AllFreeNovel
Share Us
MAGGIE KENNEDY-O’KEEFE
Monday, June 15, 2020
I hurry out to my car in case the reporter suddenly comes up with another question and as I open my door something on the windshield catches my eye. I stretch across the hood of the car, the metal hot against my midsection, and pull it from where it’s pinned beneath a wiper. It’s a red piece of paper folded into the shape of a cardinal.
My heart thumps in my chest. I look around the parking lot to see if any other cars have one slid beneath their windshield wipers but find none. Maybe a child dropped the bird, a school art project, on the way home and someone found it on the ground, picked it up and placed it on my car. But deep down I know that’s not the case. Cam made one of these for me once. Decades ago. It was our little secret.
I get inside the car and turn on the engine, cold air flooding the space. He wouldn’t have left this for me now. I’m well beyond his preferred demographic. I quickly unfold the bird and search for any written message. It’s blank. I toss the bird onto the seat next to me. It has to be some weird coincidence.
It’s a twenty-minute drive to the tree farm that Shaun and I call home. Outside Grotto, hills and bluffs flatten into acres of farmland reserved for soybeans and corn and alfalfa. I prefer the predictability of open country. I like being able to see what’s coming, something that isn’t possible in a town built atop cliffs and in deep valleys.
Before long O’Keefe Orchards & Landscaping comes into view. Shaun took over the family business when his folks decided to move down to Florida year-round. Around that same time, we ran into each other at the grocery store and struck up a conversation. Two years after that, we got married and I moved to what is now my favorite spot in the world.
The orchard fills both sides of a lush valley and I love walking the rows of apple, fir, spruce and pine trees. Each row has its unique scent—sharp, sweet, woody. I’ve always imagined our children playing beneath the trees trying to catch the falling delicate pink-and-white apple blossoms that cling to their hair like confetti.
But the children never came. Only hope, anticipation, disappointment, despair. We mortgaged the orchard in order to pay for the fertility treatments. Now we are in major debt, but that doesn’t matter. I would sell my soul if it meant that this baby comes to us in good health. And now that I’m at thirty-two weeks I can almost believe it will happen. Shaun and I are going to be parents.
Our home, an old farmhouse, white with green shutters, is my oasis from the grimness of police work. Yes, we live in a small community but we still have our fair share of domestic abuse, breaking and entering, drug offenses, and even a murder now and then, so coming home to the orchard is heaven.
The orchard is just off Highway 22, and I always feel a sense of relief when I see our big red barn with O’Keefe Orchards & Landscaping scripted across the side in crisp white paint. I turn into the small parking lot next to the barn where the shop is located and then veer left down a long gravel drive that leads to our home. In the summers, the shop is open until six and Shaun is often out on landscaping jobs even later depending on the weather. Tonight, especially after our phone call, I won’t count on seeing him until the sun sets.
I park in the garage, get out of the car, reach back inside to retrieve the case files I brought home with me and let myself inside the house. My feet feel like they are going to burst out of my shoes and I’ve got a raging headache.
Instead of being greeted with the cool blast of the air conditioner I’m met with hot, stagnant air. The central air has conked out again. “Oh, Jesus,” I say, dumping the binder on the kitchen counter.
I go from room to room, the cats following me, opening windows hoping for even a hint of a slight breeze. By the time I reach the top of the stairs my shirt is wet with sweat and I’m nauseated. I wrestle with the window in our bedroom, finally forcing it open but the sheer white curtains remain still.
I turn on the ceiling fan and strip down to my bra and underwear and lie down on top of the covers. I try to stay completely still while the warm, recycled air sweeps over me. I want to close my eyes but every time I do, I think of Eve. I think of the case files waiting for me on the kitchen counter. It’s taken a long time, but I’ve been able to push thoughts of my best friend so far back that I only allow myself to really think about Eve a few times a year. September fourteenth, the day she was born, and December twenty-second, the day she died.
Eve and I met the August before we started first grade. Her family had just moved to town. They didn’t show up to their new house with a moving truck or even a U-Haul. I remember sitting on my front porch in my brand-new school shoes. Bright white tennis shoes with a pink stripe. My mom told me not to get them dirty so I just sat on the porch and admired them while I waved away mosquitoes.
I heard the Knoxes arrive well before I saw them. The rattle and screech as their canary-yellow car with a queen-size mattress strapped to the top pulled up in front of the old Miller house. I’d never met the Millers, they were long gone before I was born and replaced with a parade of renters, none lasting longer than a year. Every time a U-Haul or a moving van appeared I’d excitedly be on the lookout for someone my age. There never was.
The doors to the car opened and I leaned forward in anticipation. First, a pretty girl emerged from the driver’s side door. She wore cutoff shorts and a bright blue tank top half-hidden by her waist-length blond hair. She looked way younger than my mom. No other adult appeared to be in the car. Maybe the mom and dad were on their way and were going to show up with the moving van.
The driver fiddled with the front seat, pushing it forward and out launched a girl of about four with dandelion fluff hair. She was wearing a scowl and denim overall shorts with cowboy boots. Without a backward glance she marched up the walkway and to the front door and tried the knob. It didn’t budge.
I let out a huff of disappointment. It didn’t look like I was going to get the neighbor girl I wished for. But then there was movement from inside the car and I stood to get a better look. Another figure stepped out from the rear of the car and my heart soared. She had long red hair and was about my size. She had to be about my age, give or take a year. That would be okay, I told myself. We could still be best friends.
At age six, I’d never seen someone with hair that color before. Not in real life anyway. And it was hard to name. Red was too common a word and that hair wasn’t the color of fire engines or the tomatoes that my mother grew in the garden in our backyard. But it was pretty and I wished away my own ordinary brown hair.
Hurry up!the child at the door yelled. She sounded just like she looked, screechy and bad-tempered. Eve! She stomped her foot.
Mom, make her stop!the redhead implored. Mom? I thought in amazement. The girl I thought was the sister was the mother? And Eve. What a pretty name to match such a pretty girl. I itched to cross the street and introduce myself but I couldn’t do it. I was too shy.
The little sister scanned the street and her eyes found mine. They were sharp and angry. I didn’t like her and from the way she stared at me, the feeling was mutual.
“Maggie.” Shaun’s voice startles me back to the present and I open my eyes to find the room in shadows and my husband standing in the doorway looking down at me. I’m self-conscious at my near nakedness but I’m too tired, too hot, to try to cover up.
“Hey,” I say sleepily. “What time is it?”
“Eight thirty,” he says. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m fine,” I say blearily. “Just tired. I’m so sorry about today.”
“I can’t believe you missed the appointment,” Shaun says. “I waited at the doctor’s office and you didn’t show up. I was worried.”
“I know, I can’t believe it either.” My hands travel to my stomach. “I completely forgot about it.”
