At first, it looks to Frank as if Maggie is sitting up, and he feels a rush of hope. He picks up the planner from where it has fallen at his feet, the page edges discolored with sweat where it has been wedged in his armpit. He tries to dry it off on his shirt, only that is saturated too. He wipes his forehead on his forearm and then, before he forgets, takes the chair from beside the door and scoops the plastic ridge at the top under the handle to buy them a little privacy. To buy himself a little more time too. God knows he needs it.
Frank shuffles round the side of the bed so that he is looking directly at Maggie. After all, what do either of them have to hide?
He notices then that it is all an illusion: four pillows are propped at various angles to keep her up and her eyes are shut. She doesn’t seem to have registered his presence at all.
“Maggie? Can you hear me?” Frank reaches out with one hand and slides it under hers. “Squeeze if you can hear me.”
Nothing.
“Maggie, please, darling. This is all I’m asking. I know I don’t deserve it. I never deserved you, and I certainly don’t after everything I put you through. I’m sorry I stopped talking. I’m sorry I had to leave before I got to tell you why I closed off. But if you can do this for me, I promise I won’t ask for anything ever again.”
Frank’s words pour out like a hose on full blast. A long winter when the plastic was frozen solid, and now this—just a few minutes to spill out everything he needs to. No sprinkling of anecdotes, no draining the message.
Frank waits. He has to resort to counting time by the beats of his heart, fat, heavy, painful beats. One, two. Maggie is as still as ever. He will not let this be an excuse again.
“I read this.” Frank shakes the planner in Maggie’s direction. A few of the photos she enclosed scatter on the sheet; he had not had the time nor the inclination to clip them back in. “I read it all. This, Maggie, this bit about you being the last person to see her. Well, we were in it together. We always were.”
Then there it is. A squeeze.
“Maggie? Oh God . . . right . . .”
Slowly, Maggie’s eyes flutter. One opens, and then the other. It reminds Frank of the butterflies he and Eleanor watched in the conservatory at the Botanic Gardens, back when she was just nine. The fluttering before the flight.
Before Frank has a chance to check that Maggie is awake, there is a rapping at the door. The handle wavers, but the chair is doing its job. The door won’t budge now, not without getting the heavies involved. Through the small glass panel, Frank can pick out the doctor. Dr. Singh is smiling, a little too much, the sort of smile you give to someone unhinged. He wants him to open up.
That makes two of them.
Frank shakes his head and turns back to Maggie, her eyes definitely open now, though glazed. Her gaze has not moved from him. Not to the photos. Not to the planner. Certainly not to the commotion outside her room.
He takes as deep a breath as his screaming lungs allow and looks Maggie square in the face. “You weren’t the only one to see her, Mags. That night. I did too.”
Maggie pinches his hand. He doesn’t have the time to figure out if that is a good sign or not. He has been sitting on this secret for six months now, and it has wrecked him. More than just his voice, it has taken every second of every minute of every day that he has survived, and it has corroded everything.
“I thought I was the last person to see Eleanor. I had no idea it was the last time—how could I? It was definitely her, though—the duffel bag, the messy bun—I’d know her anywhere. I’d just gotten off the bus, it was dark, but I knew it was her. I was standing at the bus stop, and she was at the end of the road, all flustered, you know the way she would be, when she had other stuff on her mind . . .
“She didn’t see me. I am almost certain of that. But I ignored her, Mags. I was scared. Scared of her coming home, scared of how it would be. It’s not a justification, I know that. But that’s why . . . that’s why I ignored her. I wasn’t there for her when she needed me the most.”
There is another rap at the door. Two new gentlemen have arrived, one bearing a walkie-talkie. Security? Let them haul him out; there is no way Frank is leaving voluntarily now.
He crouches down so he is at eye level with Maggie. His hand has not moved from beneath hers.
“There was no way I could tell you, Mags. I didn’t want to lose you too. I was so ashamed of myself. That was not the man you married or the father I am . . .”
There are tears coming, sobs that are beginning to break like hiccups in Frank’s throat. He swallows them down. Not now, this is not about him. This is his last shot.
“When I went to see her, Maggie, she was in a little side room on her own, and do you know what my first thought was? God, I hope she won’t be lonely. I was being led down the corridor toward her, blind with terror. We got to the room where she was being held, and the escort stepped aside. He wanted to give me some space, but really I needed him to push me. I don’t know how I crossed the threshold, but somehow my feet just kept going.
“I had no idea what to expect. A body exhumed from the canal. That was what the police had said, like she was a trainer or a trolley or something. She looked so small on that slab, a doll among the dead. Her eyes were shut, but I made sure to open them, I wanted to see her properly, to make a new last time for us, father and daughter. It took me right back to that first moment when I held her as a baby, when I told myself there and then that I would do everything I could to protect her.
“I stayed and watched her for an hour, maybe more. I only left when the poor man in the morgue charged with looking after me cleared his throat and said that he had to close up soon.
“You still hadn’t moved when I came home that night. And that’s when it began, Mags. The silence. I had caused her death, Maggie, ignored her, and I knew that if I told you, however good a person you might be, you wouldn’t be able to forgive me. I’m right, aren’t I? I couldn’t risk that. I couldn’t lose you too.”
There is no way Frank can hold down the sobs now. They have risen up like dry retches, heaving out of his throat. A tear drops from the end of his nose and lands on Maggie’s hand.
“I’m so sorry, Maggie. I am sorry every moment that I am awake. I miss her, and I will never stop missing her—”
There is a crash as a security guard sends the chair slamming across the room. Maggie shudders, as if startled by just the noise. A second later, the door gives way and the doctor enters, flanked by the backup.
All eyes are on Frank. No one moves. No one says a word.
Frank carries on, oblivious.
“I am sorry that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you what I did. I’m sorry that you had to suffer in my silence too. I’m sorry for how I let you down. I’m sorry for most things, Maggie, but I have never been sorry that I loved you. I never will be either.”
At that, Frank’s knees give up on the squat and he falls forward, his forehead onto the mattress, his stubble brushing Maggie’s thigh through the sheet.
It takes all her strength for Maggie to reach over and place a hand on the top of Frank’s back, nestling it between two taut shoulder blades.
“Hush now, Frank,” she says.