“I think I needed to hear that.”
“I’m happy to provide,” she says, her hand reaching out to rub my shoulder. “My family is quite taken with you, Lou.”
“It’s mutual,” I say, peering at the small girl whose fingers still sleepily worry at the ends of my hair.
“Do you think you’ll stay in Stowaway after returning to work?” Now, the same worry from Paige’s fingers shines on Maggie’s face. It wasn’t a comfortable question for her to ask, I suspect. A mother, a true mother, never stops concerning herself with her child’s happiness.
My mother never learned to care to begin with. Or not past the bare minimum, anyhow. What direction would my life have taken if I had a Maggie in it? Or an Irma. I bet if I’d grown up in a small town like Stowaway, my mother wouldn’t have so easily hid her disdain toward me and motherhood. Perhaps a neighbor would have made some meaningful difference in my life. As it was, not a single adult in my childhood showed they cared. Except for that one teacher in the ninth grade whose eyes lingered longer than I liked, none of them seemed to notice I existed. I was just another body in a full classroom. A facelessname on a long list. Someone they had to get through the day with.
Not all of those things changed when I started modeling.
What career would I have chosen if I’d been encouraged to have such ambitions as a child?
What will Paige be, I wonder, as I look down on her innocent face. I’ll encourage her to be whatever she dreams. I’ll foster them, build a nest for them to grow larger in, protect them when others try to tear them down. If she ever needs a warrior to stand by her side, I’ll be one.
“I’d like to,” I finally answer, smoothing the hairs tickling Paige’s face away, not wanting them to wake her from whatever dream is dancing in her head. “It’s the only place I’ve ever been that calls to me.”
“And what does it say?”
“Dig your toes in, Louisa. The ground is solid, the roots deep, the air healing,” I tell her. “Would you…disapprove if I did? I don’t mean to bring them any harm.”
“Oh, you sweet girl,” she says quietly, again rubbing my shoulder. “I don’t mean to lay that on you. Only, I worry about them. The divorce has been harder than I think either of them let on.”
“And you don’t want a strange woman bringing them more turmoil,” I say. “I understand.”
“I don’t think you do, as I’m not explaining myself very well,” she says with a small laugh. “Every place I’ve been in town, this week, people talk about you. Or want to talk about you. They want to know more about you, how you are. They want toknowyou, the same way Grady and Paige do. The same way I do.”
“I don’t, I mean…why?” I ask, confused, because I don’t find myself interesting. My career is, maybe, but nobody here knows what I do for a living.
“You don’t see what others do,” Maggie says with a soft smile. “You don’t see how you smile through your dark moments. Or how you swallow it down so that those around you won’t feel it. There’s a light about you, Lou. You’re a soft amber glow with burned edges that everyone wants to warm themselves next to.”
Paige snuggles in closer, as if to punctuate her grandmother’s words.
“Here I was thinking I’m nothing but a sad sack of a woman.”
“I’ve known you all of a week, and I see why you’ve had such a successful career. There’s an unseen gravitational pull to you,” she says. “Try stepping back and letting yourself see it.”
How does one step back from themselves? I’m not sure. Self-awareness has to be one of the more difficult things in life, surely. As a child, I kept my cards close to my chest. I was a caged up little thing, never wanting anyone close enough to see the cracks in my life. Believing all the words my mother repeated to me day in and day out. It wasn’t until I moved to New York that I let myself live a little. I let myself be seen.
Then, I lost that again. I lost it in lieu of letting Pierre take the spotlight. Take my light. Take my personality. I gave him everything.
“I let myself fade out,” I say. “I won’t let it happen again.”
“The right people won’t try to steal it.”
“I’d never steal anyone else’s either,” I promise.
“I can see that about you,” she says, then grows quiet for a long moment. Nothing but the waves reminding us of theirpresence can be heard. “A mother’s worry never ceases. Until the day I die, I’ll want the best for my son and granddaughter. You might be what’s best for them, Louisa. They light up at your name alone. All I ask is that, before you make any promises to them, you make them to yourself, first.”
She scoots closer and wraps an arm around my shoulder, letting me know this isn’t a warning to stay away from her son. Not exactly. She doesn’t want to see another woman walk away from Grady completely and Paige partially.
Grady will never want to live in New York or any other large, bustling city. His life is here. If I want to be in his world, I have to be certain that I won’t tire of small-town life.
The question is, am I certain? What happens when I get back to my real life? Will I want more of it?
“I promise.”
Grady knocks on my door shortly after eleven. He’d texted me earlier to ask if I was still up for an adult play date. Despite my conversation with Maggie weighing on the back of my mind, my response was a resounding yes.
