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“Are you sure you can’t stay a little while longer?” Janine hovered to the right of the BMW, clasping her hands nervously as Alyssa positioned both suitcases in the trunk. The wind ripped up off the Atlantic, cutting through their hair and making it difficult for them to hear one another properly unless they raised their voices at one another.
“We’ve got to get Cici back to her parents!” Alyssa hollered back before falling into her mother’s arms, hugging her with more strength than she normally allowed herself. Janine pressed her hand at the base of her spine, rubbing the stiff muscle. Maggie, who’d only just buckled Cici in back, leaped for them, joining them in a mother-daughters group-hug.
“And besides,” Alyssa added as their hug slowly disintegrated. “Maggie has a big appointment on Monday.”
Maggie’s cheeks brightened to a harsh shade of red. Janine pressed her lips onto Maggie’s forehead as her eyes filled with tears. “I’ll be praying, Maggie. Praying so hard that this works out for you. Nobody deserves it more than you.”
Alyssa buckled herself into the front passenger seat as Maggie turned on the engine. Both girls flapped their hands wildly as they retreated down the driveway. Janine blew them kiss after kiss across the palm of her hand before she rushed back toward the front door, frigid from the chill.
“It always feels like getting my heart transplanted from my body,” Maggie offered as she transitioned the car from reverse to drive.
“What do you mean?”
“Saying goodbye to Mom,” Maggie explained. “I sometimes think we should all live together on the Vineyard.”
“Would Rex ever go for that?”
“I don’t know. He works from home enough that I don’t see that it would be a problem. And I’d honestly prefer to raise a child on the Vineyard rather than in the city. Imagine how different our lives would have been if we’d been raised around the forests and the cliffs and the ocean rather than Upper Manhattan gossip and wealth.”
“Come on. You’d miss the city,” Alyssa tried.
“I don’t know if I would,” Maggie countered. “Maybe it could be an experiment. I could start my own art gallery space here and sell pieces to prominent Martha’s Vineyard summer guests. Our children could go to Edgartown schools. We could spend some time in the city every year, just enough that the children understand the city and love it the way we do.” She then buzzed her lips and muttered, “I guess I’m getting ahead of myself. I have to get pregnant first, don’t I?”
“Don’t worry yourself,” Alyssa told her. “Your doctor’s the best in Manhattan. If he’s gotten all those frigid, heartless Manhattan women pregnant, he can get you pregnant.”
In the back, Cici’s thin eyelids curved closed, flashing her eyelashes across her porcelain cheeks. As the wind was so volatile, Maggie and Alyssa opted to stay in the car during the ferry ride, after which they drove off, headed back west toward the Big Apple.
“So. Now that we have the parents’ address and phone number...” Maggie began. “What’s our plan of attack?”
“Gosh, I don’t know,” Alyssa replied with a sigh. “I just keep thinking that I want to talk to Hunter about it before I do something rash.”
“You want to stop by again? Send him another letter?”
“Yeah. I think that would be for the best. It’s obvious that he’s been through tremendous heartache and this is how he’s been dealing with it.”
“Driving the car that killed the mother of your baby...” Maggie whistled. “No wonder he’s so messed up.”
“I just want to handle it as gently as we can,” Alyssa murmured. “Meanwhile, it seems like Cici’s getting pretty used to us.”
“Hard to believe it’s been only a little less than two weeks,” Maggie said. “She feels like a part of the family already.”
Back in the city, Maggie hovered in a no-parking space as Alyssa jumped into the rehab facility to send another letter to Hunter. The woman at the front desk with the wide-set glasses didn’t recognize her and explained the entire process of “our patients will only talk to you if they want to talk to you” all over again. Alyssa scribed a letter as quickly as she could, not wanting Maggie to get a parking ticket.
Hi, Hunter.
I hope you’re doing okay in there and doing all you need to do to make yourself happy and well again, or as well as can be expected. I know you’ve been through so much more than most people know. But I really need to talk to you. About your daughter. About what to do next.
