CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Maggie watched Jake’s car drive away. She squeezed her fingers around the railing to keep from crashing down the stairs. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. She sat heavily on the top step and pulled her knees up to her chest. When she saw her hands, they were someone else’s hands, claw-like and trembling.
A sob hitched in her chest. So this was it then. This was the moment she’d been waiting for and dreading. With every ounce of strength, she had tried to avoid it. Now, the bleak, howling emptiness stretched before her.
A life without Jake.
In her mind, she heard herself trying to explain the breakup. People always asked. When she wasn’t around they would probably say to each other, Well, what did she expect? That billionaire Jake Sutton might want to spend the rest of his life with some little hick girl like her?
Jake had reached inside her and ripped her heart out by the roots. He left her haunted by ghosts. He left her with the memories of her brief moments of joy—a joy she would never feel again. Not like that. Her chin trembled uncontrollably.
“Miss Maggie, I’m hungry,” Sawyer said from the living room.
The kids. She’d forgotten they were there. She stared at him blankly.
Sawyer crept closer. “Miss Maggie, I’m—”
“Hungry. Got it.” She forced herself to her feet. All she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and never leave. Walking into the kitchen felt like the hardest thing she would ever do.
“How about a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” she asked him.
Sawyer nodded, his large, solemn eyes on her face. Her hand shook as she poked a knife into the peanut butter jar and then spread a thick layer on the bread. When she tried pouring milk, it slopped over the sides of the glass.
“No crusts, right?” she asked. In her experience, most kids hated them.
“Crusts are icky,” he said.
Before she could trim them off the sandwich, she heard the baby cry. God, no. I can’t do this. She felt trapped. Desperate. Like she might start crying and never stop. She trudged into the bedroom and found Abigail squalling because her pacifier had fallen out.
“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she murmured, putting the pacifier back in again. But Abigail kept fussing. Was she hungry? When Maggie picked her up, her head swam. With the baby wailing against her chest, she sat at the edge of her bed to steady herself.
“Miss Maggie, I’m hungry,” Sawyer called to her.
Maggie jiggled the baby, trying to soothe her. She went back to the kitchen, clutching Abigail against her with one hand and struggling to finish slicing off sandwich crusts with the other. Tears stung her eyes. She didn’t even have the luxury of crying.
Oh, Jake. How could you?
While Sawyer sat munching his PB&J in the kitchen, Maggie got the baby bottle out of the diaper bag and sat on the couch with Abigail. She felt dead inside. It was the coldness that terrified her. She may have been doing normal things, but she was far from normal right now.
She heard footsteps on the stairs outside. Jake! He’d come back! Flooded with desperate hope, she ran to the door with the baby in her arms and flung it open.
It wasn’t Jake.
It was someone else who had betrayed her and broken her heart.
Avery.
* * * *
Jake never had much use for prayer.
If there was a God, then Jake had been dealt a shitty hand.
If there wasn’t a God, then every person on planet earth was a prancing lightweight who was getting it way fucking wrong.
But now as he sat in his car in front of the airport, he asked for God’s help.
He was just so lost.
“Please,” Jake whispered. “Tell me how to fix this.”
No, that wasn’t right. This made it sound like his problems were out there somewhere, apart from him, like faulty plumbing or a bad investment. He tried again. “Tell me how to fix me.”
While he waited for a thought, a vision, an inspiration to come to him, all he could hear was Maggie calling to him from the stairs of her apartment. The way her voice broke. The sadness in her eyes. He reached up and gripped the back of his neck to relieve the tension. His whole body was in knots.
His Aunt Pearl used to take him to church on Sundays. Second Calvary Pentecostal on Euclid and Main. Didn’t any of it rub off? Why couldn’t he remember the point of even having faith or observing the Golden Rule or knowing the right way to pray?
He cleared his throat. “I know we haven’t been tight. I know I’ve held some grudges. But you’ve got to help me. I fucked up bad.”
Maybe Jesus didn’t like that kind of language. It was so confusing. There were all these stupid rules. Jake pushed the lighter on his dashboard, waiting for it to ignite. He cracked the window and then pried a cigarette out of his pack. He felt ridiculous talking to someone who wasn’t there.
Where were his fucking answers?
How badly do you want Jesus’ love, he remembered Pastor Reggie saying. What are you willing to sacrifice to prove yourself worthy in the eyes of the Lord?
Jake clutched the steering wheel so hard, he thought his bones would break. Hadn’t he already humbled himself and made sacrifices? He was asking for help, wasn’t he?
There was just this one thing though. He couldn’t go on without Maggie.
He lit the cigarette and then sat in the darkness, watching planes take off and land. All those people going all those places, and he felt like the only one who didn’t have any of the goddamn answers. There had to be a way for him to make things right again. Learn how to be a normal human with normal human relationships. He was so sick of pushing people away. He was so sick of himself.
