At the end of March, Aden got his college acceptance letters. He was accepted at Dartmouth and Boston University, with a full scholarship to play on their hockey teams. Buck’s recommendations had helped, but Aden had earned it. Maggie was even more worried now about his playing such a violent sport, but he had played all through high school, and it was what he wanted to do in college. It didn’t reassure her that two days after he accepted Boston University, he got into a massive team fight on the ice, and got a cut over his eye that needed stitches and a dislocated jaw when the opposing team’s goalie punched him. She gave him a sound lecture when she drove him home from the emergency room. Half the team was there, and Aden was proud of the scrap that they had gotten into. All of the boys were fined and would have to miss the next game. She was still annoyed at him when Buck came to check on him the next day. He was a big, burly man who had played professional hockey for two seasons in his youth, and had to give it up when he broke his ankle during a game.
“It’s the nature of the game.” He tried to soothe Maggie about the fight, which didn’t reassure her. “The pros do it too.”
“That’s what I don’t like about it. He could end up with a serious injury,” she said as she led Buck into her kitchen after he visited Aden, who was watching TV from his bed. Aden didn’t admit it to his mother, but he thought the fight had been fun, just like the pro players in the NHL, as Buck said. He felt like a man now, and Buck didn’t disagree with him, although he didn’t say it to Aden’s mother. He knew she was always worried about Aden getting hurt. Other than that, Buck liked her. And she was a very pretty woman.
“He’s a great player, Maggie. He’s got what it takes for the NHL: incredible timing, speed, size. He’s got all the right instincts. He could be a pro player one day, and a good one.” She had higher hopes for him, and didn’t want him playing violent sports. Brad hadn’t wanted that for him either. “I’m going to miss him when he leaves for Boston. He’s my star player,” Buck said. She was more interested in his education than a future in the NHL.
“I’m going to miss him too,” she said sadly. Buck had been very kind to him in the three months since Brad had died. He had mentored him all through high school, but had stepped it up when Brad died and tried to be almost a father figure to Aden. He had dropped in on him at home to check on him from time to time, which Maggie appreciated. There were no other adult men in his life now. “The house is going to be like a tomb without him,” she admitted.
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. Enjoy the next five months before he leaves, and then I have to find something to do. I can’t sit around here all day.” She had been thinking about it a lot, and hadn’t come up with any ideas. She didn’t even have her twice-a-week job at Brad’s firm anymore. She didn’t want to intrude on Phil, since he was buying the business, and he didn’t really need her. She had just done it to be close to Brad, once Aden was in school.
Buck chatted about the subject awkwardly for a while, and then looked at her and spat it out. “I’d love to take you out to dinner sometime. You’re a wonderful woman.” He had been divorced for years and his kids were grown. His whole life was the school and the coaching he did. He was kind of gruff, a little rough around the edges, and he was great with the kids, but he held no appeal for her. She couldn’t see herself with a high school hockey coach, going to games every weekend. She was ready for that time in her life to end. Brad had agreed to travel to please her, and they had both liked the theater and ballet. They went to Chicago for it. She wondered if this was what she had to look forward to now, dating the high school coach. The prospect didn’t cheer her. She turned him down as gently as she could, and he looked disappointed when he left. She told him she wasn’t dating and wouldn’t be ready to for a long time.
Brad’s lawyer tried the same thing when Maggie met with him. He’d been divorced twice and was something of a ladies’ man, or thought he was. He was sixty years old, and Maggie was shocked when he asked her to dinner with a clear innuendo in his tone, and the look in his eyes made her skin crawl. She had always liked him until then, and decided to change lawyers as soon as possible. Helen recommended a friend, a younger woman at a local firm. Maggie met with her and hired her. She had no interest whatsoever in dating, and certainly not the dregs of what was available, either slimy men or lonely ones, who didn’t measure up to Brad and didn’t appeal to her.
She thanked Helen for the recommendation when they had lunch. They had gotten close since Brad’s death. Her son had been accepted at Yale, and would be playing hockey too, but hadn’t applied for a scholarship. They didn’t qualify, and he wasn’t a strong enough player to get one. Aden didn’t need a scholarship now either, although he didn’t know it. Phil Abrams and her lawyers were the only ones who did, and she intended to keep it that way. She had no desire to show off. On the contrary, she was extremely discreet. Aden’s scholarship was based on his talent, and the schools he applied to offered it as a lure to get him to come to their institution and play on their team. It was not based on his parents’ financial need or she would have felt obliged to decline it in their new circumstances, and would have had to explain it to Aden. She was glad she didn’t have to.
