Chapter 11: Maggie

 

This is what Serena remembered when she got the call: she hadn’t said goodbye. She hadn’t kissed Maggie. She hadn’t hugged her but only touched her shoulder gently as she left. She was in a rush to get to the lab and was annoyed that Tom gave Maggie pancakes again because she took forever to eat them. Tom said he could drop Maggie off at school so Serena left quickly before Maggie could get upset.

This is what Serena remembered when she got home from the hospital: Maggie’s pink piggy plate was still there. One half-eaten pancake with a little nibble—a Maggie-sized nibble—was still there. The perpetual mess of their life was openly displayed for Serena to see in every crumb of breakfast that was still there waiting to be cleaned up. An empty water cup. Butter on the counter. Maggie’s plate. Tom’s edge of toast sitting on a napkin. All the symbols of their hurried and messy life. Still there on the counter. What wasn’t there? Maggie.

It was 5:47 p.m. when Tom called her. She was finishing up splitting cells at the lab and was running late. Lately she was always running late from an experiment that went longer than she had expected. But she was so close to learning the truth about whether or not the mutation in the breast cancer cells she found was actually a big deal.

“I was in an accident,” he said. “I was going down Tyburn Road.”

Serena stopped him. “Tyburn Road? Why the hell were you down there?”

“Kara needed a ride home.”

“Of course.” Serena almost hung up.

“Maggie was in the car.” Serena stopped and put her pipette down. Her hand shook, and she looked around the lab to make sure no one could see her.

“You need to get down here. I’m at Saint Christopher’s.” Tom started to explain the accident, but Serena hung up. She felt sick. Her heart felt like she had drunk five hundred cups of coffee. She ran out the door with her lab coat on.

The hall of the hospital was long. At the end was Tom talking to a male doctor. The doctor had large arms. That was the only thing Serena could see. She passed Kara, who was sitting on an uncomfortable blue plastic hospital lounge chair.

Kara opened her mouth to speak, and Serena put her hand up and said, “Don’t.” Serena’s face twitched with anger, and Kara sat down quietly.

Tom put his hand on Serena’s arm, and Serena moved it away violently.

“Where is she?”

“Serena,” Tom said, looking at the doctor.

Serena screamed, “Where is she?”

The doctor looked at Tom and walked Serena into the room where Maggie’s little body lay on a stark white bed. Her body was half the size of the big hospital bed. She looked so small. There was a machine hooked up to her, helping her breathe. A tube choking out of her little mouth. Serena was struck by how Maggie still looked so unbearably cute even with all that was entering and exiting her body.

“The impact of the accident caused a lot of internal bleeding and injury to her spine. Your husband and his passenger are lucky to be alive.” Serena didn’t hear his voice. She couldn’t hear his voice. Instead, all she could think of was a fact she had read in a research paper: “The spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than a quarter of an inch.” She thought of the pictures she’d seen of outstretched spines that had occurred during accidents.

She put her arms around Maggie. Her warm body couldn’t bend to her curves like it normally did when she lay with her at night—like two measuring cups nestled inside of each other.

She began to sing softly in her ear, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are gray.”

Maggie always liked that song when she was sick. The doctor left the room quietly. Serena took her finger and traced it up and down Maggie’s tiny arm just the way she liked it. She grazed the side of her cheek and nuzzled into her neck. There was no place on Maggie’s body that Serena didn’t know. Every nook. Each toe, kneecap, and squishy thigh.

It had been a large truck. Tom was making a left on Tyburn, a notoriously busy road. Serena never liked to drive on it and would even forgo the good Italian gelato place just to avoid it. Kara lived three streets away from Tyburn. Her car wouldn’t start after work, and she called Tom. Tom hadn’t left work yet, so he agreed to take her home. They picked up Maggie from daycare, or as Maggie called it, “school,” and drove toward Kara’s house. Tom said they were just talking when he made a left. He said he wasn’t distracted. Serena would go over this countless times in her head, as if thinking through it could change the outcome.

***

Two months later, Maggie still could not walk. Her days of Play-Doh and going up and down the driveway on her scooter were now replaced with hours of physical therapy. Doctors. Medication. Endlessly working toward the goal of getting Maggie able to go home.