Uncle Marty used to say that Aunt Pearl had faith enough for both of them. She’d always been so serene about her beliefs, too, showing a humble acceptance of her lot in life that Jake was sure he’d never had. He remembered asking her one day when he was maybe sixteen and already knew everything about God.
God is love, honey,” she’d said. “God isn’t just for people who deserve Him. God is for people who don’t. Even people who can’t bring themselves to ask for God’s love.
Then why does Pastor Reggie talk about proving yourself worthy all the time? he asked her irritably.
The only thing you have to do to prove yourself worthy is to love. That’s all. Love yourself. Love others. You enter the kingdom of heaven only one way.
What’s that?
Through the heart, baby boy. It’s always through the heart.
His heart, right now, physically ached. He could feel it there, twitching inside his chest, still alive but just barely.
He tapped the tip of his cigarette out the window and tried to decide what to do next. His jet was on the runway waiting for him. He could fly it home and go back to dating the kinds of women he could never fall in love with. Or he could fly it the one place he knew he didn’t want to go. His stomach curdled at the very thought.
If God was love and Jake loved Maggie, what was preventing him from entering the kingdom? He thought he knew what was waiting for him there: belonging. Family. It was all so close, he could practically taste it.
But if a future with Maggie was even possible, he would have to do the hard work. He would have to renovate the past instead of pretending it wasn’t there. Fixing what was wrong with him was like fixing an old building. First, you tore up the rotten wood. Second, you laid down a strong foundation. Then bit by bit you built the rest of it, keeping what was useful and discarding what wasn’t.
When you were finished, you had a structure that was all the more beautiful for having had a past. But there were no longer any holes in it, which meant you could weather any storm.
Blood pounded in his ears. Was this his answer then? If he actually had the courage to revisit the past and make his peace with it, would that be enough?
Maybe God hadn’t answered his prayer at all. Maybe God was just throwing him under the bus again.
Or maybe that was the true definition of faith. You risked it all on nothing more than a heavenly handshake.
Jake smashed his stub in the ashtray. Now all he had to do was go to Palestine and see his mother before she died.
* * * *
Avery stood outside Maggie’s doorway with a smile on her face that was bitchy but trying not to be.
Maggie had to hand it to her. It took guts to show her face here. But then Avery had never been lacking in guts. Not when it involved getting something—or someone—she wanted.
“Hey, Mags!” Avery said, twisting the stems on a pair of sunglasses even though it was dark outside and she didn’t need them. She gave a little finger wave to Abigail, who observed her serenely over her bottle. “Can I come in?”
Maggie stared at her with a feeling of dread. On the worst day of her life, here was one more bad thing.
Avery’s auburn hair was arranged in a loose ponytail. She had on gold hoop earrings, a pair of Lucchese cowboy boots that probably cost more than what Maggie made in a month, and the tightest jeans a woman could squeeze into without cutting off her circulation. Why on earth does your friend wear her britches like that? Priscilla used to say. Those things are so tight, I can see her religion.
Of all the things Maggie didn’t want to do, letting Avery into her apartment topped the list. But she didn’t have it in her to fight.
Avery breezed right past Gus into the living room. Growing up, she’d always been the cute one, the pretty one. Boys fell for Avery because she was calculating enough to know that half the battle of getting a boy to like you was making him feel good about himself. Maggie had to settle for being the smart one, the steady one. It wasn’t until high school that she started to catch up.
By then, Avery had perfected the art of getting what she wanted, which was usually any boy who caught her fancy—whether that boy was spoken for or not. Maggie remembered the endless high school drama—other girls’ tears, their sulking, the time they stuck a dead fish in Avery’s locker. “Avery Adams is a two-faced slut,” Miranda Lockerbie told Maggie in the hallway one day. “How can you stand to be friends with her?”
You just don’t know her, Maggie would say to Miranda and every other girl who cornered her. She’s just insecure is all. Give Avery a chance. She’s super sweet.
But that was before Avery set her sights on Todd. Only then did Maggie understand. It was hard not to be eternally angry with yourself for being so blind.
Sawyer bolted out of the kitchen. “Mama!”
Avery swooped down on him, all perfume and hairspray. “Oh, my sweet beautiful boy!” she cried.
Manfully, he allowed himself to be fussed over, but his little face betrayed a heartbreaking excitement. Maggie just ached for him. He deserved so much better than a flighty, spoiled mother like Avery. He deserved a mother who would be there for him.
Jake had been just like this boy once—a sweet, unconditionally loving little boy. He’d adored his mother, too.
A pang of grief washed over her. She didn’t want to think about Jake.
“You’ve gotten so big,” Avery exclaimed, looking him over. “And you!” She held her arms out wide for Abigail. “I can’t wait to cuddle my baby princess.”
Maggie backed away. “She’s eating. Let her finish.”
A cloud passed over the hard-won sunshine of Avery’s face. She said to Sawyer, “Honey, would you like to watch some cartoons?”
He nodded, his gaze shifting from his mother to Maggie and then back again.
“I’ve got a TV in my bedroom,” Maggie said. Sawyer followed her and she clicked it on. There was a show with dancing, singing animals on it. “Is this okay?”