“Wait till the married guys start hitting on you,” Helen said with a wry smile, and Maggie groaned.
“Is that all that’s left out there now for women like us? Married guys and creeps?” she asked with a look of disgust. “I don’t want to date, and maybe I never will. But if I did, it’s slim pickings. Who do people go out with at our age?”
“Old friends, people they went to school with, or met at work. Recently divorced guys, or younger ones. Or they meet online, but that always sounds scary to me,” Helen said warily.
“I’d be terrified of meeting an axe murderer, or some guy fresh out of prison,” Maggie said grimly.
“Or just a jerk, or a married guy lying about it. That’s happened to a lot of women I know. But some of them do meet nice guys on the internet. I just wouldn’t have the guts to try,” Helen said. She was glad she was married, even if their marriage wasn’t perfect.
“Neither would I,” Maggie agreed about internet dating. But she was a long way from that. She still dreamed of Brad at night, and in her dreams he was alive. She still felt married to him when she was awake. She thought she always would. She couldn’t imagine being in love with, or sleeping with, someone else.
“Have you thought any more about a job?” Helen asked her, and Maggie shook her head.
“I haven’t worked full-time in eighteen years. I don’t even know what I can do. And I don’t want to do anything until Aden leaves for BU.”
“Why don’t you take a trip then?” She suggested it and then looked embarrassed. “If you can afford to, obviously.” She was sure that Brad must have left them some kind of life insurance. He was a responsible guy, but she also knew Maggie was selling his business, and assumed she needed the money.
“I can afford a trip,” Maggie said, “but traveling alone doesn’t sound like much fun. And where would I go?”
“Why don’t you make a list of all the places you’ve always wanted to go to and never have, and then pick? It could be really fun. Then start job hunting when you get back.”
“Maybe,” Maggie said, unconvinced. She loved traveling with Brad, but not alone.
She put the suggestion out of her mind. Three days later, she had bigger things to think about. Aden had gotten in serious trouble for the first time in his life. He and five of his friends had gotten drunk at a friend’s house, broken into a skateboard park, and were doing tricks there with their skateboards. He had sprained his ankle badly but was otherwise unharmed. One of the other boys had broken a leg. The skateboard park had agreed not to press charges since the boys were first-time offenders from decent families, but they had been given a stern warning by the police. Maggie had to pick Aden up at juvenile hall, and then take him to the emergency room again. She gave him a serious talking-to when they got home.
“What’s happening to you? You never acted like this before, when Dad was alive. Are you planning to turn into a juvenile delinquent now? Or get kicked out of school or off the hockey team?”
“I’m sorry, Mom.” He looked remorseful and embarrassed. The beer had worn off by then. They weren’t that drunk, just out to have fun. And he had a slight buzz on. “You wouldn’t believe how high I got on the loops,” he said, looking pleased with himself. “I want to go back there again sometime with my board!”
“So you can break an arm or a leg? I want to keep you alive and in one piece. You’re all I have now,” she said somberly. For an instant, he reminded her of her brother at his age, and Paul Gilmore with his skateboard before he graduated to motorcycles. She didn’t want that for her son. But every now and then she could see that thrill seeking and danger were in his blood. It always had been, like with her father and brother. Brad didn’t have that in him at all, which she had loved. “What’s going to happen when you’re in Boston and have no supervision? Are you going to go crazy, or behave? I don’t want to lie in bed every night, terrified, waiting for the phone to ring and hear you’re in trouble, or got hurt.”
“You won’t, I promise.” But she wasn’t sure she believed him. “Maybe I could be a race car driver one day,” he said with a dreamy expression, and she groaned.
“You’re not reassuring me, Aden. Maybe you should become a CPA like your dad. My mom was right about that. Thrill seekers and wild men always run into trouble. They either kill themselves or break everyone’s heart or both. My father did, my brother was like that too, even though he died in the war, but he always loved speed and danger and anything high risk. I had a boyfriend like that in high school. My first love. He went off to race motorcycles and do all kinds of crazy stuff after high school. He’s probably dead by now too. I don’t want that happening to you. How would you feel if I became a trapeze artist in the circus, or a skydiver, or something where I could be killed?” He laughed at the image of his mother on the high wire.
“I’d think it was cool.”
