Crystal V. Lewis

Maggie's head ached. No, it didn't ache. It throbbed. Someone was inside it with heavy boxing gloves, and they punched and pushed against her temples, the back of her skull, and what was worse, they were in cahoots with someone in her stomach. That person scraped her insides out with a fork and it was likely they were doing so in an attempt to make her bleed out from the inside.

She felt awful. Still, she managed to roll onto her side and glance at the clock which she had to spend a great deal of time to focus her eyes to read.

Noon.

She squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed her palms against her head, and didn't bother to pay special attention to any one area because it all hurt. Her body felt as though she had been punched repeatedly, only the assailant had done so from the inside. The strangest sensation to her, though, was the quiet. It was quiet in the house for the first time, and that made her feel nervous.

Eventually her hands found her forehead where she found a piece of paper stuck to it. She peeled the note off her face and squinted her eyes to read it.

Magpie, went to town. Figured you were too hungover to be ready within the 10 minute time frame, so I left. - Aunt Dot.

Maggie made an effort to crumple the paper but failed, so she dropped it off the side of the bed and rolled her body back toward the wall. She drew the quilt above her head and buried herself deep in her misery for the rest of the time she was alone.

She heard the truck roll into the yard and the engine cut off. After her aunt got out of the truck and came into the house, Maggie could hear her downstairs rustling a few things in the kitchen. She immediately felt suspicious at her aunt's lack of interruption.

I have to find out what the deal is, she thought.

Maggie carefully lifted her head off the pillow and let the quilt fall off of her face on its own. She sat in bed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips, then she slid her feet off the side to dangle while she gathered her composure. She noticed now that on the night table, Dot had left a bottle of aspirin and a glass of water.

She felt relieved as she reached out to grab the aspirin and glass of water. Her weak hands struggled with the lip, but eventually she popped open the bottle and dumped a handful of pills into her palm, picked out a couple and dropped the rest back where they'd come from. She tossed them into her mouth and took several large gulps from the glass of water without taking a breath.

She miscalculated how high up from the floor she was, and her feet slapped the boards. She took a moment to steady herself before she walked into the hallway and carefully descended the stairs while she held on to the railing for dear life. Dot could hear her from where she sat at the kitchen table, and she waited for her niece to join her, which took longer than she expected. When Maggie appeared in the kitchen doorway, Dot acted as cool as she could.

"How're you feeling, girl?" she asked.

Maggie stood before her with her hair in a mess, wearing the same clothes as yesterday with a few extra wrinkles, and she grunted a response.

"Find my note, then?" Dot asked, keeping her eyes down.

Maggie walked toward the coffee pot and poured herself a cup. Normally she would take it with cream and lots of sugar, but today she felt different.

Today she had completed a milestone.

Today she was hungover.

"I feel like Alderaan," Maggie said quietly.

She sat across from her aunt who looked perplexed.

"Forget it," Maggie said. "I feel like shit. I feel like somebody exploded me. How's that?"

Dot smiled.

"Better."

Dot was scribbling notes on a legal pad but kept it lifted so Maggie couldn't read it.

"What's that?" Maggie asked, and she motioned toward the notepad with her coffee cup.

Dot slapped the legal pad against her chest and gave Maggie a serious look.

"Never you mind, little one," she warned.

Something clicked in Maggie's head and she guessed she had aspirin to thank for her ability to finally think and see clearly.

"Is that for my birthday?" She inquired.

Dot feigned panic.

"No," she said. "These are notes."

Maggie's eyebrows were raised as high as they would go on her forehead, and her mouth hung open slightly as she lifted the cup to her lips again. She blew air quietly to cool her drink as she kept her eyes glued on her aunt.

She loved a good game of chicken.

"Notes for what?" Maggie asked.

"My memoirs," Dot responded with heavy emphasis on the R.

Maggie let out a hearty guffaw. While she knew her aunt's life would make a great book, she certainly doubted she had the focus to write it down, to say nothing of having the ability to remember the chronology. She chose to let her aunt off the hook.

"Okay," she said. "I'll get the truth out of you eventually."

Dot did her best to keep her secret, and to remain calm at the excitement.

Maggie opted to take her coffee outside to the porch and enjoy the afternoon air. The breeze made her feel relaxed and it was therapeutic to hear the wind chimes hanging above, which was something that people in California didn't have.

While she sipped the coffee, she sat on the wicker bench that had overstuffed pillows on the seat to make it more inviting and she remembered the last time it rained. Maggie had watched Dot scurry around to collect them before they got soaked, something she gathered happened a lot out here. She chuckled at the memory, especially at the image of Dot running around in her granny panties because the rain had started in a sudden downpour while she was in the middle of changing for bed. Maggie never understood how Dot could think something was important enough to go running out in her underwear, unless of course the house were on fire. That she could understand.

Dot stepped onto the porch, her head tilted toward the sky, her eyes half closed, and she clasped the legal pad to her chest as she sat beside her niece. Her hips pressed against Maggie's as she scooted closer, despite the ample space to her left which wouldn't require them to touch at all.