But home was no longer home. Serena sat at their dark wooden kitchen table and stared at the lines in the wood. Her eyes followed the circles, the crannies, the imperfections of age. She searched out the small blue marker stains that were left from an attempt at craft time with Maggie. She remembered picking out this table. She had looked through catalogue after catalogue. The different colors, shapes, all seemed to depict a different style of family life. The kitchen table, to her, represented all that she wanted of her family. The meals she’d cook, where they’d sit down to hear about Maggie’s day. She had always wanted a house that meant something. She dreamed of flowerpots bursting with flowers and bright colors that screamed stability, vitality, and happiness. She wanted a fireplace with an idyllic and cozy rug in front of it for cold winter nights filled with s’more making. And now, as Tom ate his cereal at the end of the table, it felt like a joke. The beautiful table and her not-so-catalogue life were looking back at her as Tom ate his granola with flax seeds. Each chew louder and louder—making the table uglier and uglier with its sound.

“I think you should move out.” Serena kept her eyes on the tiny blue marker lines. She lightly traced them with her finger.

“What?” Tom stopped crunching. His spoon hit the side of the bowl with an unnecessary force. “How is that going to help Maggie?” he asked.

“It’s not. It’s going to help me,” Serena answered coldly. “We can discuss it again when it’s time for her to come home. But for now, I think you should stay at Mike’s.”

Tom got up and left. Serena stared at his cereal bowl for a while. She wasn’t sure if she was hurt that he didn’t argue back. She wasn’t sure of anything, but she hoped the distance would somehow make her hurt more. She imagined the distance between her and Tom opening her heart even wider, spreading like a lily at the end of its bloom. In that pain, she found solace. That she was hurting, that she was somehow carrying the equal weight of what Maggie was feeling inside as she looked down at her immovable legs.

The house seemed to know that Maggie was different now and sought to remind Serena of the pain. Her little handprints whispered on the walls. Tiny socks were found underneath furniture. An old Cheerio between cushions. A small hair bow tucked in the bathroom drawer next to the extra soap. Serena slept with Maggie’s favorite stuffed monkey doll at night, but it was losing its smell of outdoor dirt, cheese crackers, and strawberry detangler spray.

Serena went to Maggie’s room and put all her stuffed animals away in her purple bin. It looked neat and tidy now—all the soft animals and dolls hidden away. Serena picked up a random hippo that Tom had won Maggie at a carnival. How much had he spent trying to win this? She flipped it over and saw its stitches were showing. How many stuffed animals does one little girl need? How long does it take a stuffed hippo to decompose in the trash? She threw it in the purple bin and exhaled. The world seemed like one big bin holding everyone’s consumption. Her house suddenly felt overwhelming. Are stacks of stuffed animals any different than stacks of beets?

On Thursdays, Serena would sneak into the old community center where she used to take Maggie for music. She hid in the bathroom so no one would see her. She listened to the happy kids’ songs through the walls. Songs about dancing clowns, mischievous rabbits, and choo choo trains combined with the sounds of hands on drums, rhythm sticks slapping, and the crash of noisy cymbals that were completely offbeat. Serena’s long, lean legs perched on the old white toilets. Instinctively she’d tap her hands on her legs to keep beat like she’d do on Maggie’s little legs to teach her about rhythm. She didn’t cry. She just sat there until class was over and waited exactly thirteen minutes to give everyone enough time to put on jackets, locate any missing sippy cups, and hold hands while steering the slowest of dawdling first-time walkers. Serena did this every week for two months. A painful scab she could pick every Thursday.

Serena had not been returning Abigail’s calls. She ignored Robert’s sudden attempts for company. She was letting herself fall apart a little. Wasn’t that healthy? Wasn’t her life of holding everything so tightly together not healthy? The one place Serena could focus was the lab. She felt her purpose at her lab bench. She had outsmarted men to get here. Outlasted inappropriate conversations where she was the only woman in the room. Her lab was a testament to how much she had prevailed. And she would stop at nothing to do her best science and help other female scientists and grad students do their best. She was filling out a grant for one of her students when she got Nina’s phone call.

“I’ve got some news for you. But it’s all a bit odd. The good news is the hospital had put a lot of patient files in a database, and Jen was able to locate your sister. The date isn’t wrong, Serena. She found the bloodwork. And the bloodwork and everything checked out normal.”

“Well, that doesn’t make sense. My sister had trisomy. There’s no way the bloodwork would have been normal.” Serena shook her head as if to get the information out of it. She had been concerned about the date; she never expected the bloodwork to not match either.

“Could someone have entered the date wrong in both places?” Serena asked.