“Go to bed, before I lock you in your room and throw away the key,” she said, only half joking. Sometimes he terrified her. More than ever now, without Brad’s influence and fatherly control over him. And she also knew that if he had that kind of thirst for high-risk pursuits and danger, it would be hard to curb that as he got older and had more freedom. She hoped he stayed safe in Boston, and didn’t go crazy without her watching over him.
Aden was relatively well behaved after that. Just the usual senioritis and hijinks before and after graduation. They cut some classes and sneaked some beer. He took a couple of driving trips with friends that summer, before they all left for college. He had a hot romance with a beautiful girl for the last month of summer, which kept him distracted. He spent most of his nights with her, and suddenly seemed very grown up to his mother. He was turning into a man right before her eyes. His summer romance left for UC Santa Cruz a week before he left for Boston, and he seemed to get over her quickly as he got ready to leave himself. It hadn’t been a serious romance for either of them, just a fling. And the girl didn’t try to continue it once she left, nor did Aden.
Maggie flew to Boston with him. It was the first time she had flown since the crash eight months before, and it was hard for her. After the crash, they had flown her back to Chicago, sedated, on a gurney in an air ambulance, and she hardly remembered it. But flying as a normal passenger with Aden was harder than she had feared it would be. She could hardly speak on the plane, she was so nervous, and Aden’s attempts to distract her had been ineffective. She was sheet-white, and didn’t speak until they got off in Boston. Aden felt sorry for her, and wondered if she’d ever be able to fly easily again. But she had done it so she could help set him up in the dorm.
They had a trunk with them, and two duffel bags with all his hockey equipment. He was starting practice on the junior team in two days. He wouldn’t be on the varsity team until junior year. And for either team, he had to maintain his grades. He would have to prove himself and earn his place there. He had already had several emails from the coach, who had a great reputation and was supposed to be tough. Buck had taken Aden out to dinner before he left, and told him to stay in touch when he was a big NHL star one day. Aden still wasn’t sure he wanted to play pro hockey, but he was looking forward to playing in college, and doing a lot of other things. His life was unrolling in front of him like a red carpet. It made him miss his dad more than ever at times.
They got his dorm room set up in a day, with all his computer and stereo equipment, and a small fridge they rented. They bought a bike for him to use on campus. And he had snuck his skateboard into one of the duffel bags. Maggie found it and wasn’t happy about it, but she let him keep it if he promised not to use it in traffic on the streets, and he agreed. Sometimes she wished that she’d had a daughter instead of a son. It would have been so much easier than all the different kinds of physical danger boys were attracted to, the men in her family anyway. But girls did other things to put themselves at risk, so maybe it was all the same in the end. She loved Aden with all her heart. It nearly killed her when it came time to say goodbye to him. She couldn’t stop crying after she left, and she had to keep reminding herself, as Brad would have, that he was going to be okay. It was so hard doing this alone. And the return trip on the plane was even harder without him, but the flight was smooth, with no problems.
She felt drained and empty when she got back to Chicago, and had one of her worst nightmares that night, that Aden had drowned with Brad. She could see them both slipping under the water and couldn’t reach them in time. She woke up sobbing, and sat up in bed for the rest of the night with the TV on, unable to get the image out of her mind.
She called Aden in the morning, when he was on his way to the store to buy his books. He sounded happy and busy and fine. He liked his roommates and rushed her off the phone. She sat down in her kitchen with a sigh. The house was as empty as she had feared it would be, without a sound, and nothing for her to do. Helen called her just as she was thinking of going back to bed, which she knew was a bad idea, but she couldn’t help it. She felt as though she had lost everything now that Aden had flown the nest.
“So have you made your list?” Helen asked her.
“What list?” Maggie’s mind was a blank.
“Of all the places you want to go that you’ve never been to. That was homework. Remember?”
“Yeah. I guess I forgot,” Maggie said sheepishly with a grin. But she didn’t want to go anywhere alone. “I can see them on the internet.”
“You’re not a shut-in, Maggie. You’re a young widow with a kid in college. That means you have freedom. How about celebrating it?” It didn’t feel like a celebration to her, and it made her miss Brad more. Aden leaving for college had brought the loss into even sharper focus. “I’m coming over,” Helen said, and she was there twenty minutes later, as she had been off and on for the past eight months.
