Maggie reached the McDonald’s on the edge of Gailsberg before three songs had ended. From here, jammed between a Burger King and a Wendy’s on the aptly nicknamed Hamburger Hill, she had a great view of Gailsberg’s rusting heart-shaped water tower.
She knew he would be late. Maggie went in all the same, bought a vanilla latte, and took a seat within plain sight of both entrances.
The first thing she noticed was how tired he looked. He’d been balding even when they were together, used to joke about how his hair had migrated to live under his nose. In the three years since they separated, he seemed to have aged a dozen. He could say the same about her. It wouldn’t be an insult.
Maggie smiled. Oh, the imaginary mustaches I’ve seen.
Maggie watched him order fries and a Coke as if he did this all the time. He seemed surprised to see her when at last he turned around.
Donovan sat down and pushed his tray toward her. “Fries?”
“No, thank you.”
“Well, better change your mind quick.” He smiled. The familiarity left her tender. “They won’t be here long.”
“We won’t be, either. But I need to talk to you about our kids.”
“Yeah, I figured. Did the last check bounce?” There was no cynicism there, no accusation. It was a genuine question, as frank as Milo’s were.
“Nothing like that. Can I tell you what your kids don’t know about you?”
“A whole lot, probably.”
“When you told me you’d moved back to New Mexico last year, we agreed not to tell them. And I haven’t.”
Donovan nodded. “I don’t see how it would do them any good. I really don’t want to hurt them.”
“That was the thinking, yes.”
Donovan averted his eyes. “How are they doing?”
Margaret had been waiting for this. It was the most obvious question in the world right now, besides the Thanksgiving question. She considered what the past year had been to her children: screaming, cutting, laughing, crying, singing, dribbling, kissing, clawing, bleeding, adoring. The gravity of who they were now was too massive for an interloper to understand.
“I let them keep believing you’re far away. I let them think you can’t get to them, Don. That you went back to your first wife and daughters in Wisconsin and stayed there. I let them think whatever they wanted. We really don’t talk about you much.”
Donovan stopped chewing. “Margaret …”
“But if you think you can move into a house twenty minutes away from three of your kids and they’ll never realize it, you have no idea how bright and capable they are, or how the universe works. Milo was at your house on Halloween.”
Donovan froze. “He was what?”
“Dressed as a little skeleton boy. I’m not sure you’d recognize him even without the costume. But he recognized you. He’s had three birthdays since you left and waited for you to show up for all of them.”
“Oh, Mags. I’m sorry. Shit … is he okay?”
Maggie shook her head. “If you want to ask that, you have to ask them. Your children. Not me. I’m their mother, but I’m not them.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing here, Margaret.”
“I’m not them, but I’m part of them. So are you, like it or not. But we can get by without you. Your kids are amazing people.”
“I know that—”
“No, you don’t. Not anymore. I’ll give you one shot to find out. One shot to tell them where you are, where you’ve been, and why they aren’t worth your time, before I tell them the truth as I see it, hand them your address, and leave the rest up to them.”
He picked at the paper on his tray. “Hank still playing basketball?”
“He’s taller than you. He’ll be eighteen in December, and he’s going to college.”
“I know. I’ll be paying for some of it, you know I will.” Again, no accusation.
Maggie breathed in through her nostrils, because she knew he wouldn’t ask. “Ana’s finding her way, too. She’s got a lead in the musical.”
“Oh. Wow.” There were shreds all over the table now.
“Tomorrow we’re heading to the China Buffet for Thanksgiving. If you want to be more than another hole in their lives, come by the house at one.”
“And what, Mags?”
“And we’ll treat you to dinner.” Maggie smiled. “You can have all the butterscotch pudding you want.”
Donovan hesitated. “We’re going to Angela’s parents’ house in Albuquerque. Leaving later tonight. Maybe we could try something later?”
“No. They needed you sooner, not later.”
“It’s like … it’s been too long. I can’t make it better now, you know?”
“Yeah, well. Sometimes things don’t get better. And whenever things get … get bad for these kids, Donovan, I wonder what it’d be like to just leave. Drive away like you did. Take a plane to Prague or move back to the woods. I don’t put it all on you, you know. I pulled you from those daughters. I don’t pretend to be a good person.
“But I can’t do what you’ve done. I can’t do it and still call myself a mother. Even if that’s screwed up. Even if I feel that way because women are taught to feel that way. The fact is, staying is part of what makes me feel like a goddamn human being.”
A car alarm went off outside. At the counter, an employee called out for order number eighty-seven. Neither of the Vasquez parents sipped their beverages.
“I really did try to go back for the twins, Margaret.”
She didn’t want to hear this. The girl inside her wanted to, though.
“I went back to Spring Green and … and I met with Nina like I’m meeting with you. I told her about the nightmares and that I wanted to try again. She was angrier than you are, asked me to get the fuck off her doorstep. But then she said, ‘Just wait outside for them to come home from school. Tell them about your nightmares.’ Like she would forgive me for them but not for herself. I just couldn’t get that.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t come back here and pull up in the driveway. I had to start over.”
“Just one town over. You had to start over just one county away.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense.”
He wasn’t Ana. He wasn’t Hank. He wasn’t Milo. But he had aspects of all of them. Margaret couldn’t hate him.
“Oh, I won’t forgive you.” She stood up from the table. “But those kids? They are better than me.”
“You’re a good mother to them, Margaret.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I am.” She took three of his fries and left.
Maggie pulled her car out of the McDonald’s lot and into the Wendy’s lot next door. She breathed in and breathed out. The expressway whooshed and shook behind her.
Maggie licked salt off her fingertips and drove and drove. She managed to hear the entirety of Kid A. It ended with a song called “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” but Maggie couldn’t decide what kind of movie this was. It didn’t really matter.