“Jen doesn’t think so. I mean, anything is possible. Mistakes happen. But the bloodwork matched the date, too.”

“I appreciate Jen looking into this. I’m not sure what it all means. But . . .” Serena stopped there, because her brain was scrambling, trying to wrap her head around why the date would be wrong and the bloodwork would show a normal baby.

“Okay, got to get back to work. Coffee next week?”

“Yep. Let’s plan sometime next week. Thanks again. And thank Jen.”

Serena knew she needed to talk to Abigail. And she was about to call her when she got a text from her aunt Eileen. She wanted everyone to meet up that night. Eileen had always understood her. Acceptance somehow spilled out of her aunt’s reddish-gray hair. Approval came from her extra big eyelids. Through the years, Serena always felt comfortable around her, and she wanted to feel that for a few moments again. Abigail was bringing pizza. They would all meet at her father’s house. Yes, it was her father’s house now. She wondered what her aunt and father would say about her birth certificate finding. Surely, they knew the truth behind it.

Serena knocked lightly on the door she had entered for so long without having to knock.

“Anyone here?” she asked as she opened.

She could hear her aunt talking to Abigail in the kitchen. Serena walked in quietly, and her aunt stood up and gave her a big hug. A hug that took her entire body into hers, hard. Not one of those half-shouldered insincere ones where bodies hardly touch.

“You hanging in there?” Eileen asked, her eyes working hard to find Serena’s.

“Could be worse.” Serena laughed uncomfortably and enjoyed the tension she put in the air.

Abigail put her hand on Serena’s shoulder, and Serena shot her a look that indicated she had news to share. But Abigail didn’t pick up on it.

Dinner was quiet. Abigail inspected the pizza crust and tried to focus on the flour as if it were the most fascinating specks of white she had seen. Robert bobbed his head up and down in an agreeable fashion to Eileen’s discussion about the current state of politics and the need for more funding for small businesses. Serena felt somewhere between sick to her stomach and nervous. She wanted to bring up the birth certificate, but when was the right time? And should she tell Abigail first? Instead, she gave them an update about Maggie and her progress with therapy. But stopped before she mentioned Dorothy’s birth certificate. It was like her words were stuck in cement inside of her. Serena put down her curved crust, which seemed to be smiling at her on the plate. She turned the smiling crust upside down so it would frown.

Serena escaped to the bathroom to collect her thoughts. It’s dirty, she thought. A dust trail around the molding. Her mother’s collection of hand soaps now had snowcaps of dust on them. She traced her finger around the delicate pink heart her mom had gotten from Serena’s wedding shower. Serena had gotten it as a gift, and her mom put it in her purse before Serena had time to claim it as her own. “This will go great in the bathroom, don’t you think?” Barbara asked. Serena smiled shyly, hoping no one else at the shower noticed the interaction.

She washed her hands repeatedly. Trying to rid herself of her uncomfortableness. Why did this feel like such a big deal? Was it because she knew it meant something bigger? Something that included her mother? A woman she would never understand. She tried to soap away the dusty bathroom and all that its dirt reminded her of. As if each speck of dust screamed, “She is gone. She is dead.” The hot water splashed her again, uncomfortably reminding her skin that she couldn’t scrub away seeing Maggie’s legs move as if they had forgotten how to play. Like drunken deer legs wobbling weakly. As if chasing bubbles was something they had never done or would never do again.

Serena looked down and saw a little spider making its way up the handle of the toilet bowl brush in the corner. The brush sat in a silly-looking wooden duck that her mom had gotten at a craft fair long ago, its beak and neck now home to a web. She couldn’t fix Maggie. She couldn’t fix her mom. But she could find out the truth. She needed to find out the truth. And she knew deep inside that Dorothy’s birth certificate wasn’t a mistake; it was a lie.

When Serena returned to the table, she opened up the birth certificate and said, “I want to talk about Dorothy.”

Eileen’s eyes looked up and darted around to her fellow pizza eaters.

“Where did you find that?” Aunt Eileen said, trying to make her voice sound as pleasant and normal as possible, which only made it sound slightly high-pitched, uptight, and uncomfortable. Suddenly, Serena felt them all staring at her. Abigail with confusion. Her dad with shame. And her aunt with fear.

“Why is the date wrong?” This time Serena stared back with boldness and directness. She was not afraid of their eyes. She was not afraid of the truth.