Helen had turned out to be incredibly loyal. Some of Maggie’s other friends hadn’t been. They acted nervous around her, as though losing her husband might be contagious, or she might try to hit on their husbands now, or her sadness and loss made them uncomfortable. Of all her friends, Helen had been the most present, and the most proactive. Every time Maggie started to sink, Helen dragged her up to the surface again, and got her going in the right direction. Except for this stupid idea about Maggie taking a trip by herself, which she didn’t want to do. Helen insisted she’d have fun once she got to her various destinations. And she reminded Maggie that if she hated it, she could always come home. She wasn’t going to the moon. She could cut it short if she really wanted to, but she should at least try to broaden her horizons again, and change scenery.
“I did it after my sister died, and it helped me,” she said firmly.
“What do other widows do?” Maggie asked glumly, as they sat in her kitchen with her laptop on the table in front of her.
“They try internet dating, if they want to date. Change jobs, move houses, travel, take cruises, or get plastic surgery if they can afford to. You don’t need it. You’re gorgeous and don’t look your age. You refuse to date and don’t seem to want to sell your house, so that leaves travel. Turn on your computer.” Maggie laughed. Helen had a piece of paper in front of her and a pen in her hand. She was taking the project seriously. Maggie wasn’t. “Okay, so where haven’t you been that you always thought would be cool?” Helen refused to be daunted, and stubbornly persisted.
“China,” Maggie said off the top of her head.
“Really?” Helen was impressed. “Do you want to go there?”
“No, but I like reading about it. And Japan.”
“Do you want to go there? Tokyo, Kyoto, the temples?”
“No, it’s too far. I think I’d be scared. San Francisco,” she said reasonably, and Helen wrote it down.
“Perfect. You get two points for that. What about L.A.?”
Maggie shook her head.
“No, we took Aden to Disneyland there. It would be too sad without Brad and Aden, and I didn’t love L.A. But I’ve always wanted to see Big Sur, and the Napa Valley, and the Golden Gate.” They were all locations in or close to San Francisco.
“Anyplace else in the U.S.?”
“No, we went to a lot of cities for Brad’s conventions. I think we’ve hit all the high spots.”
“Europe?” Helen asked her, enjoying the game. Maggie was starting to get into it too, in spite of herself, even if she never took a trip in the end. She didn’t really intend to. She was humoring Helen.
“I’ve never been there,” Maggie admitted, and Helen looked shocked.
“Never?”
“Never. Brad wasn’t a big traveler unless he could justify it for business. He promised me that we’d travel after Aden left for college. I’m not sure he meant it, or would actually have done it.”
“Okay, here we go. London?”
“Maybe. It looks cool and I speak the language,” Maggie conceded. Helen wrote it down after San Francisco.
“Paris! You can’t go to Europe and not go to Paris. It’s fantastic.” Helen wrote it down even before Maggie nodded. “Rome. Ohmygod. The food is so incredible and the country is so romantic. Florence is wonderful too, but less fun alone. And Venice is the most romantic city ever, maybe you should save that.” She wanted to say for her next honeymoon, but didn’t. “There it is. Four of the most fantastic cities in the world, if you eliminate Florence and Venice. You can do them in three or four weeks, and it will change your whole life and perspective. It beats the hell out of sitting around here watching TV, being bored, and feeling sorry for yourself. You said you can afford to travel. Call your travel agent.”
“And I just go by myself?” Maggie was skeptical and nervous about it. And she didn’t want to take all those flights alone.
“I’d go with you, but Jeff disintegrates if I leave him on his own with the kids for two days when I visit my mother in Detroit. Four weeks would probably kill him.”
“It might kill me too,” Maggie said, smiling.
“You can always come home,” Helen reminded her again. “You’ll never forget a trip like this, Maggie. And you have nothing else to do.” Her son didn’t need her anymore and there was no one else.
“I have to go to parents’ weekend at BU in a few weeks.” Maggie grabbed at a weak excuse.
“And after that, he won’t be home till Thanksgiving. He won’t even think about you by next month. You have plenty of time to travel. Grab it. Maggie, I swear to you, you won’t regret it.” Helen hoped she was right, if she decided to do it.
Maggie mulled it over all that night, and feeling utterly crazy, she called her travel agent the next morning and figured out what it would cost her. It was expensive, but she could afford it. And on the spur of the moment, she told her to set it up. San Francisco, from there directly to Rome, Paris, London, and then home. Four cities, four weeks, flying business class and staying at very good hotels, where she’d be safe. She had never done anything like it in her life, but she wondered if Helen was right and she should just do it. It was so out of character for her. But what else was she going to do between now and Thanksgiving except cry over Brad, miss Aden, and call him too often?
