All She Ever Wanted - Barbara Freethy [151]
She jumped to one side of the hall as Dylan and their golden retriever, Sally, ran up the stairs.
"Sally found a dead bird in the backyard," Dylan said with excitement. The dog barked in delight. "Do you want to see it? It's in the kitchen."
"No. I'm on the phone." Maggie sighed as Mary Bea marched out of her room with her backpack in one hand and her cherished blanket in the other. Her face was streaked with tears, her blond curls a mass of tangles. "Where do you think you're going, young lady?"
"I'm running away unless you say you're sorry for yelling at me."
"I'm on the phone," Maggie replied for the third time. "And if anyone is going to run away from home, it will be me."
"Mom, we're starving." Roxy complained from the bottom of the stairs.
"I'm on the phone," Maggie yelled back. "Can't anyone see I'm on the phone? Do you think this receiver is an earring?"
Dylan and Mary Bea looked at her in bewilderment, then Mary Bea started to cry. "You're yelling again," she accused.
Maggie opened the door to the hall closet and walked inside, shutting herself in among the coats, the umbrellas and the tennis rackets that hadn't been used in years. She sat down on the upturned end of a suitcase she'd meant to store in the basement, but like so many things in her life, it had gone undone.
"Mom, why are you in the closet?" Dylan asked.
"Are you playing hide-and-seek?" Mary Bea asked hopefully. "Can I play, too?"
"She doesn't want to play with you," Dylan said.
"Yes, she does."
"No, she doesn't."
"Go away," she yelled. "I'm on the phone."
"Maggie?" Lisa's voice came over the receiver like an answer to a prayer.
"Lisa. Thank God, you're there." Maggie took a deep breath. Eight years ago what she needed to say would have come easily. Now there were barriers between them, years when they hadn't seen much of each other, layers of grief and disillusionment that weighed heavily on their friendship, but Maggie had nowhere else to turn. "I need you." She closed her eyes, waiting for Lisa's response.
Lisa stared blindly at her desktop, not seeing the work spread out before her, hearing only the anguish in Maggie's voice. I need you. Three short words that demanded so much, coming from a woman who had always asked for so little. They had been best friends forever. Maggie Maddux Scott with her golden hair, her big booming laugh and wide generous smile had befriended Lisa on her first day at a new middle school. She didn't care that Lisa was different, that she was too shy, too skinny, too nervous, too everything..
Maggie's friendship had come like the sun after a long winter's storm. She'd introduced Lisa to the joy of laughter, to the secrets of best friends. With two older brothers, Maggie was dying for a sister, and Lisa fit the bill. They'd been inseparable for years, until... Lisa's gaze drifted to the opened box on the desk, to the bracelet that gleamed against the tissue paper.
"Did you hear me?" Maggie asked.
Lisa started. "Yes, of course. What's wrong? Is one of the kids -- "
"No. It's me." Maggie's voice sounded edgy. "I'm losing it, Lisa. The walls are closing in on me. I can't breathe."
"Are you in the closet again?" she demanded.
"Yes, I'm in the closet. It's the only place where I won't be interrupted, where I can have two minutes to myself. It's not the closet that's making me crazy. It's everything else. I can't do this anymore. I can't fight with Roxy every morning about her clothes. I can't drive Dylan all over town so he can play these damn sports, and I can't take Mary Bea into Wal-Mart ever again, because my five-year-old stole two peanut butter cups and a giant-sized Hershey bar and I didn't even notice until I got home and found chocolate smeared across her chin."
"Slow down," she said. "I don't think Wal-Mart will toss you into jail over a couple of candy bars."
"I'm supposed to be okay,