“Your mom loved you. More than you know,” her aunt said as she looked over at Robert for some sort of approval. Robert’s eyes fell low.

“Why is the date wrong?” Serena repeated.

“Maybe it’s time you heard the truth.”

“Eileen.” Robert was suddenly awake now, his body wrenching with agitation.

“Your mom spent her whole life protecting you.”

“Protecting me?” Serena said wildly. “Protecting me from what? From her hating me, finding fault in me? Ha. If there was a car speeding down the street, Mom would have thrown me in front of it and said it was to teach me a lesson.”

“Look, it’s complicated,” Eileen said.

“So, explain it to me.” Serena put her hand on her aunt’s arm.

She had been nothing but tender to her aunt. But right now, Serena knew her aunt held the truth. And suddenly words bubbled out of her aunt, unstoppable like a volcano.

“Your mom lived her whole life protecting you from the truth. Because she thought it’d be better for you. I’m not saying I always agreed with her. Maybe it wasn’t right. I don’t know, maybe, she . . .” Her aunt stopped and got quiet.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.” Serena felt frustrated, tired of all the feelings her aunt was stirring. Feeling everything—that’s all she had been doing every day since losing her mother, since the accident with Maggie. Feeling sad when she saw Maggie’s small toothbrush. Feeling angry when she drove past that street where the accident was. Feeling annoyed when Tom’s magazines came in the mail and their subscription cards fell out like snow on the carpet.

“Dorothy didn’t die of that disease like your mom said.” Her aunt’s words came out quickly.

“I knew it. Her blood tests were normal.”

“You checked her blood tests?” Suddenly, Abigail’s voice broke into the conversation.

“I was going to tell you. I just found out.” Serena’s eyes filled with an apology to her sister.

Robert’s eyes opened and his mouth gaped, but he said nothing. Instead, he turned his back and slumped his shoulders down.

“What? Just tell me. Please tell me the truth.” Serena wanted more than anything to quench her thirst for the truth. The truth that hung silently around her whole childhood. It was on her mother’s face. It was hidden in the hate between them. The quiet reminder was always there that something was not right. She wanted to kick the couch, to do irrational things to make all of them talk.

“Dorothy didn’t have something wrong with her kidneys; your mom heard about that disease on a talk show or something.” Her aunt’s words were slow now. “You were just two when Dorothy died.”

Serena noticed her father’s shoulders shaking. It took her a minute to realize they weren’t shaking because he was cold; he was crying. It hadn’t dawned on her to look at Abigail. But at that moment, she could see in Abigail’s eyes that she was scared and didn’t have any idea what was going on.

“But Dorothy died before I was born, didn’t she?” Serena asked, her brain not ready to take in the birth certificate date and her aunt’s words.

Her aunt repeated her words, “You were two when Dorothy died.”

Serena looked at Abigail. The two sisters’ eyes met and looked for clarity in each other. Abigail’s face was frozen.

“Abigail.” Her aunt paused, as if suddenly realizing she was a part of this, too.

Abigail said nothing. And Serena saw in her a quiet recognition of something. She couldn’t tell what, but she saw her face change.

“Barbara repeated over and over that Dorothy had died before you were born, Serena. You were young; you didn’t even speak. So, you grew up knowing only that. But Abigail, it took you longer. Barbara would correct you over and over, and soon you believed it, too. You stopped trusting your memory about which baby was which.”

“Why would she lie to us about when our sister was born?” Serena asked, suddenly feeling so angry at her mother. And anger was a feeling that came easily to Serena when she thought about how hard her mother made so many parts of her life.

“For you, Serena. She did it for you.” Eileen’s face looked different. Suddenly her whole face looked hard, her cheeks like marble floors.

“Robert?” Her aunt looked at him as if this was his curtain call, that suddenly he would spring to life and tell the rest of the story. But his eyes stayed down at his feet. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a stained hanky and wiped his nose.

“She loved you. She did, Serena.” Serena waited for her aunt to say more. She waited in the silence. She imagined swirls of sun dust all around her. She felt sick to her stomach. She felt exhilarated. She felt everything and nothing. She didn’t look up at Abigail; she didn’t have room to take in her sister’s emotions, too.

“You were so excited when Dorothy came home. Your very own baby doll. You loved nothing more than carrying baby dolls around back then. You would stare at her all day. You loved her so. One night, you snuck into her nursery. She was in a bassinet. You scooted your little red stool over and brought Dorothy into your room. You must have been so gentle with her; she didn’t make a peep. You had a little wooden bed that you used for your dolls all ready for her. You didn’t mean to do anything. You loved her.”

