“No, Riley,” he said urgently. “This isn’t fair. Not to you or me. We didn’t kill Wendell. We deserve some happiness, don’t we? Okay, we can cool it for a while, until Maggy gets used to the idea. But don’t tell me it’s over.”
“I’m sorry, Nate,” Riley said. “You have to go. Please?”
* * *
She was leaning over the hospital bed, listening to her daughter’s steady in-and-out breathing. She stroked Maggy’s hair, smiling at the now-faded pink streaks. She turned her head for only a moment, and when she looked back, Maggy’s long eyelashes fluttered open.
“Hi,” Riley said softly. “You’re back.”
Maggy nodded. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost ten in the morning. You had kind of a rough night, kiddo.”
Maggy turned her head and looked at the monitors and the IV pole and then back at her mother. “Is this the hospital? How did we get here?”
“Baldwin Memorial. They sent a helicopter to pick us up on the island.”
“I rode in a helicopter, and I didn’t even know it?”
“You were pretty sick.” Riley squeezed her daughter’s hand. “You scared us, baby.”
A tear trickled from Maggy’s eye, and Riley dabbed at it with a tissue. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I was so dumb. I didn’t mean that stuff I said.”
“It’s okay. We both said some stuff we didn’t mean. Do you feel like telling me what happened last night? Why did you leave Annabelle’s?”
“We had a fight.” Maggy turned her face to the wall. “She said Dad was a crook, and he stole money and the FBI was after him.”
“Oh, honey.” Riley bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood, wishing she could draw blood from Annabelle, and anybody who was ever, ever cruel to her child.
“Then she said I was stupid and ugly and it was gross that I have to stick myself and test my blood and get shots. So I came home. I hate her.”
“Is that why you ate candy and made yourself sick?”
“Yes,” Maggy said, in the tiniest, barely audible voice possible. “I was mad at you and Annabelle, and I wanted to make you feel as bad as I feel. But I’m sorry now. I won’t do it again.”
“You better not,” Riley said.
“When can we go home?” Maggy asked plaintively.
“Maybe today. Mimi called. Mr. Banks is missing you.”
“No, I mean home to Raleigh. To our new house. The kids on Belle Isle are jerks.”
“We’ll see,” Riley said. She kissed the tip of her finger and touched it to her child’s cheek. “Get some rest now.”
59
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Parrish asked. They were on the ferry, bound for Southpoint, and then Raleigh.
“I don’t want to, I have to,” Riley said. They were on a bench on the upper observation deck. Maggy sat nearby, with Mr. Banks clutched tightly in her arms. “My job starts tomorrow and Maggy’s school starts, too.”
“You don’t need to stay in a hotel, for God’s sake. Just stay at our house until your new place is ready. I don’t mind staying in town for a week or so, in case you need something, and you and Maggy won’t be stuck in some dreary room where you can’t even cook.”
“It’s not dreary. It’s a very nice all-suite hotel right across the street from Woodlawn, her new school, so Maggy can just walk there after dismissal. There’s a kitchenette so we can cook if we need to, but I don’t expect to have much time this first week, so we’ll probably do a lot of takeout. We’ll be fine,” Riley said.
“You won’t let anybody help, will you?” Parrish said, shaking her head in exasperation.
“This is our new normal. I love and appreciate you more than I can say, Parrish, but Maggy and I have to figure out how to do this by ourselves. It’s enough that you’re helping me get some of our stuff out of the storage unit and moved into the hotel, and sticking around to go to orientation with her tomorrow.”
“It’s not enough, but since you won’t let me do anything else, what choice do I have? And let me just say—I think it’s super shitty that this boss of yours won’t even give you a couple hours to go to orientation with your kid at her new school.”
“Yeah,” Riley said uneasily. “I guess you can’t expect a single twenty-six-year-old to get how important this is, but I kinda agree with you. I’m trying to be optimistic about everything, for Maggy’s sake, but I’m afraid this isn’t going to be the most family-friendly job I’ve ever had.”
“And she’s a woman! There’s no excuse for that.”
“I just have to educate her,” Riley said.
Parrish took a sip from her water bottle. “Did you see who got on the ferry at the last minute?”
Riley shot her an annoyed look. “You know I did.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No. The whole thing is impossible. If you’d seen Maggy that night, in her room, in a self-induced diabetic coma, lying in a puddle of her own vomit and urine, you’d understand. Now, can we please drop it?”
“I’m not letting you off the hook that easily, Riles. I’m a mom too, you know, and I’ve raised a child. And no, David didn’t have a serious disease, but that’s not the issue. Kids that age are manipulative little bastards, and Maggy, bless her heart, is clever enough that she knows exactly how to push your buttons and how far to push you to get what she wants.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable of her to expect the only parent she has to put her needs first,” Riley said. “That’s what parents do, and it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
“You’re missing the point,” Parrish insisted. “Needs aren’t the same as wants. You give Maggy everything she needs—in spades. Attention, both physical and medical, affection, education, all of it. But she wants more. She wants to dictate how you live, who you love. That’s not fair. And it’s not good for her or you. Keep this up and she’ll end up a spoiled, self-involved brat and ten years from now you’ll be a lonely empty nester who wakes up one day to discover you forgot to have a life for yourself.”
“Anything else, Dr. Freud?” Riley asked.
“Yeah,” Parrish said, looking up. “I just saw him standing at the window up there in the pilothouse. If you’d seen the way he was looking down at you—the longing, the despair, all of it…”
“It wouldn’t change anything,” Riley said. “What’s done is done.”
* * *
“Come on, Mags. Parrish is here. Let’s see how you look in the uniform,” Riley called. It was seven thirty Monday morning, Maggy had been in the bathroom for forty minutes, and Riley needed to leave for work.
“No!”
Riley looked at Parrish and shrugged.
“I got this,” Parrish said. She pounded on the bathroom door.
“Margaret Evelyn Griggs, get your tail out here. RIGHT THIS MINUTE.”
The bathroom door opened a crack and light spilled out into the hotel room. “I am NOT wearing this,” Maggy announced, walking out. “I look like that girl from Harry Potter.”