“Let’s name her Opal.”
When she looked up, she saw only Sam. Wendy was gone.
Opal’s pediatrician and Maeve’s OB-GYN both had offices at the hospital clinic, and because Opal had chronic ear infections and Maeve had pelvic floor issues, they were there constantly in the months after she was born. But there’d been no sign of Wendy since she’d brought Sam in from the waiting room.
Maeve told herself she wasn’t looking for Wendy, only lookingoutfor her. She didn’t want to be rude, after all. She thought she should thank her somehow. Flowers seemed weird and aggressive. A card maybe? But she didn’t know where to begin, other than to call the hospital, which she didn’t want to do, or check the phone book (which she’d done but had found nothing).
In the parking garage at the clinic for Opal’s monthly visit, Maeve and the baby were both clammy from early summer heat. Sweat drizzled between Maeve’s spine and sundress, into thick cotton underwear she wore in case of inadvertent piddle. Opal wore only a diaper and onesie. A car pulled into the empty spot next to Maeve. Until that moment, seeing Wendy Walker emerge from her sedan in powder blue scrubs, Maeve suffered the indignities of motherhood without much complaint. She used her thumb and middle finger to brush her damp hair away from her forehead. Could she not catch a break? Once even? What she wouldn’t give for a new dress, for a bra that actually flattered her, for empty arms and air conditioning.
“Hey,” Maeve said, giving a weird wave she immediately wished she could take back.
Wendy jogged around the car to Maeve. “Oh, wow! There you are. I wondered if I’d ever see you around here.” She jiggled Opal’s toes and made a face until she gurgled. “How are you?”
“Good,” Maeve said, trying to think cold thoughts. “Opal’s had ear infections. And I keep peeing myself, incontinence, you know.” She clamped her mouth shut, shook her head. “Sorry.”
“We should get together some time,” Wendy said. She pulled a little notebook out of her bag. “What’s your number?”
Maeve flashed to Wendy playing basketball. “Lucky seven,” Maeve said.
Wendy gave her a quizzical look.
“That was your number. In high school. Number seven,” Maeve said. “Stupid. Sorry. My phone number, I know. I was just ...”
Wendy laughed, and Maeve peed a little.
“C’mon. I’ll walk you in.” Wendy grabbed the diaper bag off Maeve’s shoulder, and they walked into the clinic together like it was the most natural thing, the two of them side by side.
Their conversations, usually over coffee in the hospital cafeteria before or after a doctor’s appointment, were reserved at first, catching up on details as if they’d been casual friends. Wendy had finished high school back in Canada. Her father took a sabbatical so they could move. “After that night, Mom didn’t want to stick around.” She’d gotten her degree in Ottawa, then moved to Freeport for the job in Brunswick. She told Maeve she’d thought about getting in touch. “But it had been so long. So much had happened.” Maeve understood. She told Wendy about meeting Sam, that he was a “good guy” and a great dad, that Dylan loved him, that her parents seemed to like him fine. Wendy gave her an odd look but didn’t ask the question Maeve wanted to answer.I’m straight.
It wasn’t until their third coffee date that they talked about Brett Overton, what happened to him, how Wendy walked into the house, shoes in hand, her mother’s precious dress ruined. “She was—I don’t know—livid, I guess. I honestly thought she would hit me. She asked where I’d been, and I told her with Brett. Obviously, I didn’t know about the accident so she knew I was lying. She pulled the phone cord out of the wall, it was ringing so much. She packed the whole family up the next day, and we stayed in a hotel in Portland. It was nuts. Shewatched me every second. She told me she’d called your house. I always wondered if you’d tried to call me.”
Maeve had gotten used to the idea that Wendy Walker, everything about her, had been some kind of dream. She’d pushed it down, aside, away, anywhere so she wouldn’t have to look right at it. There was before, and there was after. And now there was this. Maeve didn’t know what it was. She added more sugar to her coffee, sipped while Opal slept in the infant seat next to her. “Something else happened that night. At my house.” And she told Wendy about Conor O’Kane, how he’d come to the house. She told Wendy about his accusations—“Frenching”—as if it hadn’t been so much more. She looked around the cafeteria for eavesdroppers. “You can’t tell anyone.” And then Maeve gave up the secret her family kept. She’d never told anyone because to talk about it would mean she’d have to talk about Wendy, and she’d never, ever wanted to do that. Until now. Until it was Wendy herself sitting right there. Even Sam had no idea a man had died at her parents’ house. The whole thing had been swept up in the rug that her father had thrown out.
Wendy’s hand was on her mouth the whole time. “Holy shit. How’s your little sister? She must have been fucking traumatized.”
“Molly? She’s fine. It wasn’therfault. She just gave him a shove.Ifelt terrible! It was because of me that he was there.” Maeve hesitated then added, “Because of us. But it’s in the past. I don’t even think about it. I’m sure Molly doesn’t either.”
“That’s wild. I mean, I was severely depressed my whole senior year. I felt guilty about Brett. Guilty that my family had to move. Pissed at myself and my parents and, like, everyone around me. I even considered a degree in psychology to sort myself out. It took me forever. I still think about it. So, you and your sister don’t even talk about it? Ever?”
“God no! You don’t know my family. We don’t talk about anything.”
Maeve kept her friendship with Wendy Walker from her mother for months. It wasn’t her business and, besides, Maeve told herself, mentioning Wendy’s name would resurface everything that happened that terrible night. No one wanted to talk about that. But Sam mentioned Wendy over dinner one Sunday, and her mother practically bit her fork in half. “Wendy? The same Wendy from high school?”
Maeve had kept eating, trying to be cool about it. “I told you a girl from high school worked at the hospital,” she said, casually. “That’s who it is. We’ve been hanging out sometimes. It’s no big deal.”
“You didn’t tell me who it was,” her mother replied.
Sam seemed confused. “You don’t like her, Faye?”
Maeve could tell her mother was trying to regain her composure. “It’s not that. I never met her.”
Maeve leaped to the rescue. “Wendy was a really good basketball player. I was jealous of her and probably talked about her. That’s all.”
Her father cut into his pot roast, his head down. “That’s the girl whose boyfriend died in that car accident.” He hesitated, exchanged a look with her mother, who passed it on to Maeve like a game of telephone. Maeve didn’t think she’d ever been more grateful that Molly had skipped the family dinner that week.
“Boyfriend?” Sam said.
Maeve kicked him under the table.
