leo another hour in traffic to reach their condo. When he steps out onto the sidewalk in front of his house, his head throbs from the noise of the city, which seems louder than usual today, and he can’t help but think it’s because he’s used to the quiet of the island. A peacefulness that doesn’t exist on their crowded, busy block just outside of the financial district.
He forces himself to take a minute to calm down and breathe before he walks up the steps to the door.
On the island, the day had been cool, a summer sea breeze floating through the house all morning, salty and fresh. The city is the opposite—stifling and humid, the sun boring a hole in the top of his head.
He unlocks the door and steps in, closes it quietly behind him. The television is on in the living room. He finds Xavier reclined on the couch, his back against the arm and his leg propped up on a pillow.
There’s an open bottle of beer on the coffee table. A half-eaten sandwich in his lap.
“How are you?” Leo asks, crossing the room. “How’s your ankle?”
He leans down to kiss Xavier, but he brushes Leo away.
“Don’t. I stink from spin class. How am I? Well, my ankle feels like a truck ran over it. I’m eating crappy hospital cafeteria food. And the power went out last night because some drunk jackass ran into the pole with his truck, so my beer is lukewarm.” He holds up the bottle. “Here’s to kicking off the holiday,” he toasts, and takes a swig.
Xavier’s anger is a living thing, snaking its way around them both and pulling them into another argument.
“I was hoping you’d just sit tight in the hospital lobby. I was on my way. I could’ve bought you a real lunch. And a cold beer.” He smiles, trying to lighten Xavier’s mood.
“I did sit tight,” Xavier snaps. “I sat tight for two hours before I called a cab. Did you row over in a dinghy from the island? What took you so long?”
It’s an absurd thing to ask—the ferry ride is an hour, and by the time he made arrangements for Sky and Frankie, he had to wait another hour to catch the next one off the island.
Never mind the city traffic that he’s been trapped in trying to get from the ferry to the condo.
Despite all of this, it’s the way Xavier asks him that makes Leo’s jaw set.
As though Leo hadn’t dropped everything to rush over to help Xavier with what appears to be nothing more than a mild sprain. And looking at it propped up on the pillow, his ankle is nowhere near the size of a melon.
A small clementine, in Leo’s opinion.
He clears his throat, willing himself not to blurt this out.
“I had Sky and Frankie at the house,” he explains calmly. “Thankfully, Maggie offered to watch them, so I could come here.”
“Come here? Home, you mean. Right? So you could come home.” Xavier doesn’t say this as much as push it out of his mouth. A sucker punch that slams into Leo, heavy and suffocating.
“All right,” Leo says after a minute. “Let’s do this now.”
He sits in the chair across from Xavier, leans forward with his knees on his elbows, looking straight at his husband.
“Do what now?” Xavier asks, shifting on the couch. Shrinking back, it seems. As if he’s gone too far and he knows it.
But it’s out there. And Leo can’t ignore it.
In the last three months, he can count on one hand the number of times they’ve been together and not argued. Count on one hand the nice things they’ve said to each other.
Ever since Sky came into their life.
“I know you’re angry,” Leo says quietly. “I can’t blame you for it—I won’t blame you. We said no kids. We agreed to it. And I’m changing that agreement, and you’re angry. I wish you weren’t, but you are.”
Xavier snorts. “So that’s it? Sorry you’re angry, but suck it up and get over it? Get used to never seeing your husband?”
“You can see me whenever you want, Xavier. You can live with me. With us. You’re a freelance journalist—you work from home—”
“I like the city! I like my life here! Remember here? Right here—where we live?”
“Stop saying that like I have a choice. There is no choice—”
“Of course there is!” Xavier shouts. “You choose me—choose us! Our life together!”
Leo is quiet. Stunned.
“And Sky?” he asks finally. “What do I tell her?”
“You tell her what should have been said the minute you learned you were her guardian!” Xavier throws up his arms, as though this should be obvious to Leo.
Obvious to everyone.
“You tell her that you love her very much, but as a friend. You explain that you and your husband”—he points to himself—“aren’t prepared to take on th
e commitment of raising a child—”
“No,” he interrupts. Xavier waits for him to speak, but he can’t put the words together. Not because he doesn’t know what to say. There is too much to say. And none of it wants to come out of his mouth.
Things like: Is this worth losing me? Losing us?
“She has a grandmother, Leo! One who took the ferry over to tell you she wants to be part of Sky’s future!”
“A grandmother who she doesn’t really know—”
“Who cares? It’s a blood relative! Never mind Maggie, who would raise that girl in a second if she got the chance. You can see the way she looks at Sky. It’s not just affection. That’s love—”
“I said no.”
Xavier stops midsentence and stares at him. “No? Just… no?”
“I won’t do that to her,” Leo says. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“And this is right? You don’t know the first thing about kids—how are you even remotely qualified to do this? How do you expect me to do this?”
Leo shrugs. “I thought that, at first. That I wouldn’t know how to act around her. How to be. But I do. I can’t explain it. It just feels right.”
“And is it right for her?” Xavier asks. “Have you even asked her if she wants to be raised by us? Have you given her the choice?”
“This again. Don’t use that as a cop-out, Xavier—”
“What if they tease her because of us? You know kids. They’re ruthless.”
“And adults aren’t? I grew up black on an all-white island. Some of the worst things ever said to me came from adults. She’s a tough kid. If her gay parents are the only thing she’s teased about, then she’s probably lucky.”
Xavier is silent, his eyes on the floor.
“You know what happened with my father,” Xavier says suddenly. “He was a nasty, worthless alcoholic who liked to call us all—my mother, sisters, and me—the most awful names. Stupid was the favorite for them. Or crazy. Stupid, crazy bitches, he’d yell at them after a night of drinking. But he only ever said one thing to me—the same thing. Over and over. That I was an accident. I was the youngest by almost seven years. Every time he was drunk, he’d go on about that—how they never wanted me. How I was a mistake.”