Maggie tried to move more to the right to keep from touching her aunt, but it was a fruitless effort as there was no place else to go. She turned her head toward Dot and wrinkled her face in protest.

"Chocolate or vanilla?" Dot said.

Maggie looked down at her coffee, then back at her aunt. That wasn't enough time for her to process what Dot was asking.

"What?" She responded.

"Chocolate or vanilla?" Dot repeated. "Which do you prefer for cake?"

Maggie's face lightened up, and the wrinkles in her skin evened out as she registered what was going on. She remembered the cryptic behavior of her aunt from just moments ago, and a thought floated to the front of her mind.

"Are you throwing me a birthday party?" Maggie inquired.

Dot acted surprised at her niece's brilliant discovery.

"What makes you think that?" Dot asked.

Maggie wrinkled her nose and pursed her lips.

"You are, aren't you?"

Dot rustled some papers on the legal pad. She lifted a page, let it fall, then lifted another and pretended to read it as she nodded her head. She pointed to one line and laughed, then clamped the pad against her chest again in secrecy.

"Nope." Dot stated.

"I don't believe you," Maggie said as she rose to return to the house. "Who would you even invite? Book club women?"

Dot smiled.

"I hadn't thought of that," she said. "Of course that would only matter if I were throwing you a party, which I am most definitely not doing."

Maggie poured more coffee into her cup and left it on the counter while she rounded up breakfast. Or lunch.

Dot meandered through the doorway and leaned against the wall, but didn't make eye contact with Maggie and instead ran her fingertips along the various glassware lined up on the baker's rack. None of the cups matched, each wine glass looked similar to the next but only by chance. Dot purchased each item secondhand and individually.

Maggie ignored her aunt and continued fixing some leftovers on a plate. She took the chicken from the refrigerator and tore off a drumstick, then took a carrot from the drawer that still had dirt caked on it. She rinsed the vegetable in the sink and put it beside the chicken on her plate, then sat at the table, all the while she made real effort to avoid eye contact with her aunt.

Two can play this game, she thought.

As she munched her light brunch, which was what she decided it was since it was so late in the day, she heard her aunt make heavy sigh noises and clear her throat. Maggie did her best, but halfway through her meal, she couldn't stand the noise anymore. Her aunt had taken to humming some tune from an old movie she had made her sit through, and Maggie decided it was time for the charade to end.

"Okay, I'll bite," Maggie said finally. "What is it?"

Dot shrugged her shoulders and sighed.

"What ever do you mean?" She asked.

Maggie chewed her food quietly while she kept her eyes locked on her aunt's face. Dot tried her best to stifle the laughter as she glared back at her niece, but she never was good at remaining composed. It was the reason she had been replaced in her lead role in the high school play so many years ago. One line kept cracking her up and she never went out for a comedy play again.

"Okay, we might be hosting a tiny, miniscule, teensy-weensy party here," Dot sputtered. "It isn't just for your birthday, because it also happens to be in celebration of Tesla's birthday."

She knew Maggie would accept that answer at least in part, because she was a bit of a science geek at heart. Maggie looked at her plate and picked up the carrot. She took a quick bite and gave her aunt a moment of victory before bursting her bubble.

"I don't believe you," Maggie said.

She stood up from the table and put her empty plate in the sink, then turned to go back outside with her carrot. The breeze was coming on strong in a way that reminded them that the forecast had called for rain, so Maggie began removing the cushions from the porch to save her aunt some trouble. Dot noticed Maggie's foresight and stood in awe for a moment as she watched this young woman take the initiative to help out, not even having to be asked to do so.

"Thanks, kiddo," Dot said as she joined in picking up the pillows, grabbing the few blankets that had been left out the previous night.

The book club had adjourned to the porch before Joan's roommate came by to pick them up to take them all home. True, the book club was just a front for a bunch of old bags to get together and get drunk, but they were trying to do a good deed by helping Maggie. That came from a genuine place of concern, because they had seen too many kids get left behind, and they knew that Maggie was different.

"Yoo-hoo," Maggie interrupted her aunt's thought process.

Dot snapped her eyes upward at Maggie and realized she had been standing by the door holding a cushion in each hand and the blankets wrapped around her shoulders, but her stare was far off in another realm completely. Her mouth felt dry, which told her it had probably been hanging open like an idiot.

"Yeah," Dot said. "Let's just drop these in the parlor."

That isn't what I was asking about, Maggie thought.

She followed her aunt into the parlor and tossed the pillows and blankets onto the floor before taking in the scenery. Half a dozen empty wine bottles decorated the room, their abandoned corks flung here and there, and the wine glasses that had been embellished accidentally with varying shades of lipsticks were still partially full. Maggie's stomach protested at the sight and smell of the fluid that remained in the glasses as she walked around to pick up the debris. Dot followed her example and gathered the bottles, replacing the corks as she found them, and she walked them out to the porch to go into the recycling bin.

