Nine Lives Read online

  She was lucky. As soon as she met Tommy at the bus stop, he told her that he’d been invited to a friend’s house the next day to hang out, stay for a barbecue, and then spend the night. He had made friends more easily than she had. But he was only twelve, and boys were less complicated than girls her age. Most of the girls had boyfriends, or they moved in a pack. She didn’t have a pack mentality, didn’t want to show off, and she didn’t know how to play the games that attracted boys her age. Paul liked that about her. She seemed like a nice person, and she was easy to talk to. She was pretty too, in a totally natural way. She had shining dark hair, green eyes, and didn’t wear makeup. She was tall and thin and had a good body. He had the feeling that she didn’t know she was beautiful.

  After she dropped Tommy off at his friend’s the next day, she took the bus to where the track was. It was a bitter cold day. She had to walk the last few blocks and her face and hands were frozen when she arrived. There was a small crowd of mostly men sitting in bleachers, watching the track. She got there just in time to see Paul race. He came in third out of a dozen boys and men older than he was. They were riding mostly rebuilt motorcycles. The bike slid after he crossed the finish line, and he had a nasty gash on one arm and had grazed the side of his face. He was bleeding when she got to him, and she helped him clean the arm. He didn’t seem to care that he was hurt. He was glowing with the excitement of having come in third. All the others in the race pounded him on the back and one of them handed him a beer. He didn’t even feel the graze on his face in the emotion of the moment. He offered her a ride on the back of his motorbike to where he lived, which he said wasn’t far away.

  When they got there, she was shocked to see the seedy part of town he lived in, and the ramshackle house where he left his friend’s motorbike in the garage. Then they walked back to his house, which was barely more than a cottage. It smelled of sour cooking and looked gray and dingy when they walked inside. He watched her face for her reaction, but she didn’t seem to care. She was more interested in him than where he lived. She was the only girl he’d ever brought there.

  “How does your face feel?” she asked him.

  “Great!” He looked a mess and had dirt all over his jacket and had torn a sleeve when he cut his arm. “It’s the best time I’ve had yet.”

  “Are you serious about racing motorcycles when you finish school?” He nodded enthusiastically and had a light in his eyes that reminded her of how her father looked when he talked about flying planes.

  “I am. I want to be the best at something when I’m older. Some kind of racing. I love motorcycles.” She could see that he did. He poured her a soda from the nearly empty fridge, and they sat down on a sagging, beat-up couch and talked for a while, and then she said she had to go. She had a long ride home, and she wanted to be there when her mother came in from work. She didn’t like to have to tell her where she’d been. “Do you want to go to the movies tomorrow?” he asked her, and she nodded with a slow, shy smile.

  “Yes, I’d love to.”

  He walked her to the bus stop, and she thought about him all the way home, and that night. She didn’t say anything to her mother. She met Paul at a movie complex downtown the next day. She was surprised to see that he was driving the motorcycle, and she rode on it with him after the movie, then let him take her to within a few blocks of her house. Her mother would have killed her if she had seen it. Motorcycles or anything high risk were strictly forbidden. Emma was afraid that she or Tommy would turn out to be like their father. She didn’t even want Tommy to play sports, and all he wanted to do was play football when he got to high school in two years. He had the build for it, and his father’s strength and agility.

  Maggie liked being on the back of Paul’s bike. It was exciting. She told him her mother would have a fit if she knew.

  “She wants us to be safe, and not do anything dangerous. Ever since my dad died, she’s been crazy on the subject.”

  “She’s not going to like me then, is she?”

  “Just don’t bring the bike if you ever come to visit.”

  She didn’t tell her mother about him until after Christmas, and then she mentioned him casually and said he was just a friend from school. She invited him to dinner and he came in jeans and an old leather jacket and sneakers. He was a good-looking boy, with his blond hair and blue eyes, and very polite, but Emma watched him with suspicion. There was a kind of self-confidence about him that was all too familiar to her, and that she never wanted to see again, certainly not around her children. He had a maturity which frightened her, and a self-assurance that came from the hard life he’d had. The apartment where Maggie lived was much nicer than the shabby cottage where he lived with windows that didn’t close properly and the wind whistling through it.

  “I’m going to have money someday,” he told Maggie one day as they walked around the lake.

  She smiled at what he said. “How are you going to do that? Rob a bank?”

  “I don’t know. But I know I will. And I’ll buy my mom a decent house,” he said, his eyes full of dreams, and the way he said it touched her.

  “I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up,” she said. “My mom says all that matters is having a stable life and being safe. She says it all the time.” Maggie was sick of hearing it.

  “I don’t care about that,” Paul said. “I want to do something exciting. Climb mountains, race motorcycles, parachuting.” His eyes were ablaze, as though he could see himself doing it.

  “Roller coasters scare me. I’d rather die than jump out of a plane or go skydiving,” Maggie said, making a face.

  “I’d give anything to do that,” he said.

  Their romance lasted until spring. He had been Maggie’s first serious crush, until her mother put her foot down. He said something once when he came to visit, about racing motorcycles after he graduated, and Emma came to her daughter’s room afterwards with a doomsday expression.

