Ashes of Fiery Weather (33 page)

“That's great, Mag,” Danny said. “I'm glad to hear it.”

“Brian said something about you wanting to come home.”

Danny pushed a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. Maggie drank from her beer, to keep herself from straightening it. He needed a haircut.

“Fucking Brian,” Danny said. “I don't know. My dad's here all by himself now. I don't know what he's doing when he's not working.”

Your dad, Maggie thought, went to work on Thanksgiving night, the first one without your mother.

“And my roommate's an asshole. I thought Brian was a slob. The classes are not all that different than high school. Dad says I have to at least stick it out until the end of the semester.”

“You'll probably like it better once baseball starts,” Maggie said. “Stay for a year. If you still hate it in May, don't go back in September.”

“That seems like a long fucking time.”

Not to Maggie it didn't. She was already considering the cost of a summer class and dorm room for six weeks. She thought she might be able to get a summer job on campus.

“Do you miss home?” he asked.

Maggie looked at him, surprised that he'd come so close to guessing her thoughts.

“Not too much, no,” she said slowly. “It's nice, being on my own.”

At Gilbride, nobody knew that her given name was Magdalena. Nobody knew how her father had died, or when. The lack of curiosity had startled her the first few times she encountered it. The rote nods told her that it was not just manners keeping the questions at bay. Maggie understood soon enough. An eighteen-year-old might have lost her father to a heart attack or a stroke. A man in his sixties. Too young, but no epic tragedy. Eventually, Maggie figured she would tell, but it was nice to be free of the story for a time.

“Maybe I should come visit you some weekend,” Danny said.

“Uh, maybe.” She finished off the beer.

Danny sat up straighter. “You seeing someone?”

“I've hooked up a few times, but no, I'm not really dating anybody. Dating's not a big thing at my school.”

“Hooked up?” Danny stared at her.

Maggie put her empty beer bottle next to his. She picked up the one Brian had given her for Danny and drank from it.

“Yes, in college the boys actually like me,” she said. “Surprised?”

“No.” He grinned. “I'm the last person who would be surprised. I've missed you, Mag.”

He snagged the belt loop of her jeans and pulled her closer.

Laughing, she put her hand over his. “Let's go downstairs for a while.”

He let go of her and sat back.

“This party is Brian's thing.” Danny shook his head. “He set up a fucking keg on the dining room table.”

“I saw it.”

“I know my mom let us drink, but everybody respected that you weren't coming here to get piss-drunk. If Bri gets arrested for giving alcohol to minors, he can forget the fire department. You can't get on with a felony on your record.”

Maggie wasn't sure it was a felony, but she was silent as Danny drained his beer.

The words would be easy to say. Come visit. Take the train up on Friday and stay until Sunday.

But it was far too soon. Maggie had imagined her and Danny living separate lives for all of college, maybe a bit beyond. She would be teaching in Manhattan, and maybe living there too, in the Village. They'd see each other at Brendan's high school graduation, or Aidan's wedding, or even on an April 5, at her father's memorial Mass.

In July, they'd run into Amred Lehane at the FDNY vs. NYPD baseball game. He smiled and said they were a good match, as though they were a royal couple in an arranged marriage.

“Whack job,” Maggie said after Amred left. Danny laughed and said he was harmless.

Danny snagged her belt loop again. “I really have missed you. The girls at my school are stupid.”

Maggie pushed his hand away but then leaned over to untie her shoes. She kicked them off and closed the door. She climbed into the bed beside Danny, and he put his arm around her. She leaned into him, his solidity.

January 1992

For as long as Maggie could remember, her family and the Gradys kept the keys to each other's houses.

At close to one o'clock, Maggie quietly let herself into Danny's house. His father's car had been in the driveway all day yesterday, but today it had been gone since she first looked, at about ten a.m. He had to be at work. She took off her snowy boots and hung up her jacket on the coat rack beside Danny's.

She called to him.

“Mag?” he called back from upstairs, surprised. “Come up.”

