Fragile by Lisa Unger Page B

meeting place.
    Maggie had never thought in a million years that she’d end up back in The Hollows. But she had. She didn’t regret leaving the city behind and starting a practice here, in the town where she grew up. But sometimes, in a low moment, she wondered what would have happened if her father hadn’t died, leaving her mother alone. Would she ever have come back here?
    She picked up the phone and dialed her mother. It wasn’t until the fourth ring that Elizabeth picked up. Maggie had noticed over the last couple of weeks that it was taking her mother longer and longer to get to the phone.
    “Hey, Mom,” she said. She tried to sound upbeat even though she knew it was pointless. Elizabeth always knew what Maggie was feeling, no matter how she tried to hide it.
    “Hello, Magpie.”
    “How are your attic guests?”
    “Quiet, too quiet,” said her mother, mock-ominous. “And possibly raccoons.”
    “Did someone come out?”
    “Yes, a young fellow. Laid out a few traps, said he’d come back tomorrow.”
    Maggie nodded but didn’t say anything, half forgetting she was on the phone.
    “What’s wrong?” asked her mother.
    “Probably nothing.” She told her mother about Marshall Crosby lingering across the street, running off when she called his name.
    “That boy was always trouble.”
    “You don’t even know him.” She knew her mother wasn’t talking about Marshall.
    “I meant Travis.”
    “Marshall is not Travis.”
    “Not yet.”
    Maggie felt the familiar rise of annoyance and defensiveness at her mother’s superior, knowing tone. It bordered on imperious. Elizabeth Monroe thought that her seventy-five years of life, twenty-five of which she’d spent as the principal of Hollows High, had taught her everything she needed to know about human nature. Why had Maggie even bothered saying anything?
    “Did you call your husband?” Elizabeth asked when Maggie didn’t respond.
    “Can’t reach him.”
    Now it was Elizabeth’s turn to keep her mouth shut. Between mothers and daughters, it seemed to Maggie, there was so much more meaning in silence than in any words spoken.
    “And Ricky?” Elizabeth said finally. Can’t reach him, either , Maggie thought but didn’t say, for different reasons altogether .
    “He’s upstairs studying,” she said.
    “Well.” A pause, a sigh. “Lock the door. If he comes back, call 911.”
    Elizabeth was always unemotional, pragmatic. Maggie had long ago stopped looking for tea and sympathy from her mother, had actually come to accept and even appreciate Elizabeth for exactly who she was—most of the time. Not easy work, not even for a shrink.
    “I will.” Maggie walked back over to the door, peered out. Just the quiet street, the glowing orange of porch lights, the sway of trees. “Good night.”
    “Maggie.” Her mother’s voice carried small and tinny over the air as Maggie took the phone from her ear.
    “Yeah, Mom?”
    “Call if you need me.”
    She felt a smile lift the corners of her mouth. Her mother was five foot two, a hundred pounds soaking wet.
    “Would you come over and defend me with your cane?” Maggie said.
    Elizabeth gave a throaty chuckle at that. “If I had to.”
    “Thanks, Mom. Good night.”
    “Good night, dear.” Was there something wistful in her voice? Or maybe Maggie was just imagining things … her husband sounded strained and tense, her son angry, her mother lonely. Was she just projecting? When everyone close seemed to be suffering, maybe it was time to look in the mirror.
    Just as she hung up the phone, Maggie heard Jones pull into the drive in his big government-issue SUV. It was a gas-guzzling maroon monstrosity, with big silver stars emblazoned on the doors. HOLLOWS POLICE DEPARTMENT . A rack of lights sat on top. At the door she watched her husband turn off the ignition and then just sit there a moment, looking straight ahead. In the light from the garage, she could just see his arm and the shadow of his head. She saw