Six Seconds

Maggie Conlin left her house believing a lie.

She believed life was normal again. She believed that the trouble preying on her family had passed, that Logan, her nine-year-old son, had come to terms with the toll Iraq had taken on them.

But the truth niggled at Maggie as she drove to work.

Their scars—the invisible ones—had not healed.

This morning, when she’d stood with Logan waiting for the school bus, he was uneasy.

“You love Dad, right, Mom?”

“Absolutely. With all my heart.”

Logan looked at the ground and kicked a pebble.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I worry that something bad is going to happen. Like you might get a divorce.”

Maggie clasped his shoulders. “No one’s getting divorced. It’s okay to be confused. It hasn’t been easy these past few months since Daddy got home. But the worst is over now, right?”

Logan nodded.

“Daddy and I will always be right here, together in this house. Always. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Remember, I’m picking you up after school today for your swim class. So don’t get on the bus.”

“Okay. Love you, Mom.”

Logan hugged her so hard it hurt. Then he ran to his bus, waved and smiled from the window before he vanished.

Maggie reflected on his worries as she drove through Blue Rose Creek, a city of a hundred thousand near Riverside County, on her way to the Liberty Valley Promenade Mall. She parked her Ford Focus and clocked in at Stobel and Chadwick, where she was a senior associate bookseller.

Her morning went fast as she called customers telling them orders had arrived, helped others find titles, suggested gift books and restocked bestsellers. As busy as she was, Maggie could not escape the truth. Her family had been fractured by events no one could control.

Her husband, Jake, was a trucker. In recent years, his rig had kept breaking down, and the bills piled up. It was bad. To help, he took a contract job driving in Iraq. High-paying, but dangerous. Maggie didn’t want him to go. But they needed the money.

When he came home a few months ago, he was a changed man. He fell into long, dark moods, grew mistrustful, paranoid and had unexplained outbursts. Something had happened to him in Iraq but he refused to talk about it, refused to get help.

Was it all behind them?

Their debts were cleared, they’d put money in the bank. Jake had good long-haul driving jobs and seemed to have settled down, leaving Maggie to believe that maybe, just maybe, the worst was over.

“Call for you, Maggie,” came the voice over the P. A. system. She took it at the kiosk near the art history books.

“Maggie Conlin. May I help you?”

“It’s me.”

“Jake? Where are you?”

“Baltimore. Are you working all day today?”

“Yes. When do you expect to get home?”

“I’ll be back in California by the weekend. How’s Logan?”

“He misses you.”

“I miss him, too. Big-time. I’ll take care of things when I get home.”

“I miss you, too, Jake.”

“Listen, I’ve got to go.”

“I love you.”

He didn’t respond, and in the long-distance silence, Maggie knew that Jake still clung to the untruth that she’d cheated on him while he was in Iraq. Standing there at the kiosk of a suburban bookstore, she ached for the man she fell in love with to return to her. Ached to have their lives back. “I love you and I miss you, Jake.”

“I’ve got to go.”

Twice that afternoon, Maggie stole away to the store’s restroom, where she sat in a stall, pressing tissue to her eyes.

After work, Maggie made good time with the traffic on her way to Logan’s school. The last buses were lumbering off when she arrived.

Maggie signed in at the main office then went to the classroom designated for pickups. Eloise Pearce, the teacher in charge, had two boys and two girls waiting with her. Logan was not among them. Maybe he was in the washroom?

“Mrs. Conlin?” Eloise smiled. “Goodness, why are you here? Logan’s gone.”

“He’s gone? What do you mean, he’s gone?”

“He got picked up earlier today.”

“No, that’s wrong!”

Eloise said Logan’s sign-out was done that morning at the main office. Maggie hurried back there and smacked the counter bell loud enough for a secretary and Terry Martens, the vice-principal, to emerge.

“Where is my son? Where is Logan Conlin?”

“Mrs. Conlin.” The vice-principal slid the day’s sign-out book to Maggie. “Mr. Conlin picked up Logan this morning.”

“But Jake’s in Baltimore. I spoke to him on the phone a few hours ago.”

Terry Martens and the secretary traded glances.

“He was here this morning, Mrs. Conlin,” the vice-principal said. “He said something unexpected had come up and you couldn’t make it to the school.”