As she walked into his room, Danny picked up a pile of shirts from a laundry basket and tossed them into a suitcase that was open on the floor. It was the last Thursday of winter break. She planned to take the Metro North back to Gilbride College on Sunday, and he was catching Amtrak to Boston. Monday morning, she was scheduled to be in American History I, and in the afternoon, English Literature II.

“You're packing already?” she said.

“Change of plans. Brian's going to drive me back. We figure we'll go up early Saturday, hang out Saturday night, and he'll drive home Sunday. Unless he's too hung over,” Danny said, laughing. “Then it'll be Monday morning.”

Maggie stared at him. She'd waited too long to pull him to the place where she had been for almost a month. The room began to tip, as though they were at sea. She lay down on the bed. He leaned over her and they kissed.

Then he went back to tossing shirts into his suitcase. “I know it's a day earlier than I said. But you'll come up. I'll be down to see you.”

Was that even right geographically? Maggie wondered. Who was up and who was down?

“I only hope the weather's okay by Saturday.”

“Snow is general all over Brooklyn,” Maggie said.

“Huh?” Danny said.

Maggie might have laughed. “It's from a story.”

“I can finish this later,” Danny said, kicking his suitcase. He stretched out next to her and she shifted to make more room for him.

“Our old sled is still in the basement. We should take the kids sledding on Monument Hill. That's where we always went.”

Monument Hill in Prospect Park. Schools were closed. Rose and Brendan would love to go sledding with Danny. Maggie turned to look out the window again. She could barely see the house next door.

Danny tugged on a lock of her hair. “Mag? Sledding?”

Maggie sat up and leaned back on her elbows. “I'm pregnant.”

Danny bolted out of the bed. Before she even turned to meet his eyes, Maggie felt guilty for not being able to spare him.

He asked if she was sure, three times, and she told him that she was, without relating the story of the first pregnancy test, bought with snowman gift tags and wrapping paper, or the two others, purchased at different drugstores. It made handling the money difficult all three times, because she'd kept her gloves on to hide her bare ring finger.

Danny slowly sat down on Brian's bed. “What do you want to do?”

She guessed that he was hoping to hear a simple request: half the money. If he had reservations, he could file them away inside the simple truth, that it was her body.

Maggie moved so she was opposite him, their knees nearly touching. Folding her hands in her lap, she killed his hope of a quick and secret resolution. It was 1991—no, it was 1992—and she didn't care what other women did. But she kept hearing this voice, like from the bottom of a well. She wished she did not.

“How long have you known?”

“Since New Year's Eve.”

He leaned closer, as though he wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly.

“Maggie, Jesus. How could you not have told me sooner? You shouldn't have been going through this alone.”

But she'd been praying that there was a God, and that He was both cruel enough and kind enough for this to be a warning. Next time, children, be careful! But wishing for a miscarriage was probably like standing outside in a thunderstorm and hoping that a bolt of lightning finds the crown of
your
head.

“It was already going to be a pretty bad Christmas for you guys.”

Danny started to speak and then stopped. He dabbed one eye and then the other with the back of his wrist. “What are we going to do?”

Maggie told him exactly what they were going to do. The other A-word. Adoption.

For a week, Maggie hadn't been able to button her jeans. According to one of her books, she was showing right on time. According to another, she should have been good for at least another two weeks since it was a first pregnancy.

Maggie's mind kept darting to twins, or a very big baby that would require a C-section, or that she was giving in too much to the constant hunger that had replaced the nausea. Their refrigerator was full of the snacks that went into Brendan's and Rose's school lunches.

Today was March 29. April would be month five. Upon waking, she'd intended to go to Macy's at the Fulton Mall and buy a couple of pairs of jeans. Though she flinched at the thought of shopping in the maternity section, sweatpants were not an option either. She was not going to spend the next few months wearing, essentially, pajamas.

But by the time she was dressed, she was already wondering how long it would be before she could go back to bed.