  “You’re playing with fire,” her mother said with steel in her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re doing. He loves danger, Maggie. He’s a wild one. It’s written all over him. Danger is like a drug for guys like him. He’s like your father. And all that will ever do for you is break your heart. Sooner or later they die, and you’re a widow. I want you to stop seeing him.” It sounded like a death knell to Maggie. He was her only friend.

  “I’m not marrying him, Mom. We’re kids.”

  “He’s not a kid. He’s a young man, and he’s dangerous. You could die with him if you’re foolish enough to get on the back of his motorcycle. I’m not going through that again. We lost your dad. I’m not going to lose you or Tommy. Paul is a death wish waiting to happen. His eyes light up whenever he talks about racing.”

  “He’s a boy. He’ll outgrow it.” Maggie was fighting for her right to see him. She didn’t want to give him up.

  “Boys like that stay boys forever. They don’t outgrow it. They care more about risking their lives than he ever will about you. The last time he was here he said he wanted to climb Everest one day. Maggie, stay away from him.” Emma had tears in her eyes when she said it. Tommy overheard her from the next room and asked Maggie about it afterwards.

  “Are you going to break up with him?”

  “None of your business,” she said, and from then on, Maggie stopped talking about him. They met in secret. She almost slept with him several times, but she was afraid to get pregnant, and she didn’t feel ready. He tried to convince her otherwise, but she managed to hang on to her virginity until graduation. She had a lot to think about. She’d gotten into all the colleges she applied to, and had decided to go to Ohio State. Paul was taking a semester off before he thought about college. He was heading for Southern California to race, and see his father if he came into port while he was there. But his main goal was racing. He was leaving two weeks after graduation, while Maggie had another summer job at
the hotel, until she left for Ohio in August.

  Paul wanted to stay in California once he got there. He was going to go to city college somewhere eventually, wherever he was living. It was inevitable that their paths would go in different directions now. They knew it would happen. She was in love with him, but more than that, he had become her best friend. She could tell him anything. He knew everything about her, her hopes and fears, and how much she missed her father. It was like a tidal wave that washed over her sometimes. She didn’t know how her mother could love Harry after someone like her father. But Emma was so frightened now, terrified of everything. Harry was exhausted when he came home at night, and she didn’t want to go out anyway. It was hard to believe she was only forty. She seemed more like eighty to Maggie. She and Harry both did. All they ever did was watch TV and drink beer at night. They weren’t drunks, but she could tell her mother was depressed and had been for years. Maggie wasn’t even sure her mother loved Harry. He was the dullest man who had ever lived. But he was safe, which was all she wanted.

  “When am I going to see you again?” Maggie asked Paul as the days slipped away. He was leaving soon. She was glad that she hadn’t slept with him. She could see now that he couldn’t be tamed. He would probably be a wild card all his life. Her mother might be right about that.

  “I don’t know, Mag,” he said sadly. “I’m going to miss you.” She believed he would, but not enough to stick around or come back. He was hungry for the world now, and all the risks he could take and wonders he would discover. None of that appealed to Maggie. She didn’t have the thirst for risk that he did.

  “Be careful,” she said, and she almost let him talk her into having sex with him that night, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to lose her virginity to a boy she might never see again. She was more sensible than that.

  Their last night together was bittersweet for both of them. She had told her mother she was staying with a friend, but they’d stayed at a motel, and each paid half of it. When the sun came up, Paul took off on his borrowed motorcycle. He turned to smile at her, with the sun shining golden on his fair hair, then he waved and disappeared around a corner. She walked home, feeling her heart ache, wondering where he would go now, what challenges he would conquer, what mountains he would climb.

  He bought a motorcycle that day with money he had saved, and left for California. He’d called her the day before he took off, but he didn’t come by to see her again. They both knew that their paths weren’t likely to cross again. She knew she would never forget him. He would always be the first boy she’d ever loved.

  Chapter 2

  Ohio State was good for Maggie. The time she had spent with Paul during her senior year in high school had given her self-confidence and faith in herself. He had told her how smart she was, and how different from all the other girls. He made her feel special. At Ohio State, she majored in art history, and took classes in art and design. She took some business classes too. She thought they could be useful someday. Maggie was a beautiful, dark-haired girl with a good figure. She was a fine athlete, and loved going to football games with the boys she dated. One boy she went out with in her sophomore year wanted to join the Navy and become a SEAL. Her mother objected strenuously when Maggie told her about him. She swore he would be another danger addict who would break her heart, but Maggie lost her virginity to him anyway. Eventually they got tired of each other. She hadn’t heard from Paul for a year by then. She’d had a couple of postcards from him at first. He had won a string of races in Southern California, and then headed to Mexico to race there. After that, he wrote and said he was thinking of going to City College in San Diego, but hadn’t decided yet. The lure of all the things he wanted to do was greater than school. He wrote again that he was going mountain climbing in Argentina, and after that she got a postcard from him that said he was trekking in Nepal. He had told her he was taking any small jobs he could find, saving his money, and then taking off again as soon as he had enough to pay for the next step of his travels. He obviously hadn’t gone to San Diego. She wondered if he’d ever settle down. She couldn’t see it happening. The world was too big and too full of things that excited him. He had an unquenchable thirst for adventure, and she didn’t. Not out of terror like her mother, but she just didn’t want to roam all over the world looking for mountains to climb and challenges to conquer.

