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But really all his grumbling was more bluster than bother. Because being on the road with Magaskawee Whitefeather had turned out to be the best part of Prosper’s life. He was as beguiled by her as Jack was. She was as kind as she was beautiful and radiated an aura of warmth and light that Prosper liked to be around. That promise he had made to himself to stay away from her had lasted about a minute.
More often than not, he found himself even worse than Jack at indulging her every wish. So far he had let himself be roped into everything from searching for sea glass on the shores of Cape Cod to attending a lawn concert of classical music at Tanglewood. Jack, for his part, was just as happy to bow out and let his buddy take the lead in entertaining Maggie’s forays into, well, all kinds of shit that no man in his right mind would want to do.
After about a half hour of near misses with the fireflies, Maggie plopped down beside Prosper.
“I thought you said it was easy?” she asked with exasperation.
“It is easy. Your problem is you’re too damn noisy. A stampede would make less of a racket,” he grumbled. “And for Christ’s sake, stop talking to them.”
“Here you go, Mr. Know it All.” Maggie lifted her nose imperiously and shoved the jar towards Prosper. “You do it then.”
He looked from the jar to Magaskawee and back again. Maggie continued to stare at him.
“Follow behind me.” He sighed as he got up off the grass. “Keep the lid in one hand and the jar in your other. And your mouth closed.”
To her never-ending delight, Magaskawee soon had a jar full of dancing fireflies. She and Prosper sat together on the riverbank and looked into the jar. “They’re so pretty the way they light up like that!” Maggie burst out happily.
“Yeah, well, enjoy them now because they won’t last too long in a jar.” Prosper spouted out his usual negative retorts. Partly because it was his nature, and he also got a kick out of the response his attitude always garnered from Maggie. Her optimism slayed him. But this time, to his surprise, she just looked at him and sighed.
“Nothing good ever lasts, does it?” she replied forlornly
When she frowned and her shoulders slumped in a very defeated,very unlikeMaggie way, Prosper felt a cold dread in his heart. The three of them had been together twenty-four seven for months now. If any of them were watching at all, there wasn’t much one could miss about a person when that much time was spent together.
Unless, of course, you were Jack. Jack was a Mr. Fucking Magoo, walking through life blissfully in a fog. Unaware that the sky was falling until a big chunk of it hit him on the head. If Prosper’s suspicions were correct, and by the looks of Maggie now, he figured they were dead on, then Jack was about to have thatlife-is-a-big-bowl-of-cherries attitude bite him hard in the ass.
“When are you planning on telling him, Maggie?” Prosper fought to sound casual. Just so he would have something to do with his hands, he began to pick up stones from the small pile next to him and pitch them into the stream.
Maggie swung her head around and looked at him in horror and surprise. “How did you … when did you …howdid you …?”
“Hell, Maggie, you have a bigger appetite than I do. For a skinny girl, you sure can chow down with the best of them. I don’t think you’ve ever met a piece of red meat you don’t like.”
“I’ve always had an appreciation of good food.” Maggie blushed in embarrassment. “Is there a point to this?”
“Yeah, the point is, for the past few weeks you can’t even look at a piece of bacon frying in the pan without gagging, you’re overly sensitive to smells, and your tits—”
“My tits?” Maggie sputtered out.
“They’re getting bigger.”
“You look at my tits?’
Prosper just stared at her. Then Maggie sighed and went silent for a long moment.
“I don’t know how to tell him,” she whispered. “I don’t think he’ll want this, and I don’t know how he’ll handle it.”
As far as Prosper was concerned, Maggie was right to worry. Jack was just about as far from being ready for the responsibility of having a kid as a man could be. There was nothing Prosper could say right now to make Maggie feel better. Nothing he could say that wouldn’t sound like complete bullshit.
So, he said nothing.
“Their lights are so pretty, so luminous,” Maggie’s voice broke through the stillness. “They look contented, don’t they, sitting in that jar?”
“They’re real pretty, Maggie,” he said gently.
She paused for another long moment. “You know what I think, Prosper? I think I know the reason they’re still able to shine so brightly, closed up in that glass.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that, darlin’?”
She laid her head on his shoulder and whispered, “It’s because they don’t know that they’re trapped.”
