My chest was tight, and I knew if I stayed a second longer, I’d say something I’d regret. I glanced up at where Maggie was standing, but she was gone, so I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch, turning my back to Mrs. Riley.
“I’m sorry, Brooks, but this is for the best.”
Turning to face her one more time, I snapped. “With all due respect, Mrs. Riley, I think you’re wrong about her. Maggie’s smart. She’s so smart, kind, and expressive, even without words. She says so much when you can’t hear her. Yeah, her mind is busy, but it’s deeper than any ocean. She sees things in different ways than most, but why is that a bad thing? And you’re wrong about music, too. If you think for a second music can’t heal people, then you’re not listening closely enough.”
I started on my way, my heart racing.
“She tried to kill herself,” Mrs. Riley shouted, making me pause my steps.
I turned back, denial running through my mind. “No.”
“Yes, she did. I know I probably seem like the big bad wolf, but she’s not okay. You were right, her mind is deeper than any ocean, but one day the tides are going to rise so high, she’ll have no choice but to drown.”
She tried to kill herself.
I couldn’t breathe.
She tried to kill herself.
She wouldn’t.
I couldn’t fucking breathe.
I walked around the neighborhood, lap after lap after lap. I kept thinking maybe I’d done something wrong. Maybe the way I had held her or touched her had sparked a flashback. Maybe I’d said something wrong.
“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Mrs. Boone asked me from her porch as I did another lap around the neighborhood, trying to clear my head. I stopped in front of her house as Muffins rolled back and forth in the grass. “When she has her meltdowns.”
“How did you know?”
She smiled and glided back and forth in her wicker rocking chair. “I know Maggie, and I know the look on people’s faces when she falls apart. I’ve seen it on her parents’ faces more than I’d like to admit. Now come on up here. Take a break. Come inside and I’ll make you some tea.”
I arched an eyebrow. Inside? I hadn’t ever seen Mrs. Boone invite someone into her house. Half of me thought if I walked in she might kill me, but the other half was way too curious about what it’d be like inside her home.
Her screen door squeaked as she opened it. She held it wide for me to walk inside, following closely behind me. “You can wait here in the living room. I’ll go heat up some water,” she said, walking toward her kitchen.
I paced around the living room, looking at her home. Her house was a museum; every piece of artwork looked like it was from the 1800s, and every statue sat behind a glass casing. Everything was polished and clean, and seemed to be in its rightful place.
“Are you sure you don’t need help?” I asked.
“I’ve been making tea for years and never needed help.”
I wiped my hand across her fireplace mantel, my fingers collecting dust, and I frowned. I wiped my hand against my jeans. Her fireplace was the only place in the room with dust. It was almost as if she collected every inch of filth and dropped it on the mantel. Strange. I lifted up one of the dust-covered frames and stared at Mrs. Boone with a man I assumed was her husband. She sat in his lap, smiling up at him as he smiled at her. I’d never seen Mrs. Boone smile the way she smiled in the photograph.
I picked up another photo, one where the couple stood on a boating dock with a child in front of them, who was laughing in the picture. The transition of the girl growing in the photos was hard to watch. She went from a smiling kid to someone who frowned, to someone who displayed no emotion at all. Her eyes looked so empty. There had to be over thirty frames packed on the fireplace, each picture showing different moments from Mrs. Boone’s past.
“Who’s the girl? In the photos?” I asked.
She peeked into the room before stepping back into the kitchen. “Jessica. My daughter.”
“I didn’t know you had a daughter.”
“Did you ever ask?”
“No.”
“That’s why you didn’t know. You stupid kids never ask questions. All you do is talk, talk, talk, and no one ever listens.” She walked back into the living room, fidgeting with her fingers before sitting on her couch. “The water is heating.”
I picked up a dust-covered record and blew off some of the grime. “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay, by Otis Redding?” I asked.