  When she graduated, she went back to Chicago. Tommy was a senior then and, after graduation, nearly broke his mother’s heart when he turned eighteen and joined the Navy. He said he could get a better education there. He wanted to be an aeronautics engineer eventually, and a Navy pilot. He did his officer training course the summer after graduation and owed the Navy three to five years after college. He did specialized training, flying fighter planes, and whenever Maggie saw him, he told her he was happy. He looked just like their father and loved flying just as much. His plan was to work for a company like Boeing when he mustered out after graduate school, and he would easily get a great job. His career path seemed like the right one for him.

  Maggie had a good job then too, working in the finance office of a TV network. She made a respectable salary and had a small apartment in Chicago. Her mother and Harry had finally moved to the suburbs. Harry was sixty-one and planning to retire in four years, to play golf, watch TV, and drink beer with his wife, which was enough for both of them.

  Maggie had discovered that she had a knack for finance, and had put her dreams of art and design aside. She wanted a solid job she could count on, and not have to take a risk by trying to develop a talent that might never pan out. She had learned from her mother the value of a sure thing, and how important being safe was. She set her sights higher than her mother had, but Emma had convinced her that safety was vital for a happy life.

  When Tommy was twenty-three, flying for the Navy, they sent him to Iraq, which drove his mother into a constant state of anxiety. She quit her job at the hotel and sat glued to the TV every day, watching CNN, terrified of what she would see there. He had been in Iraq for four months, when her worst nightmare happened. His plane was shot down and exploded during the bombing of a convoy. There was no body to send home, and Emma looked like a zombie at the funeral. She never recovered. She clung to Harry as though she were drowning. He and Maggie got her up and down the aisle behind an empty casket, draped with a flag they folded and handed to her, just as they had the one on Kevin’s casket nineteen years before.

  Maggie was so worried about her mother that she quit her job, and spent three months taking care of her, but Emma was never the same after that. She looked dazed and distracted, and was frightened of everything. She cried when Harry left for work, and she rarely left the house. Her hands shook violently, and six months later, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and dementia, but Maggie knew her mother was dying of a broken heart. Losing her son had killed her. She had lost two men to their love of flying planes, and their love of their country. And Maggie had lost a father and a brother. She was twenty-eight when Tommy died, and she felt different too. She understood better now what her mother had been trying to teach her, the importance of a stable, safe life. She never wanted to go through this again. She had nightmares every night, dreaming either of her father or her brother crashing in their planes.

  She finally started looking for another job, when Harry hired a woman to take care of Emma in the daytime. She thought of looking for a job in a museum or an art gallery, but instead wound up working as a receptionist for an accounting firm. It wasn’t an exciting job, but it was the best offer she had at the time, with a good company that had a fine reputation. The pay was fair and they let her do some minor bookkeeping. She told herself she’d find a better job later. She didn’t intend to stay there forever, just for a while to get back in the workforce. It was a gentle way to start again after the trauma she’d been through. She liked the people when she interviewed. They all seemed straightforward and friendly and had
integrity. It was privately owned by an older man, and run by his son, Brad Mackenzie, who was thirty-three years old and would inherit the business one day. They were considerate and kind. They knew she’d lost her brother and had been nursing her mother, and were compassionate about it.

  Two months after she started working there, Brad asked Maggie out, and she hesitated. She didn’t think it was a good idea to date the boss’s son. If it turned out badly she could get fired or have to quit. It seemed too risky, but he was so nice to her and so insistent that she finally succumbed, and they started dating. Even in her diminished state, her mother said Brad was perfect. The Mackenzies were a solid family and Brad was their only son. He had gone to Northwestern, played football in college, loved baseball, went to Stanford Business School for an MBA, then came home to run the family business and enjoyed it. He and his father got along well, and Brad told her repeatedly how much he had learned from his father. He was an all-around wholesome, decent guy.

  A year after they started dating, he proposed, and they got engaged. She couldn’t think of a single reason not to. He was the kind of man every parent wanted for their daughter. He wasn’t exciting, but he was someone you could count on. And in a quiet, gentle way, she loved him. It wasn’t a wild, passionate love, but she could see growing old with him. Their life wasn’t thrilling, but it was predictable and solid, and having lost a father and a brother, with a mother slipping away quietly, he was a rock she could hang on to, which was important to her. She had no family left, except a mother with dementia.

  She was twenty-nine when they married. They bought a home in Lake Forest, and she got pregnant almost immediately. Their son, Aden, was born when Maggie was thirty and Brad thirty-five, and they were the perfect suburban American family, the poster children for a happy life. Maggie’s mother died shortly after Aden was born, which wasn’t unexpected, and was a release from the grief that had drowned her. Maggie was glad she had at least seen the baby, although she thought he was Tommy, and didn’t really understand by then. There was nothing left of the woman she had been before Kevin died, when Maggie was a child. The hard blows and the losses in her life had destroyed her.