Putting kids first meant putting yourself last. Maybe that was a blessing.
If anyone had asked Maggie Vasquez a few months ago where she thought her family would be now?
Dr. Ruby had asked, on the day she and the only two associates Maggie had met, a tall woman and a squat man in matching navy business suits, removed the fumigation tent and relocated their mysterious operation to the confines of the garage.
“Milo will be homeschooled. Ana might be hospitalized again. Hank will be kissing girls and hating himself for it. None of us will talk about it.”
“You seem slightly pessimistic, Margaret.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Anything else? Any goals or expectations, Margaret?”
“I expect you will still be here, watching this train wreck?”
Dr. Ruby frowned. “Have you ever seen a train wreck, Margaret?”
“Have you ever tried not ending every sentence with my name?” Just as Milo had inherited the others inside him, Ana hadn’t come by sarcasm at random. “Sorry, but I prefer Maggie.”
Dr. Ruby stared at her. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you. And I have seen a train wreck. Back in Spring Green.” There were tracks in the woods near Maggie’s childhood home. The rhythm of night trains had soothed her in the early hours, had become vital to her sleep cycle. The derailment had woken her, set the woods aflame, and colored the sky.
“Were there casualties?”
Maggie and her friends couldn’t resist it. They pushed through pines to get near the flashing lights. The scorch marks were awful to behold, gouges in the earth like deep wounds, and what had started as a giggling adventure ended with a quiet walk home. “I’m not sure. A couple, I think? It wasn’t a passenger train, but …”
“Strange, isn’t it, that you wouldn’t wonder who had died?”
“Stranger if I’d obsessed over the deaths of strangers.”
“Maggie.” Dr. Ruby rubbed her temples. “I thought I’d won your trust. What happened?”
“I’m not sure it was ever trust. You appeared on my doorstep at the exact moment that my children started falling apart. You were there before an ambulance was called, you knew what was wrong before I did. ‘Suspicious’ isn’t a strong enough word, really.”
“Then why did you let me in?”
Maggie had let her in.
Maggie had Milo dangling from one arm, wheezing for air while bruises bloomed on his neck, and Ana wrapped in her other, bleeding madly from a gash in her right eyebrow. She had no arm left for Hank, and he’d refused to follow. He remained standing on the bloody linoleum, gagging over the kitchen sink, whimpering like a wounded dog and scrubbing at scratch marks on his hands. All Maggie knew was the world was very wrong and her children, they were the wrongest part.
And there, on the welcome mat, this scarred middle-aged woman wearing glasses and practical pumps and a white lab coat awaited them, looking so serene. You’d think the Vasquezes were a church choir, not a screaming mess.
“The hospital won’t help you,” Dr. Ruby said. “But I’m going to.”
Who this woman was, where she came from, what she wanted? It did not matter in that screeching moment. Maggie would have accepted assistance from buzzards. Maybe she had.
After Dr. Ruby stitched her children up, medicated them, and put them to bed, after she called in the tall woman and the squat man to clear away the blood and bile, Dr. Ruby sat Maggie down with a hot mug of coffee.
At last, the universe understood what Maggie had long suspected. She needed help. From anyone. From anything. She had for a long time.
When Dr. Ruby said, “I wasn’t sent by the government,” Maggie replied, “But can you help us?” and when Dr. Ruby said, “I’m experienced in cases like this,” Maggie replied, “Will that help us?” and when Dr. Ruby said, “This will cost you nothing but patience,” Maggie replied, “Please, help us,” and when Dr. Ruby said, “We will help you,” Maggie said nothing at all.
Maggie hadn’t looked, hadn’t questioned it. Anyone in the world could understand her children better than she could. No one before had offered to try.
Here Dr. Ruby remained, only as much an outsider as Maggie was. Now the Vasquezes were approaching winter, and none appeared any more hurt than they had been. Surely that counted as progress. Surely Hank still playing basketball and Ana singing onstage and Milo’s ASL classes and Dr. Ruby’s diminishing visits—these were improvements. The going was slow, but it was going.