Maggie went into the kitchen, where she found the Sunday
New York Times
on the table, fresh from the stoop. Delia was separating the paper into sections and greeted Maggie briefly. Delia began with the front-page news, moved on to Arts & Leisure and then Metro, followed by the Book Review.

Maggie poured herself some orange juice and sat at the table. Delia was already reading. Maggie started with the weddings.

The summaries of couples were short-short stories, each ending on the happiest day.

Maggie looked up from the paper and watched her grandmother sip her coffee. “I would kill for a cup.”

“A little bit of coffee won't cause permanent damage,” Delia said.

For the first three months, Maggie felt only a low-grade queasiness, like motion sickness, as though the earth had picked up speed. She glanced at the inert faces of the other passengers on the F train but only the teenage Orthodox girls in their long skirts and long sleeves ever turned her way, curiously scanning her up and down. But they'd always done that. It was not like they could tell.

The morning her pants didn't button, she'd gone downstairs to the kitchen, where Norah had been both getting ready to leave for work and packing a bag for Rose, who would be spending the afternoon and then the night with the McAleers from around the corner, who had two daughters close to her age.

Maggie had lifted her shirt. “Look! Is it too soon?”

Her mother glanced at Maggie and then away.

“Too soon or not, you'd better go shopping,” she said, and called for Rose to pack her toothbrush in her backpack.

When her sister and brothers were home from school, Maggie had been doing her crying in the bathroom with the water running. But it was Saturday morning, and Aidan was in there shaving. Brendan was pounding on the door, yelling at him to hurry up, but no doubt only trying to make Aidan cut himself. Soon Aidan would fling the door open and Brendan would take off running, Aidan in pursuit.

Maggie escaped to her grandmother's. When Delia came home from the early movie with Nathaniel, she found Maggie in the bedroom that had been her father's, curled up on the bed.

Delia fetched a box of tissues and sat at the desk. When Maggie stopped crying, Delia stood, told her to get some sleep and said that she could stay as long as she liked. Her grandmother may have meant she could spend the afternoon, or she may have meant move in. Maggie didn't ask for clarification. She simply didn't go back home.

Most of her father's things had been packed away a long time ago. Delia wasn't the kind to keep a shrine. There were three baseball trophies, and one for basketball. There was a framed photograph of him and her aunt Eileen on the day Eileen arrived in America. The two of them were sitting on the stoop. He was smiling. Aunt Eileen was not. She stared solemnly at the camera.

Maggie felt a slight flutter, infinitesimal, like when someone wiggles their fingers to tickle but doesn't actually touch you. According to her books, it might be the baby moving. Or it might not. She considered asking her grandmother when she'd first felt a kick but rejected this idea.

Asking her grandmother about pregnancy was akin to asking her about hardware stores. Maggie only knew that after her father was born, Delia could not have more children. Maggie's doctor suggested she find out what happened, though it was unlikely to be anything genetic. Maggie hadn't yet worked up the nerve.

Maggie and Delia read in the silent kitchen. Nelson-Newman both loved miniature golf. They were married in Montauk and were hyphenating their name.
Please.
They were totally destined for a murder-suicide at their house in the Hamptons. The only question was which one would pull the trigger.

Maggie shifted the pile of newspaper and a green masthead caught her eye. She unearthed the
Irish Eagle.
The address label read
Nathaniel Kwiatkowski.

“Nathaniel reads the
Irish Eagle
?” Maggie asked.

Delia sighed. “A long time ago, I mentioned that there are Holocaust survivors in Ireland. Not many, but a few.”

Maggie blinked. “Oh. The brother.”

“The brother,” Delia said. “Nathaniel added the
Irish Eagle
to his reading list. He gave this issue to me because there's an obituary in there of a writer I used to like. Tomás Breen. He wrote his last novel in about 1985. After that, he started drinking again and never wrote another.”

After skimming the article, Maggie said, “They think there may be an unpublished novel? That's interesting. His sister won't say one way or the other.”