Love, Alyssa.
Alyssa passed the letter across the desk, thanked the front-desk clerk, and rushed outside to find Maggie in the midst of backing out of the no-parking zone as a parking attendant rushed for her, hungry to write a ticket. Alyssa leaped into the front seat and cried, “Go!” as Maggie pressed hard on the gas and whipped them out of sight of the attendant and away from a silly fine.
“That was close.” Maggie whistled, glancing back at Cici, who’d fallen asleep again. “Did you send him another letter?”
“Yeah. I did.” Alyssa rubbed her eyes as fatigue threatened to swallow her whole. “I don’t know what to do now except wait.”
“Let’s make a plan,” Maggie suggested firmly, setting her jaw. “My embryo implantation is set for Monday. I want to rest a couple of days after, just to give my body time to adjust. And then... let’s fly out on Thursday or Friday.”
Alyssa turned to look at her sister. “Fly? To Los Angeles?”
“Why not?” Maggie demanded. “I’d love to spend some time in the sunshine. Dad has that beach house we never use. We’d have to make sure it’s cleaned in time for our arrival, but that shouldn’t be too complicated. I think Dad always had a service he used.”
Alyssa’s heart hammered with excitement. “We can meet Cici’s grandparents, relax on the beach, and eat a million avocados.”
“And go shopping!” Maggie added.
“Maybe we need a vacation like this,” Alyssa tried. “It’s been one hell of a year.”
Back at Maggie’s apartment, Alyssa carried Cici as Maggie greeted Rex warmly, kissing him with her eyes closed as he rubbed her shoulders. Cici squawked in greeting, which brought Rex over to kiss her forehead and say a bright, “Hello to you, too, Baby Girl.”
“We’ve started calling her Cici,” Maggie explained as she removed her coat.
“Cici. It suits you,” Rex said to the little girl.
“We hope to track down her real name soon,” Maggie explained, telling him what they’d learned from Bruce Holland.
“Los Angeles, huh?” Rex finished, placing his hands on his hips. His eyes glittered as he teased her. “I can’t keep you pinned down for long, can I, Maggie Potter? I buy you this beautiful apartment. I set you up with a cool and trendy Brooklyn life. Yet you’re always gallivanting off somewhere else.”
“It’s all for Cici,” Maggie said as she adjusted Cici’s pink hair barrette, which collected a smattering of blonde curls within.
“Yeah. I’m sure all the shopping you’ll do in West Hollywood will be all for Cici.” Rex remarked sarcastically.
“At least partially,” Maggie informed him. “I think if Cici’s going to move back to Los Angeles, then she’ll need a true Los Angeles outfit.”
“I can’t believe she’s been a California girl all this time,” Alyssa jested. “As New Yorkers, she’s supposed to be our enemy.”
That evening, after Maggie, Rex, and Alyssa went through the intricate rituals of putting Cici to bed (something that had grown more complicated since Cici’s arrival), the three of them sat, exhausted, on the couch and talked about the week ahead.
“In my normal life, I’d be out somewhere partying right now,” Alyssa said.
“Do you miss it?” Maggie asked, cocking her head.
“Surprisingly, no. Right now, reading books to Cici and hanging out with my lame sister and her even lamer husband feels okay to me,” Alyssa teased.
“That’s about enough out of you,” Rex returned.
A little while later, when Alyssa returned from the bathroom, she found Maggie burrowed against Rex, deep in sleep as the ghoulish light of the television glowed across them. Alyssa paused, sipping from her water glass, as Rex pressed his lips against her forehead. He didn’t notice Alyssa at all.
Alyssa’s heart lifted into her throat as she considered their future— the embryo implantation, the late nights, the weeping babies, the scabbed knees, and the unbridled happiness. She prayed for all of it as if there was only one person in the world who deserved joy, and it was Maggie who cared for everyone else far before she cared for herself.
“Good night,” Alyssa whispered, just loud enough for Rex to hear. She then disappeared down the hallway and scrambled into the guest bedroom, out of sight.