The day the crows came changed everything.
The revelations of events scattered across the timeline of her life. Out of order as they were, they returned nevertheless, like breadcrumbs in her mind. It was the same night the blue lights flashed in his eyes.
It felt like her daddy’s belt across her backside. Something ripped her away in a jolt of consternation. She snapped to attention with a straightening of her spine. The tiny gap that had split her lips apart pinched together as she turned her gaze face-down.
The deputy shifted his weight. His fingers found places to nudge on his gun belt.
“Can we let everyone get back to their families now?”
Sheriff Wilson turned from Ted McGlothlin to Maggie. His head cocked to one side and he nodded at her with a sympathetic grin.
“I think so,” said Ted, “and get ourselves out of this cold, right?”
They all chuckled and shook hands as Maggie took an audible deep breath and folded her arms across her chest.
“I told you you didn’t need to be out here.”
Everyone paused and stared.
She needled it once more on the walk up the driveway, insistent she would have preferred to face them alone.
He stopped in his tracks and turned. Brake lights smeared his rage like red blood across his face. Then, his gaze passed from her eyes to the sheriff’s hat tip just over her shoulder. Just like that, he transformed into a shiny veneer of his most earnest and indebted self. He held up his hand, then dropped his sights back on Maggie. Back to red. Then, he turned his back and continued marching to the door.
Maggie stuffed her hands into her pockets and rolled her eyes. She remained perched in the gravel until the sound of the door opened and slammed shut. She exhaled and stepped into the yard, looking up at the sky.
How many kids on Christmas morning without their fathers … or mothers, she reminded herself, thinking she saw one or two female officers running around … all because of her?
Her stomach dropped. It wasn’t the first time that day.
Ted was standing at the dining room table when she walked inside, and she jumped slightly when the shadow of him came into recognition.
“’I told you to get a coat’?”
Is that what she’d said on the driveway? Maggie opened her mouth to speak his name, but his hand flew up.
“You were the reason everyone was out there today, wasting their time, on a holiday,” he said with halting emphasis.
He gripped the dining room chair, pushing it into the rug. Maggie could see the fibers bunching at the bottom of one leg, buckling under the pressure.
“I’ve tried. I really have. I’ve tried to be patient. Enough is enough.”
There was a finality in his voice that drew her attention. For the first time in their marriage, she felt afraid as he released the chair and moved toward her.
“We’re going to bed,” he said, raising and lowering his head with his eyes locked onto hers. She hesitated to move, searching his eyes instead.
Ted’s hand came around behind her. It hovered open for as long as he could stomach the disrespect boiling in his stomach. Then, it found her arm and guided her toward their bedroom.
That night, she dreamed he opened a door for her. Not Ted. Or was it? She couldn’t be for sure. Just as Ted’s dark figure had stood in front of her before she caught sight on the night before, Maggie had no time to let her eyes adjust. They couldn’t lay on him long enough.
Neither could she know if she was about to step through the open doorway. She woke before she’d seen herself making the decision. And she didn’t have the knowing a person gets when they didn’t need to see the outcome – it simply comes to them.
The next morning, Maggie was wondering if it might come as she drank her coffee and peered out the kitchen window.
Ted walked in, and she instinctually moved out of his way as he stepped toward the coffee pot.
“Morning,” he said with forced politeness.
She echoed in response, but it was a weak croak compared to his strong, assertive tone. He looked down one cheek at her with his eyebrows raised and snorted his disapproval at her. Lingering, open-faced disappointment lay bare as Maggie let her eyes go cold and teased them away from him. Ted’s eyebrows drew together, and he turned away from her.
“Well, I’m gone. Hope you have a productive day.”
“You too,” she said.