“I didn’t mean to do what?” Serena asked. Suddenly her heart felt large and pulsing. This was not the truth she was looking for. She hadn’t prepared any hypothesis in her mind where she was a part of this lie.

“You went back to sleep with Dorothy in your room. You put a cover on her and gave her a stuffed animal. The wooden bed wasn’t meant to hold a real baby. The slat broke slightly, just enough that Dorothy rolled a bit. She was swaddled super tight. But she was facing downward under the cover. You hear more about it these days. She died of SIDS.”

“What?” Serena was feeling angry, and for the first time ever, she wanted to hit her aunt.

Abigail was now bent down, squatting on her back legs. Serena gave her one glance, but it felt like all of the words were coming directly at Serena and attacking her. Never before had she been aware of every cell in her skin.

But her aunt kept talking. Slower now, as if this freight train of a conversation could not be stopped and there was nothing to do but let each of the words out along the track.

“Barbara woke up and couldn’t find the baby. She was in hysterics. She checked your room to check on you and found her.”

“You were just a kid.” The change in voice alerted Serena. Her dad’s eyes looked full and heavy. Something in the tone of his voice made her feel like he had repeated this line many times before, sticking up for her. Was this the line he fed to Barbara when she accused Serena of being a killer as they went to sleep at night?

A thousand years of anger came out of Serena. “You knew this. And you’ve been lying to me my whole life. And to her?” Serena suddenly felt the need to get Abigail involved in this. To share the misery of the situation.

“I need to go.” Serena felt Eileen’s arm pulling her back, but for once she didn’t care if she hurt her. She pulled her body away from her, from everyone. She had learned the truth, and she had never in her life wanted to run so far from it.

“It’s because she loved you. She protected you your whole life. Don’t you see how much she loved you?”

But Serena did not see love. She saw hate. She saw lies. She saw all the times as a child she put her hand out to her mother, only to have her recoil.

“She hated me,” Serena screamed, and all at once felt like a two-year-old girl having a tantrum. She wanted to stomp her foot through everything in the room on the ground. Love? This is love? she thought.

She ran to the car and could hardly control her keys. Her hands were shaking. Her whole body was shaking. Her mind couldn’t think. She just needed to drive away somewhere. But it was too quiet. The road, the night, everything. She turned on her radio and spun the dial. A CD started to play: one of Maggie’s music CDs. “I love the mountains. I love the trees,” rang out in a syrupy sweet voice as Serena drove to nowhere.

***

“I want this for my birthday, Mommy.” It was a beautiful pink doll cradle with little white hearts. Just like a little real one. It looked soft and cozy and magically sweet.

“No. No doll stuff. That’s for babies. You’re a big girl. You know that. How many times do I have to tell you?” Her mom’s face looked hard. Her Nos had an air of disgust to them. Serena knew she was in trouble. Serena put her hand up to hold her mother’s. But Barbara was already in front of her.

***

Before long, Serena couldn’t help but find herself on familiar roads. She pulled into a rocky parking lot and listened to the low rumble under her tires. It was her favorite playground when she was little. She got out and sat on the bench. It was a wood bench that had been repainted many colors over many years—from orange to green to now an earthy brown. She sat and looked down at her legs. She could remember how her mom’s legs were always crossed, the top one always kicking and moving slightly like it couldn’t rest. She stared ahead where her favorite bridge used to be. It was black and you could jump on it. Sometimes big kids would get on there and jump so hard Serena would go flying forward. Now in its place was a solid structure that no one could jump on. It looked safe, but less fun. When Serena closed her eyes, she could still see the bridge. The sound of laughter woke her from her memory.

“Catch it. You can do it. Look how beautiful!” She watched as a dad scampered after a toddler who was trying mightily to catch a white butterfly kissing the tops of the grass. The emphatic excitement that only parents could muster up, as if the world were reborn anew when they saw it through their kid’s eyes. The sight of a butterfly suddenly became a moment to teach, to embrace, to find joy. How it all fades away, Serena thought. That excitement and push to see the world with beauty. Where does it go? It is all killed. One day at a time, Serena thought. The sun was going down, and suddenly the air had a chill to it. The cold filled Serena, but she could not move. To move was to accept what she just heard. To move was to live in a world where she had killed her sister. To move was to have to think about the life of lies.

