Maine - J. Courtney Sullivan [83]
The farmhouse in California was even messier than the home Maggie had grown up in, with fruit flies buzzing all around the kitchen, landing in your tea or your breakfast cereal. Kathleen never changed the sheets in the guest room. Maggie might go there and not return for nine months, but the sheets would stay put. She didn’t enjoy visiting, especially with Gabe, who had never hidden his feelings about the place. And she wondered about Arlo—had he too lived in his own filth for years, so that the situation seemed completely normal?
Maggie dialed her shrink’s number at ten o’clock, the exact time she knew Dr. Rosen got to the office. She was always saying that Maggie should feel free to call and talk between sessions if she needed to, but Maggie had never thought of taking her up on the offer until now. It seemed like an option for suicide cases and manic-depressives, not women like her, suffering from a mix of romantic turmoil and white-girl blues.
Now she said, “Hi, it’s Maggie Doyle. Do you have a minute?”
She told Dr. Rosen about Gabe, their fight. She did not mention the baby.
“We were supposed to be heading to Maine today, and I’m feeling sort of adrift.”
“Have you thought of going by yourself?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “I took the days off from work, and I really need to focus on writing my book. And maybe it would be good for me. But then I think about the spotty cell phone service and having no one around but my grandmother.”
The cottage was an isolated place, which could be cozy or smothering, depending. She had experienced it both ways over the years. She wished her mother could come along. It struck her then, as it often did, that Kathleen was no longer in Boston. She had moved across the country, and though Maggie still saw her almost as often as she had when they were both on the East Coast, there was something sad and lonely about this. She couldn’t just run home to her mom, a three-hour train ride away, even if she wanted to.
“It might feel really good to go alone,” Rosen went on. “Empowering! Time to work on your book, a change of scenery.”
“We were going to take Gabe’s car, and I don’t know how to drive, so—”
“Take a bus, gosh,” Rosen said. “At least think about it. Time off from Gabe seems advisable.”
Maggie’s heart sank. She tried to think of some way of mentioning the other part, without actually saying the words.
“You can always call me again if you need to,” Dr. Rosen said, apparently her way of ending the call. The woman who had taught Maggie about boundaries had a hyperawareness of them herself: she knew all about Maggie, while Maggie couldn’t ask her a simple personal question. “Where are you going on vacation?” was met with an uncomfortable smile and a reassuring, “Don’t worry, we’ll pick right up again the week after next,” as if Maggie had intended to trail her to the Berkshires and have a breakdown, when she had only been making conversation.
Maggie resented her for a split second, then resented herself for being completely incapable of having a fully functional and honest relationship with anyone, including a paid mental health professional.
“Thanks for everything,” she said politely.
They hung up. She glanced over at her suitcase, still packed. Maybe she should go alone. It might be good for her. If only Alice weren’t such a wild card, her behavior fluctuating from amiable to nightmarish in a flash.
Maggie had an embarrassing desire for Alice’s affection, which made her act strangely around her. She actually drank more in Alice’s presence in an attempt to win her grandmother’s approval. Dr. Rosen had had a field day with that one. Still, her real allegiance was always to Kathleen, and when she thought of what Alice had put her mother through, she almost wanted to break all ties with her grandmother.
It wasn’t just Kathleen—they had