Page 59 of Songs of Summer

Maggie sat frozenon the couch, scared to move even a muscle for fear that she would wake Beatrix. She had comforted her crying birth mother as best she could, stroking her hair until she eventually drifted off. Now her mind bounced around in that way one’s mind does at 3 a.m., on an indirect route from the insanity of rocking her birth mother to sleep all the way to what she did and didn’t say to Kimberly Kahn when Kimberly falsely accused her of copying in the seventh grade.

She knew she had promised to think deep thoughts regarding her future on this outrageous trip, to journey inward as well as east to the Long Island shoreline. But it had been too much of a roller coaster ride thus far to allow much time for introspection. Maggie did not like roller coasters. Maggie was happiest on a carousel.

Next, her mind ran to college and her senior year when she had wandered into the student health center and asked to make an appointment with a therapist. After a few sessions,she and the old male shrink she was assigned to, whom she doubted could crack her code, got to the bottom of the weird sense of impermanence she had felt since her parents had told her she was adopted. At least that was how the old (and possibly genius) shrink had labeled the thin layer of anxiety that cloaked her like the fine mist of patchouli her mother would spritz over her head every morning.

“Your parents should have explained that you were adopted before you ever thought differently,” he had said.

Probably true, but attributing anything negative to her parents now that they had passed only added to her feeling of instability. The idea that Jason wanted to make permanent what had become the longest and most loyal relationship of her life felt like the best way to restore balance.

She questioned why she had hesitated. Of course she should marry Jason. She would tell him the minute she stepped off the plane.

And that’s where she was on her “journey” when Dylan walked into her grandfather’s house holding two cups of coffee.

Maggie put one finger to her lips before motioning to Bea asleep next to her on the couch. Dylan smiled.

“Here,” she whispered, handing her a mug.

She took a sip and smiled back at Dylan.

“Want to bring this one down to Matt, and I’ll stay here with Bea?” Dylan suggested.

Maggie’s legs were starting to cramp, and though she didn’t want to risk waking Bea, she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last in her current position. She took Dylan up on the offer and carefully eased herself off the couch and out the door.

•••

Maggie was thinkingof all that had gone on since she arrived as she walked down the beach in the moonlight with the two coffee cups, looking for Matt. When she eventually spotted him in the distance, her heart shook in her chest. The sensation was unusual for her. “You’re just tired,” she said to herself out loud.

“Coffee,” Maggie whispered, gently nudging Matt awake in the sand.

He shot up. She laughed and apologized for startling him.

Brushing his hand through his hair and wiping speckles of sand off his cheeks, he got himself together.

Maggie sat down and handed him his cup.

“Any news?” Matt asked.

“None. Renee left to find Jake, and Dylan suggested I switch with her.”

Matt smirked and shook his head. “Of course she did. She thinks we make a cute couple.”

“So, I guess we are fooling everyone.”

“I told her the truth about us. Don’t worry, she’s a vault,” he added. “How’s Bea?”

“She fell asleep, probably to save herself from thinking. I slept for, like, a month after my mother died—just as a respite from reality—not that anyone’s dead.”

“Let’s not go there. I’m so sorry for your loss—your losses. I can’t even imagine.”

“I try and imagine that they are together somewhere. They were the best, both of them.” She smiled. “I guess it’s why I never looked for my birth parents. I felt so blessed to have the ones I did.”

“And now? This seems like a big effort; I mean, you could have waited till Bea was back in Ohio, no?”

“Once I found out who she was, and then learned that she was going abroad for the year, I didn’t want to wait.”

“But you could have called her or emailed—even FaceTimed—just saying.”

She felt foolish. She knew that her coming here was more of a stall tactic to delay responding to Jason’s proposal than she cared to admit.

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