She searched the sky. She found no answers. She watched a man walk his small brown dog. The dog’s short legs moved quickly, yet went nowhere. The dog’s thick brown fur was matted in odd ways, like he had stuck his head out the window and enjoyed the wind all the way to the park. His black eyes had that special blend of crazy small dog—the kind of crazy that bites mailmen and chases bikes riding past. The owner talked to the dog and smiled at him. Serena couldn’t hear what he was saying. She knew that she should see companionship, but as she watched the dog and the man following behind, all she could think was that he held his leash like he was a prisoner. Like it was a ball and chain that was stuck on him. The man marched slowly behind the dog, a bag of poop swinging side to side, letting out puffs of defecation. A slave to the dog’s whims of stopping, sniffing, and marking. Are we all prisoners to others? she wondered.

She went back to her car and turned on the radio, searching for a song, for anything. She turned the dial over and over and over. From song to talk to static to song to song to song. Nothing was right. She just kept turning the dial and not even listening to what came on the speakers. In the few seconds of silence before each new song, she felt like she was drowning. That the air wasn’t getting to her lungs. She could feel her lungs; she breathed deep to make them expand and tried to imagine the process. She tried to focus on the air traveling through her nose down her windpipe. She couldn’t feel it reach her lungs. Her bronchial tubes weren’t working. Her alveoli weren’t getting air. She could picture her seventh-grade science book. The diagram that showed the blue illustration of how lungs worked. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was that flat diagram, nothing but a nondescript blue scientific picture. Just breathe, she thought. She wished nothing more than to be a diagram in a book. Flat. Unfeeling. Closed after a moment’s glance of learning. Her hand rested on her leg. She was not flat. She felt her skin. There was no hiding from this. In her head, she thought about how just yesterday she was overwhelmed by the pile of life. The dirty dishes in the sink. The laundry stack in the basket waiting to be put away. Just yesterday life had felt so overwhelming. So much needing in so many places. Just yesterday the needs of her child and chores had taken her strength. And now today. Well, today. All had changed.

She got out her phone and texted Tom: Are u there? She held the phone and stared at it.

It buzzed quickly. Yes. Everything okay?

Serena wrote two letters: No, and tears streamed down her face. She walked back to her car and hid in its darkness. Her phone buzzed angrily.

What’s going on? Is it Maggie? Can I call you?

Serena texted: Not Maggie. It’s me. Are you alone?

Yes, wrote Tom. Mike is out of town.

Can I come over?

Yes. Are you okay?

Need to talk. Be there in 10.

Serena started driving. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to talk to Tom, to tell him. But she knew if there was one person who would understand, it was him. Well, she knew Abigail would understand, too. But she wasn’t ready to face her sister yet. She looked at her watch. She promised Maggie she’d be back to the clinic by seven-thirty after her physical therapy. She hated that they encouraged Maggie to do it by herself. Empowerment without Mommy.

Serena parked and could hear the sound of an instrument in the distance. Was it a violin? A cello? It sounded beautifully sad. How she longed to play an instrument. To learn something new. When do we stop learning? We fill our early lives with learning, concerts to prove our worth, dance recitals, awkward school plays on a stage. For what? To become adults where we don’t do anything? Where we take fewer chances and spend our days working? It all seemed as lonely as the stringed instrument she heard playing. But at least they are playing, she thought. Suddenly it sounded more like a rallying cry. A not-giving-up sound. A note fighting against the dullness of the adult world.

Serena listened for a moment more as she stood in front of the door. The music quieted, and she knocked. The knock that would mean the words were true. The knock that would begin her story that ended with death.

“Hi.” It was all Tom said. But it was enough to unravel her. She had been holding her breath. She hugged him and cried. Cried like a child. Hard sobs, snot dripping—it was not like her at all to be such a mess, but she didn’t care. Her snot ran into her hair, got on his shoulder. After a few moments, her embarrassment set in, and she regained her harden shell. “I’m sorry. This isn’t fair. I don’t know what I’m doing.” She pulled back, straightened her shirt, and pushed back her hair with both hands, neatening her ponytail.

“You said it wasn’t Maggie? Maybe you need a night off from her? I can stay tonight? We only have one week left until she gets to come home, right? We’re almost there.”

“No, I want to stay with Maggie. I don’t mind. I even sleep decent there now. I promised her.”

Serena thought she should just leave. Keep her secret. Keep her shame. But the thought of living in the world with it alone seemed too big.

