The discussion moved on to divorces and attorneys and then what Dayana wanted next.
“I want to go back to work,” she confessed. “I mean, don’t get me wrong. Keaton is the best thing to ever happen to me. Insert all the other things a modern mother is supposed to say about her child being the center of her universe. But dammit. It’s not enough for me. I don’t want a three-year-old to be my best friend. I don’t want to give up on a career I love just because a human fell out of my vagina.”
“Listen up, next generation,” Mama B said, pointing her wineglass at each of them in turn. “Babies do not complete you. Babies do not make you a fully realized woman. Neither does a man. That’s a truth we all have to learn the hard way.”
Maggie’s phone vibrated. It was a text from Dean. He’d sent a picture of Silas, hat on backward, watching the game while cradling the sleeping Keaton against his chest.
Dean: If I had ovaries they’d be exploding. Marry this man and have his beautiful babies.
Maggie felt something warm and weird swoop through her chest. She didn’t like it at all. She didn’t have a biological clock. She didn’t have a desire to settle down. She liked her life just the way it was.
“Uh-oh. That’s a baby-making look right there,” Niri said, pointing at Maggie. “I should know—I had one of those the week before Jeremiah knocked me up. He was playing hide-and-seek with his nieces and bam! Pregnant.”
“Who needs another drink?” Maggie asked, flipping her phone over. Every woman around the table raised her hand.
The men returned from the baseball game just as the women were getting ready to leave, which meant it was another hour of tours and small talk and nightcaps before everyone who didn’t live there was on the road and everyone who did live in the house was settled.
Maggie found Silas on the sunporch, waiting.
“Ready to do this?” he asked.
“I am if you are,” she said, bracing herself. He thought this was a conversation about her family baggage. But there was more to it. She wasn’t the marrying type. The packing-school-lunches type. The juggling-a-family-calendar type. She’d never even thought about it before. It was time Silas came to terms with that.
“Let’s walk,” she suggested, grabbing a flashlight from the chest of drawers she had found on a side street in Kinship and refinished with Cody.
The moon was high and bright in the night sky. Lights glowed from Cody’s and Dean’s windows on the second floor. She glanced up at the window to the secret room and thought about how much she’d rather be in there alone, sifting through someone else’s treasures. Then realized that wasn’t entirely true.
She’d laughed over delicious food and good drinks with smart women who talked about real things. And now she was taking a moonlit walk with a man who made her question everything she’d always wanted.
She took a breath and a leap. “My dad was married when he met my mother. They were both attending a conference and had a one-night stand. I was the unintended consequence of that night. She didn’t tell him about me. Times were tight. Mom was a single parent, and having me derailed her dreams of a high-powered career.”
They veered away from the cliff where she’d talked to Dayana today and instead headed in the direction of the barn. Tall green grass whispered in the night breeze.
“She was proud of doing it on her own. That meant crappy jobs and crappier apartments. We moved around a lot until I was twelve and she got a ‘real’ job. In an office with work in her field. Benefits. Vacation time. It was supposed to be a new beginning. We splurged and took our very first vacation. We came here,” Maggie said, stopping in the shadow of the old barn.
She shined her light over the ruin and imagined it as it could be. Silas was silent next to her, listening.
“It was the best week of my life. We had hope. We’d buy a house. She even brought real estate listings with us, and we spent the whole week circling homes and daydreaming.”
His hand engulfed hers, fingers intertwining. He seemed to get that it wasn’t a happily ever after she was telling him. That understanding, that quiet support, steadied her.
“We drove up here that week and tried to peek down the drive at the house. Mom joked about maybe someday we’d come back here and buy it.”
She felt the hitch in her chest. The sad mixed with pride, and for a second, she wished fiercely for things that could never be. “We went home, and Mom started her dream job. Things were great for a few weeks. The paychecks were regular, and she was so proud of herself for providing for us. But I came home after school on a Friday. We were supposed to go to the school carnival that night. Mom was curled up on the couch. Crying.”