Sawyer sat and crossed his legs. “Can Abigail watch with me?”
She propped the baby on his lap and placed the bottle next to them. “Feed her if she gets hungry, okay?”
Maggie lingered for a moment. Abigail squealed when she saw the cartoon animals and Sawyer crooked one arm protectively around her waist. He’s so good with her, Maggie thought. Kids have to look out for each other when there’s no one else around.
The realization sank her. As the older child, Jake had had to take care of his brother like this. He’d been too young to take on that kind of responsibility and Sawyer was, too. Todd and Avery were yet another couple who didn’t make it, and Sawyer and Abigail were what was left after their relationship had gone sour. What was wrong with the world?
Maggie bent down and kissed the top of Sawyer’s head, wishing she could make things better for him, but she couldn’t. Not really. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches weren’t going to make up for a lifetime of his parents’ neglect.
“What a cute little apartment you have,” Avery said. “It’s so girly. Cash—that’s my new man—has a big ranch up in Abilene. As soon as his divorce is final, I’m moving in and he said I could redecorate the whole place.”
Another married man. Avery was so predictable. Maggie went into the kitchen to wash Sawyer’s plate. Why hadn’t she seen earlier what an awful person Avery was? Todd, too. Why had she been so blind about these people?
“So you know that Texas is a community property state, right?” Maggie said as she passed a scrub brush over the plate.
“What’s that?”
“It means Cash’s wife gets half of everything. If they have kids, probably more.”
There was a long silence. Maggie set the plate on the drain board, dried her hands and then went into the living room. Avery was perched on the couch.
“Oh, what do you know?” Avery said dismissively. “You’re not a lawyer.”
Maggie resisted the urge to yell, I went through hell because of you. I’m divorced, remember? But what was the point? Avery was the type of woman who just made up her own version of the facts as she went along.
Should I sleep with my best friend’s husband? Absolutely! Todd never loved her.
Should I be a bridesmaid at their wedding? When Todd sees me there, he’ll realize that he’s making a terrible mistake.
Is it okay to abandon my kids and go running off with another married man? Pfffft! Kids can take care of themselves.
“Why are you here, Avery?” Maggie asked, taking the chair opposite the couch. “Did Todd send you over to pick up the kids?”
“Why would I tell Todd where I am? Besides, it works out better for me this way. He’d never let me see the kids without a fight.”
Maggie frowned. That didn’t make any sense. “If you didn’t talk to Todd, then who told you the kids were here?”
Avery looked at her as though she weren’t too bright. “Todd’s mother, of course.”
“Todd’s mother told you I had the kids? She’s at the hospital.”
“Hospital?” Avery wrinkled her nose. “She’s not at the hospital. She’s at home watching Wheel of Fortune.”
Maggie struggled to put this together. “So where is Todd?”
Obviously bored with answering questions, Avery pounced on a gossip magazine Priscilla had left on the coffee table. She flipped through it. “Out screwing around. You can bet on it. While I was pregnant with Abigail, this waitress from the IHOP, told me Todd was in love with her. I said to her, ‘Listen, you skank—’”
“He lied to me,” Maggie said. She should have strangled him when she had the chance. Despite his faults, Jake was five times the man Todd was. At least Jake wasn’t a cheat and a liar. He would have been the perfect boyfriend if he’d stuck around. But Jake hadn’t stuck around. Jake was gone.
“Know how you can tell Todd is lying?” Avery said. “When his lips are moving.” Slyly, she added, “You have no idea what it’s like being pregnant and knowing you can’t get the payback on someone who’s cheating on you.”
“You’re right. Getting payback would be the last thing on my mind.”
Avery gave her a condescending smile. “You always were kind of naïve.”
Naïve. Yes. Apparently taking people at their word was still a failing of hers.
Then she realized something.
This whole time she’d thought that men were nothing but cheats and liars. That love didn’t last. But that wasn’t true. Jake may not have been perfect—neither was she. But at least Jake was honestly trying to come to terms with his past, to change for the better.
Meanwhile, the Todds and Averys of this world were just selfish, mean-spirited narcissists who didn’t give even one one-millionth of a percent of a damn about anyone but themselves.
Knowing this about Jake didn’t make it easier to get over him, of course. She never would. But it helped to know such men existed.
“You might’ve warned me,” Avery said, her gaze flitting over the pages of the magazine. “You know, before I had kids with Todd.”
Maggie stared at her, dumbfounded.
“Oh, and there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about,” Avery said. “Your sister. She’s a social worker, right? I was wondering. Do the kids have to be with me full time for me to get child support?”
“Are you serious?”
“You don’t have to be so judgy. I’m just asking.”
Maggie heard Sawyer and Abigail giggling in the next room. She thought about her sisters, her parents, the kind of family she wanted to build for herself. Then she looked at Avery, who was physically capable of having children but had no more maternal instinct than a bag full of rattlesnakes.
And the unfairness just crushed her.