One True Love Read Free

Serena Hollingsworth. Maggie had never heard Keith mention a woman by that name, but the letter had suggested a personal relationship.
    Serena had asked why Keith hadn’t contacted her as promised. She said she’d been travelling but had checked her messages faithfully, hoping to hear from him.
    The first thought that came into Maggie’s mind was that her husband had had an affair. Then it occurred to her that Keith had been dead for almost a year and this woman knew nothing about it. How close could they have been? Maggie had thrown the card away, then dug it out of the wastebasket and stuck it in her “to do” pile, which never seemed to get done. She’d decided to simply notify the woman of Keith’s death, only she hadn’t gotten around to it. She hadn’t wanted to confront the fact that Keith had had a friendship with a woman she knew nothing about. For the first time, she wondered what else she’d known nothing about. The memory of her loving husband, the foundation of her solid marriage, seemed suddenly unstable.
    The thought once again sent adrenaline pulsing through her veins. In the past two weeks, she’d suffered several anxious moments when she felt her heart racing over something illogical, silly almost. She’d become afraid of so many things. She’d drive down the street and imagine how easily a car could swerve and hit her head-on. She’d get on an elevator and picture herself plunging to the basement in the express ride from hell.
    Yesterday she had let Dylan take a bus trip to the zoo and had worried all day that the bus would get in an accident, that Dylan would get lost, or the zoo would suddenly become the target of a terrorist attack.
    Maggie was losing control. She felt as if her fingers were clinging to the edge of a cliff that was crumbling beneath her hand. The kids were suffering, too, and she couldn’t help them. She yelled at them unnecessarily, making her fears their fears. By bedtime, all four of them were usually in tears. She wasn’t being fair to them, and she had to do something soon before she destroyed what was left of her family.
    “Mom, can we have a snack?” Roxy yelled up the stairs.
    “I’m on the phone,” Maggie replied, walking around in circles, searching for a quiet place to sit. Her room was a mess, with a pile of laundry on the bed, waiting to be sorted. The desk in the hall alcove was covered with bills she had yet to pay. Just looking at all those envelopes made her anxiety level rise yet again.
    Maggie jumped to one side of the hall as Dylan and their golden retriever, Sally, ran up the stairs.
    “Sally found a dead bird in the backyard,” Dylan said with excitement. The dog barked in delight. “Do you want to see it? It’s in the kitchen.”
    “No. I’m on the phone.” Maggie sighed as Mary Bea marched out of her room with her backpack in one hand and her cherished blanket in the other. Her face was streaked with tears, her blond curls a mass of tangles. “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”
    “I’m running away unless you say you’re sorry for yelling at me.”
    “I’m on the phone,” Maggie replied for the third time. “And if anyone is going to run away from home, it will be me.”
    “Mom, we’re starving,” Roxy complained from the bottom of the stairs.
    “I’m on the phone,” Maggie yelled back. “Can’t anyone see I’m on the phone? Do you think this receiver is an earring?”
    Dylan and Mary Bea looked at her in bewilderment, then Mary Bea started to cry. “You’re yelling again,” she accused.
    Maggie opened the door to the hall closet and walked inside, shutting herself in among the coats, the umbrellas and the tennis rackets that hadn’t been used in years. She sat down on the upturned end of a suitcase she’d meant to store in the basement, but like so many things in her life, it had gone undone.
    “Mom, why are you in the closet?” Dylan asked.
    “Are you playing hide-and-seek?” Mary Bea asked