“Come sit down. I can make you tea? A drink?” offered Tom. He seemed so formal for someone who had spent the last seven years with her.

Serena sat on the couch. She didn’t lean back. She sat on the edge of the brown cushion and stared forward. She didn’t know where to start. And then she did. The words just kept tumbling out of her. They didn’t even feel real. But the changing look on Tom’s face showed her they were real. All of it. The birth certificate. The wrong date. The death of her sister. The conversation with her aunt and father. The lies of her mother. The strange relationship that twisted back from love to hate that plagued Serena all her life. That feeling like her mother always thought she had done something wrong. It was all so clear, yet it was all so awful. It was like the whole landscape of the world had suddenly shuffled and reappeared before her. Not more beautiful, but more confusing and darker. She didn’t even realize she had stopped talking. That no one was talking until Tom came over and hugged her. He said nothing. She said nothing. They sat there together, his arms around her. Serena’s arms were down at her side; she let him hug her and finally rested her hand on his arm. The arm of the only person whom she could trust to talk to. Even though her heart still questioned if she really could trust anyone.

“I don’t know what to say. What did your dad say?” Tom finally spoke.

“Nothing really. My aunt did most of the talking.”

“I can’t believe they kept this a secret.”

“I can. I’m a fucking killer. No wonder she hated me.”

“You were a kid.”

“I was never a kid. My mom made sure of that. And now I finally know why.”

“What if it was Maggie?” Tom asked.

“What?”

“If it was Maggie, would you tell her?”

“I don’t know.” Serena thought for a moment how odd it was to think of her mother as loving her as much as she loved Maggie. She would do anything to protect Maggie.

“What now?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know,” said Serena, and they both stared at the floor as if each step forward seemed impossible.

“Will you kiss me?” Serena asked.

“Of course.” And Tom kissed her sweetly on the lips because he missed her, too. He kissed her lips, her cheeks, her forehead, and her neck. It reminded Serena of when they were younger and the world seemed better when they were together. When new restaurants were new adventures, and the possibility of owning houses, having careers, and going on vacations all seemed so exciting. She kissed him back and pulled him onto the rug next to the couch. She didn’t know why, but she needed him at that moment. To know that he still loved her, wanted her, needed her. To touch something real when all the world suddenly seemed very strange. His shoulders felt stronger than she remembered. She kissed his neck, and his body tightened in a good way. His breath deepened.

She stared up at the fan and tried to imagine it was something beautiful. Like if she could look at it a different way, it could turn into one of those artsy photographs from the fifties where inanimate objects suddenly looked cool. An opened door could look both mysterious and deep. But she could not find the beauty in the fan. The lightbulbs didn’t match. The glass surroundings looked like misshaped flowers. The white was rusting.

Before long, it was done. They never took their shoes off. His brown pants were barely down below his waist. She felt sheepish, and the world turned back to cold.

Serena pulled up her pants and looked at her watch. “I should go. Maggie is waiting for me. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Of course.” Tom stood up and touched her arm. “Serena?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes looked soft. The creases around them frowning.

Serena looked at him and wondered what Tom was sorry for. What he did, what Serena did, or for the road ahead. As she walked out the door, Tom grabbed her shoulder.

“I’m going to go with you,” he said.

“I’m fine. I don’t need you to go with me.” Serena’s posture was sunken. Her back was suddenly tired. Her words sounded stronger than she felt.

“I’m going with you,” he said again as he casually grabbed his jacket and walked out the door. “I’ll drive.”

Serena didn’t feel like fighting, and she realized, in that moment, she didn’t feel like driving anyway. She lived in a world where she constantly took on more, never saying no. Juggling a job, motherhood, a failing marriage. She took it all on and walked forward with her heavy load because in her mind, that’s what strong women do. They balance all of life in one hand and a glass of wine in the other. But in her strength, she had forgotten about herself. And for once, she let Tom make life a tad bit easier.

“Mommy! Daddy!” Maggie’s little arms grabbed them both and pulled them close into her hospital bed. She sat up as high as she could on her braced legs. “Family hug,” Maggie said as she closed her eyes tight.

Are we still a family? Serena wondered to herself. In her daughter’s sweet embrace, she wanted to be. She wanted to be the family that Maggie deserved. A family of love, hugs, warm family dinners, laughter, and picnics. But Serena didn’t know if she could even be the same person, or even the same mother, now that she knew the truth.