“It’d be easier if you did,” she responds. She’s probably right, but hating Maggie is the last thing I want.
“Will you need my help moving out of your mom’s?”
“Nah, I don’t have a lot that I need to bring with me. The big stuff can stay at Mom’s,” she responds.
“I’ll get Blue to help me get you moved, Maggie.”
“Why are you agreeing to this? After everything that has gone on between us, Bryant, I just don’t understand—”
“How about we leave the past in the past and concentrate on the here and now. You’re pregnant with my child. Let’s concentrate on what we need to do to make sure you stay healthy and happy while delivering our little bundle of joy? No beating yourself up, no fighting about things we can’t change. How about, for now, we just take things day by day?” I suggest.
“You can do that?” she asks.
“I can,” I tell her, while mentally my answer is really different. I don’t have a choice.
“I still say staying in the same bed will confuse everything, Bryant.”
“Ask me if I care, baby.”
She lets out a large breath.
“I guess I’m already pregnant. It’s not like we can make the same mistake twice,” she mumbles.
I want to tell her that the two of us being together is never a mistake. Instead, I slide my hand along the side of her neck and force her to look up at me.
“Maybe it’s a mistake worth repeating, Maggie,” I all but growl and take her mouth, kissing her with all the pent-up frustration that I feel. She moans into my mouth, and I deepen the kiss.
Most people would call me a fool when it comes to Maggie Lucas. The truth is, I don’t give a fuck. I loved her before I realized what love was all about and I can’t find it in me to paint her as the bad guy. Life tore Maggie and I apart. It developed this irrational fear and pain inside of her. I understand it and curse it all at the same time. Yet, through it all…
I love her.
Maggie
Panic Fueled Desperation
Four Years Later
Being home at my mother’s is always a mixture of emotions. I love my family. I truly do. I love this old farmhouse. It’s home. No matter what happens, I’m always welcomed here by my mother and Jansen. Jansen is my stepdad—Dad really—even if Mom would die if I referred to him like that. She has this thing where she feels like life likes to kick her in the lady balls. She doesn’t want to rock the boat. For some reason she thinks being happily married to a man she loves more than life itself would alert the powers that be it was time to release bad juju again. My brothers and sisters think she’s crazy. Me? I understand her.
I understand her so much it freaking hurts.
“Is Grayson still being moony-eyed over that woman?” Black asks, coming out onto the porch of the farmhouse.
I’m in the rocking chair, enjoying the fresh Texas air, and waiting until it’s time to pick Terry up at my friend Lou Ann’s. Her little boy and Terry love spending time with each other and they’re having a playdate. I spent the day catching up on work while Bryant was visiting his parents. He hates dealing with them but forces himself to go once a month, mostly to see his Nana. I never go. They didn’t like me when Bryant and I were married. They thought I got pregnant to trap their son into marriage. They blamed me for Brylee’s death, and I could be upset about that, but I blame myself, too. They nearly lost their minds when I moved in with Bryant four years ago and made Bryant an appointment for a vasectomy when they found out about my pregnancy. They’re definitely my biggest fans ever. For sure.
I shake off thoughts of Bryant’s parents. I can’t change things and there’s no point to wishing I could. If wishes came true, I’d have my little girl still here with me. I wouldn’t have turned into my mother, afraid to accept one of Bryant’s marriage proposals. The thing is, once life kicks you and beats you down, you don’t want to tempt fate. See? I understand my mother perfectly. I turn to look at Black and shrug.
“Seems so. I don’t get it. I haven’t seen a flitter worth that,” I mutter without thinking.
“Magnolia Marie! You did not just say that!” Mama yells.
I wince. Shit. I know she’s pissed when she pulls out the full name. Actually, I’m just lucky she calls me Marie. She originally named me Magnolia Tree. The hospital nurse either heard Mom wrong while she was reading the paperwork or took pity on me and sent the papers off so that my birth certificate said Magnolia Marie. I’m grateful. My mother was livid. She has just recently began acknowledging it, so maybe it’s grown on her. I’m not sure.
“Sorry, Mama. Terry has taken to using the word, and it just slipped out,” I explain.
I’m not lying either. Bryant made the mistake of laughing about these pancakes I forgot to use self-rising flour in. He said they were flatter than a flitter—which is apparently a saying in Tennessee, where Bryant is originally from. I also burned them and what were supposed to be fragrant, sweet, banana pancakes had a flat appearance and stunk. Bryant took great joy in pointing that out, too. I got pissed at him. Which, to be honest, I do quite often. That seems to be a running theme in our relationship, but it works for us. I huffed in response and told Bryant that I wouldn’t cook for him any longer. Then Bryant, being Bryant, and knowing exactly how to get me to stop being a bitch, while making me laugh, took me in his arms and spun me around.
“That’s okay, Maggie May, it’s you I love not your flat, smelly, flitter pancakes.”
Our son—who might be three but acts like he’s seven—heard him. Not many people understand that slang. Unfortunately for me, most around here do, and that’s led to some really embarrassing situations.
You haven’t lived until your three-year-old cries out, “You’re a fat flitter!” Especially when he does it at an Easter Sunday service while Pastor Newburn’s wife, Maude, is ruffling his hair. Bryant thought it was hilarious. I was mortified. My mother laughed her ass off. She told me that I should just be glad he mispronounced the word flat and didn’t tell Maude her flitter was smelly.
My mother is really good at looking at the bright side.
“You ruined that boy naming him Terry. You should have kept the family tradition,” she chastises for like the millionth time. I roll my eyes and ignore my moron brothers laughing in the background.
“You mean naming him after where he was created? No, thank you. I don’t need a son named Subaru,” I mutter. My mother decided it would be fun to name all of her sons after the colors in a box of crayons and her daughters after flowers and link those back to things she noticed when each of us was conceived. My mother can be… special. I’m just happy that I was apparently created under a Magnolia tree. It could have been much worse. Don’t believe me? My youngest brother’s name is Cyan Bird Lucas. Cyan has gotten in numerous fights over that name, but just with the family. None of us would breathe the name around others when we were in school. He asked Mom once why she would name him that and she told him it was because, one night while she was nude moon bathing, a small swallow the color of Cyan flew down on her boob. He didn’t ask anything else after that. I think he was afraid to—I know I would have been.