Read Online More Than Allies by Sandra Scofield - Free Book Online

from L.A. tomorrow. The house has this thirty-dollar-a-yard carpet they’ll have to pay someone to vacuum every other day.” Inevitably, she started to cry.
    Maggie whispered, in return. “Polly’s new baby is a girl. She heard this morning. They’re bringing her Wednesday. A baby with special needs. What can that mean? All babies have special needs. Sometimes they don’t go away. What about Jay? I can’t believe the way he looks at me. What about Stevie? Does Polly hope we’ll disappear? Is all this so I’ll have to go to Texas?”
    Gretchen sighed noisily. “He tells me, ‘you knew it all along.’ I hate him when he says that. We’ve been lovers for three months. Okay I knew, like I know about the ozone layer. Like I know about taxes. It threatens, but it’s abstract. I saw her in Retribution . It wasn’t great, but she’s a movie star. What does she want with Blake? Why does she want a house in Lupine?”
    Maggie said, “I didn’t really think he’d go without me. Why does he want to live so far away from home? Doesn’t he understand that kids need family? They talk funny in Texas. A letter’s not enough, not when he’s not even sorry about leaving. What does he think marriage is?”
    â€œIf anyone said to me the whole thing is just sex, I’d bust them in their loud mouth. Bust her , I guess.”
    â€œIt’s a lot more than sex. It’s everything.” Finally, they were talking about the same thing.
    â€œMo thought you’d go, you know. Right up to the last minute. So did I. It was double-dare. You should go, what’s here?”
    Maggie switched off the light. Stars twinkled on the ceiling. She and Gretchen had put them there their senior year in high school, using a paper stencil. She could make out Cassiopeia.
    Maybe they would talk tomorrow. She moved close to Gretchen. “Blake has a weak chin,” she said.
    Gretchen snickered. “He’s pathetic. I’m pathetic.”
    â€œJoin the club,” Maggie said.

Gretchen moaned and tossed so, Maggie moved out to her own bed in the cottage sometime in the night. Mo woke her at seven.
    â€œI worried about Stevie all night,” he said.
    â€œShe’s fine.” Maggie was still sleepy, and glad the call wasn’t one of the schools. “We’re all still in bed,” she said, though she didn’t know whether her children were awake or not.
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay.”
    â€œI get an early start, while it’s cool. The mornings are pretty.”
    â€œI’m keeping Jay home today. We’ll do something. He seems so moody, I thought maybe he’d talk to me.”
    â€œI feel torn in half, Maggie. I want to come home, it’s crazy being away from you. But the job is great. Austin’s great.”
    â€œI don’t want to do this now. I’m not all the way awake.”
    â€œYeah. Well.” Both of them sour again. But Mo said, “I’m going to come up sometime in the summer. If you don’t come here, I mean.”
    â€œJay misses you a lot.”
    â€œAnd we’ll figure it out then.”
    â€œIf it can be figured out.” Her same old stubbornness was stiffening her neck. “This is home, Mo. This is where we live.” Why couldn’t he understand?
    â€œI’m not going to argue on the phone.”
    â€œWhat’s to argue about?”
    â€œOnly our lives. All four of us.”
    â€œI’m going back to sleep.”
    â€œMaggie. Don’t hang up mad.”
    â€œWhat’s the use, Mo?”
    â€œThe use is only everything. The use is we have two kids and I love you .”
    Maggie gulped. “I love you too,” she said, but very quietly. She hung up before he could make too much of it.
    Jay stumbled out to eat cereal about nine, then went back to bed. Maggie looked to Polly for a hint of what to do with him, but