Maggie turned on the radio and sang along as she drove to Shady Lane. She couldn't sing worth a flip and she knew it, but that didn't stop her from trying. Music of all kinds appealed to her, but she liked Country best. It helped keep her heart right she told Bill every time he caught her two-stepping around the kitchen, dancing with a spoon or a mop or whichever child happened to be passing through.
She wailed with Willie and moaned with Mickey until she reached the wrought iron fence with pineapples on the top. Two years ago she would have gone through the gates still singing. Jean would have teased her, and Paul would have sung along in a very good baritone.
But today the sight of the pineapple-adorned fence sobered her. Sadness seemed to sit upon the house and the grounds, weighing it down.
Bearing her gifts, she rang the doorbell. It was nearly five minutes before Jean answered. She was still dressed in her robe, and her eyes were red from a recent bout of weeping.
Pity almost overwhelmed Maggie, but she tried not to let it show.
"I know I should have called before dropping by.
Jean held open the door, and Maggie went inside. If she'd called, Jean would have given some excuse.
She breezed to the kitchen with Jean trailing behind like a pale shadow. The house was immaculate, as always. Money could buy everything except the things that mattered most.
Maggie set the spaghetti on the stove, then placed a sack on the bar.
"Art supplies," she said. "I thought you might need them."
"Oh, Maggie . . ." Jean wandered over and halfheartedly looked into the paper bag. It rattled shut as she sank onto a bar stool. "You shouldn't have."
"Why not? You'd do the same for me."
"That's the pity of it." Tears gathered in Jean's dark eyes. "I couldn't do anything for you even if I wanted to ... or for any of my friends." She raked a hand through her hair. Once it had been as dark and glossy as the pelt of a healthy animal, but now it hung listlessly around her thin face. "I'm such a wreck."
Maggie gathered Jean close and stood rocking her as tenderly as if she were a baby.
"You're going to be okay," she whispered fiercely. "Someday soon we're going to put on ridiculously small bikinis and sit on the beach together and laugh about sand getting into our crotches, and you're going to turn golden brown while I peel, and then we're going to dribble sand all over that fancy-shmancy art gallery of yours while you show me the all the gorgeous paintings you've done."
A faint smile touched Jean's lips. "And you're going to complain about the prices."
"You're darned tootin'. Now. How about a big bowl of spaghetti?" Maggie, who knew Jean's kitchen as well as her own, took down a Shearwater Pottery bowl, a design of the late Walter Anderson, and filled it to the brim.
Jean picked at her food, trying to eat, while Maggie talked about books and art and local politics.
"You don't have to not talk about your children," Jean said softly. "I love Beth Ann and Timmy." Maggie waited, wary. "How are they?"
"Timmy made the swim team, and Beth Ann is trying out for a part in the school play. She's skinny as a rail."
"You and Bill are so lucky."
"I know. Every day I thank God for my good fortune. If only Bill would slow down long enough to take a vacation. . . . Listen to me, complaining like a fish wife." Maggie bustled around the kitchen, trying to find things to do with her hands. She straightened canisters that weren't crooked, refolded dish towels that didn't need it, and rearranged silverware that was already in perfect order.
"Have you seen Paul lately?" she said offhandedly. Bill's phone call was fresh on her mind. Paul was slowly reaching back toward life, and all because of another little boy, another woman. Ever the optimist, Maggie still believed that as along as Jean didn’t sign the divorce papers there was still a chance for her two friends.
"Oh, Maggie. Don't do that."
"What?"
"Try to get us back together. It's too late for that. He'll never forgive me for letting our son die. Besides, I'll never forgive myself."
"Now you listen to me." Maggie whirled, hands on her hips, eyes blazing. Going to battle for her friend. "You didn't let that child die, and you stop talking like that right now."
"I know . . . Intellectually, I know that." Jean pushed her bowl aside and propped her elbows on the bar. "I'm trying to do better. As a matter of feet, I had dinner at Mary Mahoney's last night. Paul was there."
"Bill says he's doing better, gaining weight." Some people might call what Maggie was going to do interfering, but she called it loyalty. "It's probably from all those cookies Susan Riley brings him."
"Who's Susan Riley?"
"A woman whose little boy has a heart condition. She brings him to the center every Wednesday. Paul's trying out some new kind of therapy with him. Using the big dolphin, Ferguson." Maggie picked up the bowl and nonchalantly emptied it into the garbage disposal. "She's a widow."
Maggie didn't know if it was Jean's natural reserve or the depression or the news of Paul that held her silent. In any case, Maggie was not one to push.
She wiped a spaghetti stain off the counter where Jean had set her spoon, then covered the pot and put it in the refrigerator.
"I'm leaving this for you."
"Thanks, Maggie. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"Don't ever try to find out, pal. When I come back to get my pot, I'd better find out that you ate every last drop and that it all went to your thighs. I can't stand the thought of you looking better than me in a bikini."
She kissed Jean's cheek, then waved and went out the door.
o0o
Jean sat on the kitchen stool until she heard Maggie's car leaving the driveway. Then slowly she left the bar and picked up the art supplies. Delving inside the sack, she closed her hand over a sable brush. The familiar silky feel sent a tiny spark of energy flowing through her.
Carrying the bag, she walked into her workroom and checked the natural light coming through the enormous bank of windows. Her hand shook as she set up the easel.
The first stroke of oil on canvas was hard. The second easier.
Perhaps, after all, she would paint again.