Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Praise for Abbi Waxman and her novels
- Berkley Titles by Abbi Waxman
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Summer
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- Fall
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- EPILOGUE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Readers Guide
- Questions for Discussion
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
“His wife was furious and devastated and so was I, as if it was happening to me. I couldn’t believe a child of mine could do something so selfish, so careless. I thought I’d raised her better.” Maggie’s voice was bitter. “I thought, in fact, it was all about me. My husband had left me, too, though not for another woman, and Sarah had been angry about it. Angry with him for leaving, angry with me for not caring more. We bickered pretty much the whole last half of her teens. When the scandal broke, and it really did, with neighbors taking sides and not talking to me . . .” She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t handle it well.”
Ruining your reputation at the tennis club . . . Laura knew what that argument had really been about.
“I tried to get her to end it with the guy, so he could maybe go back to his wife, but she pointed out not all marriages are worth saving, like mine and her father’s.” Maggie’s face was drawn. “We said terrible things to each other and then we said nothing, for over a year.” She turned up her hands. “Now it’s several years later, she and Jeff are married, they’re having a child, and you saw how we were . . . it’s still not good.”
“But she talks to Asher?”
Maggie nodded. “Sometimes. They fight, too, like you saw, but it blows over. I let her down and she won’t forgive me. I’m not sure I’ll forgive myself.” Her wineglass was empty, and Laura got up to get the bottle from where it stood on the counter.
“You know Carl Jung?” asked Maggie unexpectedly.
Laura smiled. “Not personally.”
Maggie smiled back and shook her head. “Well, Jung talked about how the heaviest burden a child can carry is the unlived lives of its parents.” She shrugged. “I’m paraphrasing.”
Laura raised her eyebrows and thought about that. “Deep stuff,” she said.
Maggie nodded. “Yes. He wrote it in the 1920s and I didn’t hear it until a few years ago, not quite sure how I missed it. I have a psychology degree, for crying out loud. But maybe it’s like when you’re pregnant and you see pregnant women everywhere? Maybe I read it a hundred times and it never clicked with me. Then, when I wasn’t talking to my daughter, it rang inside my head seemingly all the time.”
“Why?” asked Laura.