The Day We Met by Barbara Bretton

Author:Barbara Bretton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Free Spirit Press

Her mother was awake and sitting at the kitchen table when Maggy let herself in the back door. The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee and the faintest hint of cigarette smoke. Under normal circumstances, Maggy would have said something about the cigarette smoke, but she was feeling a bit like a guilty teenager herself and decided to limit her criticism to a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t say it,” her mother said, raising her right hand in the air. “I forgot your ban on cigarettes.” She pointed toward the open window over the sink. “See? Give it five minutes and you’ll never know I sinned.”

Rita was a tall and beautiful sixty-year-old woman with artfully dyed red hair, enormous blue eyes, and more energy than her three daughters combined. She’d been a redhead almost as long as Maggy could remember and had adopted many of the stereotypical redhead traits as her own. Her early life as a demure blonde sounded more like urban legend to Maggy than fact. The Rita she knew was a fighter, a woman with the courage to survive widowhood and a disastrous remarriage and keep her family together. A stroke last year had set Rita back, but after lengthy rehabilitation and much hard work on her part and Maggy’s, only a slight hesitation over certain words remained to remind them of that terrifying experience.

“So where were you?” Rita asked as Maggy slipped off her coat and draped it over the back of a chair. “I heard the car around five-thirty.”

Maggy placed a bag of donuts on the table. “Would you believe me if I told you I had some errands to run?”

Rita stirred some sugar into her coffee and looked at her daughter. “Would you want me to?”

Maggy sat down and poured herself a half cup of coffee. “I would if it meant you wouldn’t ask me any questions about where I was.”

Rita placed a gentle hand on Maggy’s forearm. “Honey, if you’re in any kind of trouble...”

The one thing she couldn’t do was let her mother worry needlessly. She took a bracing sip of coffee—which probably sent her caffeine level over the top—then blurted, “I met someone, Ma. His name is Conor, and I think it’s serious.”

Rita was quiet for a long time. Maggy was fairly sure she knew what her mother was thinking and why.

“Out of my three girls,” Rita said at last, “you’re the one I worry most about.”

“Me?” Maggy was amazed. “I’m the one who never got into any trouble, remember?” She was the sister who obeyed curfew, kept her room clean, produced grandchildren. Ellie was the hard-headed, ambitious one; Claire, the self-destructive wild child.

“You’re the one who had the biggest dreams,” her mother said.

Maggy laughed. “I think you’re confusing me with my overachieving baby sisters, Ma. I’m the housewife. They’re the ones with dreams of the Supreme Court and the cover of Vogue. All I ever wanted was a good marriage and a happy family.”

“Exactly,” said her mother. “The Supreme Court can’t break your heart the way a bad marriage can.

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