She was going to leave for San Francisco three days after parents’ weekend in Boston. She’d miss Halloween, although she had no one to celebrate with. The travel agent told her that September and October were the best months to travel in Europe. It wasn’t as crowded and the weather was still beautiful. She suggested a weekend in the South of France between Paris and London, but Maggie decided she could always add that once she was in Europe. The price for the whole trip was steep, but not totally insane, particularly given what she had now, and she was traveling in the best possible conditions, in total comfort at famous hotels that she had heard about and never dreamed she would actually see. She would never have gotten to Europe with Brad. It just wasn’t on his radar, and he didn’t have an explorer’s nature. He thought a weekend in New York was as exotic as he wanted to get. It had taken ten years to get him to Miami, to show him where she had lived as a teenager, and he’d only gone because there was a convention there to justify it.
She called Helen when she hung up with the travel agent. “Okay, I did it. I leave from O’Hare to San Francisco. I’m going to rent a car and check out Big Sur and the Napa Valley. I’m staying at the Fairmont on Nob Hill, and I’m flying from there to Rome five days later, staying at the Hassler above the Spanish Steps. A week there, then to Paris, staying at the Ritz, and then Claridge’s in London and home.”
“I’m proud of you,” Helen said and meant it. “I couldn’t afford all that when Jenna died, but I got a Eurail pass and traveled all over Europe for a summer. I felt alive again after that, went back to school and finished, and then I met Jeff in my first job after I graduated. I don’t think I’d have been the same person if I hadn’t taken that trip. I didn’t think I had permission to live or have fun after she died. And then I realized that she would have wanted me to. She didn’t want me to mourn her forever. And she would have done it if I died.”
“Brad would never have gone on a trip like this if I died,” Maggie said. “He’d have hated it.”
“No, but he might have gone to Hawaii, or Wyoming or Montana, or Mexico for a vacation.”
“He might have,” Maggie conceded.
“You have to give yourself permission to go on living. This is a terrific way to do it. And maybe you’ll meet the man of your dreams,” she teased her.
“Brad was the man of my dreams,” she said sadly.
“I know he was,” Helen said, instantly respectful. “But you can’t bury yourself with him. That’s not good for you or Aden. Your doing something like this trip gives him permission to still have fun too.”
Maggie smiled. “I think Aden Mackenzie needs a little less permission to have fun,” she said ruefully, and they both laughed.
For the next three weeks, Maggie read up on the cities she was going to, and still couldn’t believe she was doing it. She told Aden, and he was shocked but supportive.
“That’s fantastic, Mom. I want to go to Europe with you one day. Some of the guys from home are talking about going next summer. I want to go with them. Maybe we can meet up.” Suddenly she was becoming a world traveler, and Aden even wanted to join her on a future trip. Maybe she’d go to Venice next summer, and Spain, or Scandinavia. The whole world seemed to be opening up in front of her. And she was seeing it all in the safest, most comfortable way. Brad had made that possible with the money he’d left her. She didn’t like to think about the settlement money and the reason for it. She considered it untouchable and wanted to leave it to Aden one day, and she certainly didn’t need it. She had more than enough from their savings, his insurance, and what Phil Abrams was paying her regularly.
She packed for Europe before she left for parents’ weekend in Boston. The flight was a little easier this time, since she had already flown twice, and had never been a nervous flyer before. It was good practice before the flights she’d be taking in Europe, which had concerned her. She had a wonderful time with Aden and his new friends. She and Aden took several of them out to dinner, and then she flew home to Lake Forest, spent two nights at home, and left for San Francisco. She had bought some new clothes for the trip, nothing fancy, just some comfortable sports clothes to travel in, some pretty sweaters, and new jeans. Everything had been set up. Her reservations had been confirmed.
She drank a glass of champagne to steady her nerves on the flight to San Francisco. She had called Helen the night before she left, promised to text her along the way, and thanked her for giving her the courage to do it. Encouraging her to go was the best gift anyone had given her since Brad died.
As the plane touched down in San Francisco on a glorious fall day, Maggie was smiling. She got off with a bright red tote bag she’d just bought, and headed for the first stop on her big adventure. She knew as she headed toward the city in the car she had rented at the airport, that her life was about to change forever. In a good way this time. She was ready for it, and she suddenly felt that Brad would have been proud of her, it was almost as though she had his blessing and permission to do it. Helen was right.