Chapter Fourteen - Maddie
December 30th
One Day Until New Year’s Eve
“OK, great, thank you very much,” I say before hanging up the phone.
I was just talking with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and am a little surprised to discover that getting visas for me and Tyler basically just requires filling out an application. I thought for sure that Tyler would have to pull some strings with someone at, like, The State Department or something, but apparently not. In fact, they actually seemed more shocked that I was so eager to come for a visit.
Two months ago, I was working in a strip club, dreaming about how to get my real estate drone business off the ground and today I’m working on getting travel visas for me and Tyler Morgan to go to Afghanistan and build schools for girls.
This year is not ending up at all the way I would have imagined.
I’m finding myself thinking about my life more than I ever have. More accurately, thinking about my future. Which is new for me because I don’t feel like I really believed before that I had much of a future, so I never spent much time considering it. It was always just about putting one foot in front of the other. And now, I’m making plans to, like, try and help change the world. Wow.
I remember once there was a big Powerball. Like huge. Seven hundred million dollars or some ridiculous number like that. And you can’t buy a Powerball ticket in Nevada, we don’t actually have lotteries here because… well, who knows why. So people get in the car, drive to California, and buy tickets. Then if they win, they have to pick their money up across state lines. It’s dumb, but whatever.
So I was in the grocery store while all this Powerball mania was going on and the woman in front of me must’ve known the checker because they gabbed for a good seven minutes about what they were gonna do with their money if they won.
Buy big houses, fancy cars, go to Europe, put all their kids through college. Shit like that. And I remember thinking, “I honestly have no clue what I would do with money like that if I won.”
And now I have won, and this is what I’m doing.
I’m tempted to feel proud, but then I remember that this is how Scotty lived his whole life. In service to something greater than himself. And he never once asked for a pat on the back. He just did what he thought was right. And while I’ll probably never be as un-selfish and noble as my brother, I can at least try for the “not being proud of myself” part.
Tyler is gone right now. On his way to talk with Dr. Eldridge about how he’s cured—I have to chuckle, because that’s how he’s been phrasing this visit. He’s “cured.” So I’m here alone. And this house, man… it’s something else. Huge, like so many bedrooms, and so many living rooms and more than one kitchen—three, if you count the outdoor one—and more bathrooms than two people need. Like every bedroom has a bathroom.
And this place is super cool, but only if the house is full.
Right now, it feels pretty empty.
I can imagine nothing worse than getting everything you ever wanted and having no one to share it with.
So yeah, I won the Powerball alright, but my prize wasn’t Tyler’s money.
It was Tyler.
And if I ever lost him… God. That hurts to even think about. But if I ever lost him… no amount of money could ever make me feel better. A huge pool with real rock landscaping would not replace him. Having an equal number of bathrooms to bedrooms would not make up for my loss.
Money isn’t everything. I thought it was, but I was wrong.
Life is about purpose. And if I’m being generous with myself, I’d say that’s what I was really looking for when I came up with all those crazy ideas to make money. It wasn’t the paycheck I needed, but the purpose.
In fact, I have no desire to buy anything right now. Not that it’s my money, but I could very easily ask Tyler for things and he’d just go get them for me. Fancy purse. Done. Diamond necklace. Done. New luxury car. Done.
But if he tries to do that—and I don’t think he would because I think we have a similar worldview about this—I’m gonna say no.
I’ll say it gently, because if he ever did get it in his head to go out and start buying me shit, there’d be a reason for it. But I don’t want any of that stuff.
I just want to be with him. I want him to be safe, and healthy, and happy. That’s it. That’s all I need.
My phone is in the bedroom, so I get up from the pool and go get it. I find Plumeria Brown’s contact, press send, and get her voicemail.
I decide what I have to say can be said on a voicemail.
“Hey, Plu. Maddie Clayton here. No need to call me back, there’s no emergency. I just wanted to call and say… thank you.” I smile into my phone. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it. Just thank you. And hey, maybe we’ll see each other sometime. Like when there’s no crisis or anything. You, know. As friends and shit.”
I press end on the phone and walk back out to the pool. I like the pool, not because it’s hot out or anything, but because the waterfall makes noise. It’s just too quiet in that house. It’s just too big. It’s just… not me.
And then I’m pressing another contact and when my mom answers and says, “Maddie? What’s wrong?” I feel a stab of guilt. Because she automatically assumes I’m in trouble. And the reason she assumes that is because I never call her, and when I do, I usually am calling to ask for something. Money mostly.
“Nothing, Mom.”
“But you’re calling me.”
“I know,” I say, trying to laugh it off. “But I swear, nothing’s wrong. In fact, I have good news.”
I have this sudden need to tell my mother I’m happy. And the words just come out, the same way they did when I was talking to Scotty.
“So Tyler and I are together…”
And I go on, and on, and on. I tell her nothing bad, even though most of what we’ve done in the past couple months has been kin-da cra-zy. I tell her about the date to the Hoover Dam, minus the tunnel stuff, of course. And I tell her about his makeover with Rodney, and how good he looks, and send her a picture that I took last night on my phone. And my mom makes a big deal about it, and us, and I swear to God, I don’t think she’s been this happy in years. Maybe since Scotty died.
So when that chat is over I go there. “We went to see Scotty,” I say. And I tell her about that. And she is quiet, and I talk softer, and we are both crying before I’m done.
But it’s the kind of cry that’s OK, ya know? It’s the kind of cry that says, I got through it. It was hard, and it took a long time, but I’m still here.
And before I know it, my phone is dying and I say, “I gotta go,” because I figure we’ve been talking long enough.
But she says, “Go find your charger.”
And I don’t even argue. I go find it, and we talk more. And my dad gets on the phone, and we make plans for Tyler and me to come see them.
And even though I’ve resisted that every time they’ve said it before—why, I’m not really sure. Maybe because I’d have to admit that they’d moved on and I was still stuck—I don’t resist now. I actually daydream about it.
And when we hang up, I feel happy.
I feel peaceful for the first time in seven years.
I feel, to use Tyler’s words, cured.