Page 87 of When the Walls Come Down
I’d seen that video a dozen times. Heath had digitized all of our family movies years earlier, first onto DVDs and later into digital files he connected to the TV and played at our family gatherings. My mom was always the one behind the camera, so it wasn’t often she was actually on the screen, but her voice was. I hung on her every syllable. I was the only one who didn’t remember her. So, while my family talked and laughed, those films becoming something of background noise, I sat on the floor in front of the TV, entranced with the world before my memories existed. And sometimes, if they were old enough, it was a world before I existed altogether.
I rested my head on my brother’s shoulder and watched on the screen of his phone as kid versions of him and my sisters argued over Monopoly. We were less than a minute from Jenna getting mad and sweeping her arm across the board.
“Jen, Jen, relax,” my mother said.
“He’s cheating!” Jenna yelled back.
“Heathrow,” my mom warned.
Heath, in his high-pitch, pre-puberty voice, yelled back, “I’m not doing anything!”
Gearing up for the melee from the past, I mentally counted down, three, two—
Heath paused the video.
“Hey, we were just getting to the good part.”
“Jenna being a sore loser is not the good part.” He took a quick screenshot and then closed out the video and opened his photos. There, he zoomed in on the frozen image from his childhood.
It was grainy, but in that mirror I’d never noticed hanging on the wall, the reflection of our mother’s smile was clear as day. And that wasn’t a staged photo. Nobody had told her to say cheese. Nor was she putting on a good front to hide the misery of a life she hated.
In that screenshot, she was just a woman who had gotten caught by a mirror, smiling lovingly at her bratty kids.
“Oh, wow,” I breathed, taking the phone from my brother’s hands. I zoomed in as far as I could go, and then, unable to stop myself, I pinched out and then tried to go back in.
“Mom was happy, Maggie. I know you have this whole no-regrets, life-should-be-experienced-not-survived thing going on. But sometimes the life you are given becomes the life you want.”
“That sounds like settling.”
More than a little pissed off, he cranked his head around and hit me with his signature scowl. “You think I settled for Clare? Or, better yet, you think a couple of years ago, I planned to wade into a domestic abuse situation and come out with a wife and a four-year-old who would become my entire fucking world?”
My stomach sank. “No, I didn’t mean that… I—”
“I get it. You get one life and you want to make the most of it. And even though I am still considering dragging you back to Georgia kicking and screaming, I’m so fucking proud of everything you’ve done. But you can’t plan everything. You might have a nice little neat timeline of the things you want to accomplish right down to the month, day, and year. But I promise you: Life has other plans.”
It was dark outside, but with the lights on the balcony, I could see pretty clearly. Yet I swear I had no idea who the hell this man was. “So, what? I’m just supposed to run off with Shane and start popping out babies because I found someone?”
“Fuck. No!” he boomed. “But if you’re in love with this guy, maybe you could let him travel that timeline with you. If he loves you the way you love him, that is one journey he’s never going to regret. One day, when you’re both ready, preferably when I’m ninety and have dementia and don’t have to think about this guy making babies with you, your timelines will merge. That’s the sweet spot, Mags.”
I laughed and smiled at him, love—and, yeah, a little bit of his caveman-crazy—dancing in his eyes.
“Though you let this shit about him settling and you not being right for him get in the way and I can guarantee you are going to wake up one day with some serious regrets. Talk to him. Give him the chance to make his own damn decision. If he makes you happy, it’s worth a try.”
I looked down at my knees, the vision of Shane crawling out on a damn balcony he was terrified of in ridiculous kneepads every night making my lips curl. “He told me earlier that he just wants me.”
“And you?”
I shrugged, trying to play it cool even as the truth tore from my throat. “I just want him.”
Heath gave me a hard squeeze. The kind that envelopes you and makes the impossible feel possible all over again.
He was right. It wasn’t my job to decide what Shane needed. Sure, I had a lot of living left to do. Places I wanted to visit. A career I was still building. Risks I wanted to take.