That was another example she followed of Maggie's. Dot had never been much of a recycling fanatic, but one thing Maggie was adamant about while she stayed there was that bottles and cans were returned, newspapers were sorted out from the garbage, and anything that could be reused was brought more than 30 miles away to be recycled.

Dot hadn't worried about climate change for her entire life and her generation always thought it was something that was years away from being a true problem, but according to Maggie, these problems were imminent and meant disaster.

"If Maggie says it's important, then it is," Dot had said to the people in town.

She hadn't told Maggie, but she had volunteered to take the recycling from Nelson's, the beauty shop, and the fabric store when she made her trip north to the plant. She figured if it got more people recycling, then she didn't mind fitting a few extra boxes or bags into her truck.

Dot realized she had been staring off into space again, and Maggie had returned to the house, so she sat on the wicker bench and continued to look out at the clouds that rolled in. As the breeze picked up, she wondered what was on the agenda for her niece this rainy evening. She was happy that Maggie was feeling better, and envied her ability to bounce back from a hangover that fast.

I was like that not ten years ago, Dot laughed to herself. 37 is rough business.

She patted her stomach and burped. The truth was she was feeling slightly hungover as well, but it would only come and go in waves, luckily. She had a system where she would pound water and nosh on crackers or chips before going to sleep, and she usually felt fine the next morning. She decided to bring Maggie some more water in case she felt a bit green still.

She filled a glass with tap water and brought it upstairs to her niece, who was sitting on the bed hugging a pillow and reading a science book.

"What are you reading?" Dot asked as she put the glass of water on the nightstand.

Maggie held up a finger to tell her aunt to wait a moment, and turned the page to finish the sentence. She slowly closed the book, placed the book on her lap, and folded her arms over it before lifting her head to look at her aunt.

"I am reading a fascinating book about how all people are selfish," Maggie said with her nose in the air.

"Sounds pompous," Dot said.

Maggie laughed and gestured toward the glass that Dot was still holding.

"Is that for me?" She asked.

Dot held the glass out straight for her niece to take, and then she sat on the end of her bed and looked around.

"You haven't done much with this room, have you?" She asked Maggie.

Maggie was busy gulping water to answer.

Dot looked at the old curtains, the mismatched wallpaper, and the fact that no pictures were tacked up on them. Maggie gasped after she finished her water and she wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

"Why would I?" Maggie asked out of breath. "It isn't really my room, is it?"

Dot shrugged and kept her gaze toward the far wall of the room to avoid eye contact.

"It's yours for as long as you want it to be," Dot said before struggling to stand. "Damn, I need to drink less."

The pair chuckled at the thought of the previous night's events, and as Dot took one last look around her niece's room, she tried to think if she had any photographs or clippings that might interest Maggie.

"I'm going to grab some photo albums from downstairs," Dot said as she retreated from the room. "Back in a jiffy."

Maggie was back to reading her book and scarcely noticed her aunt's departure until Dot made her grand reentrance with a stack of albums and tossed them across the room. They landed on the bed with a thud, causing the spring mattress to shake and creak as dust flew up from between the album covers.

"There's something in here I think you might like," Dot said as she flipped hastily through the pages.

Maggie lowered her book to watch her aunt sifting through news clippings and old Polaroids, and when Dot finally found the one she was looking for, she let out an excited noise.

"Yip!" Dot said as she handed the piece of paper to Maggie.

The paper was yellowed slightly, and it was no bigger than a postcard, but it had something that made Maggie's heart leap.

"Oh wow," was all Maggie could say.

Dot waited a moment before explaining why she had this clipping from the newspaper.

"That is a good picture of Joshua, eh?" She asked. Maggie didn't answer so Dot continued. "That was when he first moved here and the local paper wanted to do a piece about how this university professor was coming to stay in our little town."

Maggie heard Dot, but she couldn't stop staring at this photo.

"That was probably about, oh I don't know," Dot scrunched her face as though she had eaten a lemon. This was the face she had when she was trying desperately to remember a long-forgotten fact or anecdote.

"Fifteen years ago?" Dot didn't sound certain, but she knew it must have been around that time. "Give or take of course. I was there when they took that."

Maggie was still silent, looking at the photograph Dot had given her. She saw Joshua, probably around 25 years old, standing on the edge of the porch at Nelson's with his back to the street with the fabric store and beauty parlor barely visible. She noted how the photographer had captured Joshua's warmth and generosity that radiated from his wide smile and kind eyes. The photographer also didn't care much about getting a close up of the subject, because nearly Joshua's entire body was in the picture which left more than enough space on either side of him to put an entire ensemble cast from a musical. His denim jacket hung loosely on his broad shoulders as he held the same book Maggie was reading at that exact moment.

That would have been a surprise to her, except that the photograph had something bigger to reveal to her.

In the background Maggie could see the back of her aunt's head as she was stringing along a girl of about seven or eight years old. The girl had wild hair like Dot, and she peered over her shoulder toward Joshua. The face was so familiar that Maggie couldn't believe her eyes.

"Aunt Dot," Maggie said with a croak. "What am I doing in this picture?"