“They’re still my patients, and I will be keeping an eye on you, in order to make sure there are no derailments. We’re returning your privacy to you. We’re leaving your home so that you can live your lives.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s …” Sudden it wasn’t, but jarring it was. “But you’ll still be coming by to do therapy?”
“For a little while, yes.”
“And that’s because, what? Because you care about my kids?”
For once, Dr. Ruby didn’t have a carefully constructed reply. Her eyelashes fluttered behind her goggles. “Maggie, have I hurt you in any way?”
“I don’t know yet.”
On Halloween, during what should have been her lunch break, Maggie found herself yet again sitting with Milo in Samantha Stuart’s classroom, watching him peel the crusts off his bread.
“I can do that for you.” She’d forgotten to move her hands. He read her lips.
“IT’S GOOD FOR MY FINAL MOTORS SKILLS. I MEAN—it’s good for my final motors skills.”
“What happened during show-and-tell, Milo?”
Penny nudged Milo. She was his shadow these days, this little girl with black braids and dimples that undermined her no-nonsense expression.
Milo signed something over his heart.
“You … what? Isn’t that … that sign’s from the careers unit, right?”
They’d studied careers just last week. Mr. Dawson had the same no-nonsense attitude as his little girl. He also had a kindness about him that kept the class of adults and children afloat on those early mornings. A kindness that distracted Maggie from learning her vocabulary, apparently.
“Policeman, Milo?” She frowned, repeating his movement. Penny offered no help. She seemed to be giving Maggie a pop quiz, little arms folded and eyebrows raised. “Wait … isn’t that letter d? That’s … detective. You were playing detective?”
Milo nodded. “EXACTLY!”
“Not exactly,” Penny snapped. “You weren’t playing.”
Maggie turned to her. “Okay. So, Milo was being a detective. It’s Halloween. Kids are being all sorts of things, but not all kids are sitting in here during recess.”
“He was just being Milo.” Penny shoved an enormous brown paper bag at Maggie. “He wanted us to feel bad about how we didn’t go to his party. But he didn’t even invite me!”
“Sorry, Penny.” Maggie was reluctant to look in the bag. She suspected it didn’t contain last year’s fire ant costume.
“It’s okay.” Penny flicked Milo on his earphones. Without looking, he handed her his shorn crusts. Penny shoved them in her mouth.
“Finish talking and come outside for recess already.” Come outside, she signed, with her cheeks chipmunk full.
Milo chuckled. Maggie could have hugged that no-nonsense girl half to death, but Penny was already gone.
“Milo. Should I open this bag, or should you?”
“DO I—do I get a third choice?”
If they were only getting better faster, Maggie could have looked. Milo could have let her. But train derailments became deadly when trains went too fast. The forward chugging of the Vasquez household needed to be slow.
Sometimes Maggie thought about Donovan, and the lives of their children, gaining momentum without him. Rattling and shaking, the Vasquez family forged ahead. And he had chosen not to witness it. He had planted thirsty, gorgeous things and decided not to water them. He’d been absent not just for concerts and checkups and games, but also for moments like this: a little girl smiling at Milo simply because she was his friend.
Maggie had dreamed of trains in Europe, but for now she’d follow these tracks anywhere. Somehow, staying in Eustace still meant moving forward.
“Are you sad, Mom? Your face is funny.”
She smiled. “I can give the bag back to you without peeking in at all, if you promise to be on your best behavior today.”
Milo twirled an imaginary mustache. “Hmm.”
Maggie held her palm out to shake on it, like they’d shaken on all their promises over the years—not to bite the dentist, not to bring ants into the house, not to call her by her first name—
Milo shoved half of his sandwich into her hand.
Maggie would take it. It might even be good.
“Poor man,” she mused. “He’ll never see your imaginary mustaches.”