It was a complicated matter, though. If I received a job offer—and I didn’t even know whether a job was available at that time—I would have to defer graduate school for a year, and though I assumed Abigail would accept my decision, she likely wouldn’t be happy about it. More importantly, I needed my parents to understand. I didn’t want them to think that I was somehow trying to replace them or didn’t appreciate all they had done for me. I needed them to know that I would always consider them my parents. When I returned home, I told them what I’d been considering. I also showed them a number of Maggie’s videos about her battle with cancer, and in the end, I think that’s what did it. They, like me, knew I was running out of time. As for Abigail, she was more understanding than I expected, despite the wrench it threw in our longstanding plans. I packed my bags and returned to New York, unsure how long I would stay and wondering whether it would work out. I learned everything I could about Trinity’s and Maggie’s work, and eventually brought my résumé to the gallery.
Sitting across from Maggie during my interview was the most surreal moment of my life.
* * *
Once I was hired, I found a permanent place to live and deferred graduate school, but I’ll admit there were times when I wondered whether I’d made a mistake. In my first few months, I barely saw Maggie, and when we did cross paths, our interaction was limited. In the autumn we began to spend more time together, but Luanne was often with us. Strangely, though I’d wanted to work in the gallery for personal reasons, I discovered that I had an aptitude for the job and eventually came to enjoy it. As for my parents, my dad chose to refer to my work as “a noble service”; my mom simply said she was proud of me. I think they anticipated that I wouldn’t be home for Christmas, which was why my dad arranged the trip to the Holy Land with members of the church. While it had always been a dream of theirs to go, I think there was a part of them that didn’t want to be at home during the holidays if their only child wasn’t around. I tried to remind them frequently of my love for them, and how much I’d always cherish them as the only parents I ever knew or wanted.
* * *
After Maggie opened her gift, she asked me countless questions—how I’d found her, details about my life and my parents. She also asked me whether I wanted to meet my biological father. She might, she speculated, be able to offer enough information to get me started on a search, if that’s what I wanted. Though my curiosity had originally been piqued because of my rare-ish blood type, I realized that finding J didn’t interest me in the slightest. Meeting and getting to know Maggie had been more than enough, but I was nonetheless touched by her offer.
In time, Maggie grew so exhausted that I accompanied her on her cab ride home. After helping her inside, I didn’t hear from her again until midafternoon. We spent the rest of Christmas Day together at her apartment, and I finally got to see the photo of the lighthouse firsthand.
“This photo changed both our lives,” she mused out loud. I could only agree.
But in the days and weeks after Christmas, I realized that Maggie didn’t really know how to be my mother and I didn’t know how to be her son, so for the most part we simply became closer friends. Though I’d called her Mom when I gave her the teddy bear, I reverted to Maggie after that, which felt more comfortable to both of us. She was nonetheless thrilled about meeting Abigail, and the three of us had dinner together twice while she was in town. They got along well, but when Abigail enveloped Maggie in a goodbye hug, I noted that Maggie was growing smaller with each passing day, the cancer stealing away her substance and heft.
Right before the new year, Maggie posted the video that updated her prognosis, and then contacted her family. As she’d anticipated, her mom pleaded with Maggie to return to Seattle, but Maggie was unequivocal about her intentions.
Once Luanne returned from Maui, Maggie filled her in regarding both her prognosis and my identity. Luanne, who insisted she’d known something was up all along, informed Maggie that we needed to spend as much time together as possible, so she promptly scheduled my vacation. As the new manager—both Maggie and Trinity agreed she was the obvious choice—it was her decision, and it allowed Maggie and me the time we needed to fill in any blanks we hadn’t yet shared about our lives.
My parents came to New York in the third week of January. Maggie wasn’t bedridden yet, and she asked to speak to the two of them privately as she sat on the couch in her living room. Afterward, I asked my parents what they’d discussed.
“She wanted to thank us for adopting you,” my mom said with barely restrained emotion. “She said that she felt blessed.” My mom, toughened by the confessions associated with her profession, seldom cried, but in that instant she was overcome, her eyes brimming with tears. “She wanted to tell us that we were wonderful parents, and that she thought our son was extraordinary.”
When my mom leaned in to hug me, I knew what had touched her most was that Maggie had referred to me as their son. For my parents, my decision to come to New York had been more difficult than I’d realized, and I wondered how much secret turmoil I’d caused them.
“I’m glad you were able to meet her,” my mom murmured, still holding me tight.
“Me too, Mom.”
* * *
After my parents’ visit, Maggie never made it to the gallery again, nor was she able to leave her apartment. Her pain medication had been increased, administered by a nurse who came by three times a day. She sometimes slept up to twenty hours at a stretch. I sat with her during many of those hours, holding her hand. She lost even more weight and her breathing was ragged, a wheeze that was painful to listen to. By the first week of February she was no longer able to rise from her bed, but in the moments she was awake, she still found a way to smile. Usually, I did most of the talking—it was too much effort on her part—but every now and then, she would tell me something I didn’t know about her.
“Do you remember when I told you that I wanted a different ending to the story of Bryce and me?”
“Of course,” I said.
She gazed up at me, the ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “With you, I got the ending that I wanted.”
* * *
Maggie’s parents came to stay in February, settling in at a boutique hotel not far from Maggie’s apartment. Like me, her mom and dad simply wanted to be close to her. Her dad remained quiet, deferring to his wife; most of the time, he sat in the living room with the television tuned to ESPN. Maggie’s mom occupied the chair near the bed and wrung her hands compulsively; whenever the nurse arrived, she demanded explanations for every adjustment to Maggie’s pain medicine, as well as other aspects of her care. When Maggie was awake, her mom’s constant refrain was that what was happening wasn’t fair, and she repeatedly reminded Maggie to pray. She insisted the oncologists in Seattle might have been able to do more and that Maggie should have listened to her; she knew someone who knew someone who knew someone else who also had stage IV melanoma but was still in remission after six years. She sometimes lamented the fact that Maggie was alone and had never gotten married. Maggie, for her part, endured her mother’s anxious nattering patiently; it was nothing she hadn’t heard her entire life. When Maggie also thanked her parents and told them that she loved them, her mom seemed nonplussed that Maggie felt she’d needed to say those words at all. Of course you love me! I could picture her thinking. Look at all I’ve done for you, despite the choices you made in your life! It was easy to understand why Maggie found her parents draining.