The Gift (27 page)

She pulled the magazine out and looked closely at the
cover. Justin came back into the room with the tea, and saw that she was
looking at the photo of herself and Zak.

“That was taken when I was happy,” she said and started
to cry.

Justin put the tea down on a table, and put his arms
around her.

“Oh Maggie, please don’t say that. It breaks my heart,”
he said.

“Justin, I can barely see what your face looks like. I
can barely see the faces of my children. No one seems to understand how difficult
it is to not be able to see. Some mornings I wake up and I don’t even want to
be alive.”

Justin held Maggie even tighter.

“Maggie, have you told Zak this?”

“No, he’s already incredibly stressed out having to take
care of the kids and me.”

“Maggie, maybe you should see a therapist, you sound
kind of depressed.”

“I don’t want Zak to know that I’m having problems.”

“Would you go if I make an appointment for you?”  Justin
asked. “I think you need some help.”

Justin stroked Maggie’s hair for a couple minutes until
she stopped crying.

“Yes, I’ll go if you take me.”

“O.k. I’ll ask around and try to find someone good and
then I’ll try to get you an appointment right away.”

Maggie was relieved that Justin offered to help her. She
hadn’t been able to tell Zak that some mornings she felt like everyone would be
better off if she wasn’t around. She felt like an incredible burden to him and
her children. She was grateful that she had the kind of relationship with
Justin that she could tell him anything.

The next afternoon, Justin called Maggie to tell her
that he had arranged for her to see a psychiatrist in the next town. The doctor
thought that she should come in to see him right away and he had an opening the
next day. Justin volunteered to come out and take her to the appointment.
Maggie thanked him and said she would go, but she didn’t want Zak to know about
it. Justin wasn’t happy about that and said that he hoped that she would tell
Zak eventually, but in the meantime he would take her to her appointments.

The next day, Justin drove her over to the
psychiatrist’s house. He helped her find the office which was on the first
floor of the house and then said he would be back in 45 minutes to get her.
When he returned to get Maggie, her face was covered with tears. The
psychiatrist told Justin that he thought that she needed to come in twice a
week for a while. He had also written her a prescription for valium to help her
with her anxiety and sleep problems. Justin drove Maggie to the pharmacy to get
her prescription filled and then she asked if they could go back to his place
for a while. She didn’t want to go home right away because Zak would be able to
tell that she was upset.

Justin drove her back to his apartment and then made
some tea for her while she looked though his albums again,

“Maggie, what is it that makes you happy?”

“My children,” she said and then laughed for a moment. “Well,
they mostly make me happy.” She felt that she could admit to him that sometimes
she found it difficult being with her children.

“My music makes me happy,” she said.

“Have you been playing?” he asked her.

“Not really, I haven’t really been in the mood.”

“Why don’t we play a little now,” he said.  “You can
play my acoustic guitar.”

“I’m not really very good at it. I only know a few chords.”

“That’s o.k. Maggie. We can just play some simple songs
that we can sing together.”

He pulled his Taylor guitar out of its case, tuned it up
and handed it to her. Then he pulled out his Fender bass and plugged it into
his amp.

“Why don’t we play ‘I Still Miss Someone’. The chords
are pretty simple to that.”

 Maggie felt pretty rusty playing guitar at first, but
started to feel more comfortable after playing the song a few times. Justin
sang harmony with her on the chorus, and she realized that they sounded good
together. They tried playing a couple other songs. Justin showed Maggie some
bar chords that she didn’t know. She found she was enjoying learning to play
the guitar and decided that she should have done this a long time ago.

They played together for an hour, and then Maggie told
Justin that she was ready to go home. As they were driving back, Justin
suggested that maybe she should call Jim and Carole to see if they wanted to
come over and play sometime. He knew that they had been concerned about her and
would be happy to help her start playing again. Justin dropped Maggie off at
the house and she kissed him on the cheek, feeling ready to return to her
husband and children.

.

Chapter 28

Justin started taking Maggie out two afternoons
a week. Maggie explained to Zak that she needed to get away from Gabriel and
Isabel sometimes. She found it difficult to handle their constant noise and
demands, and needed to go somewhere quiet. Zak thought that he needed to go
somewhere quiet once in a while too, but didn’t say anything. He remembered
that the doctor had said that Maggie might feel irritable and overwhelmed
sometimes and he guessed that this was what was going on with her.

Justin would take her to her therapist appointment and
then afterwards they would play music for a couple hours or sometimes he would
take her out shopping. One week she had been particularly distressed. She had
noticed that her hair was getting thin and had called her doctor about it. He
told her that it might have started falling out because of the stress on her
body from being hit by the lightning.

Maggie’s one vanity was her beautiful long, blonde hair.
She was upset and embarrassed that she was losing her hair. She didn’t want to
tell Justin about it, but finally he dragged it out of her. He told her that he
couldn’t really tell if her hair was thinner, but offered to take her to the
store so that she could buy some hats or scarves. He took her to a department
store in Lafayette and they had fun looking for hats together. Justin kept
pulling out the most outrageous hats that he could find to make her laugh.
Finally, Maggie picked out a gray fedora with a zebra striped headband and a
black bowler. They were a little funkier than what Maggie normally wore, but
Justin convinced her that they looked cute on her.

Justin started noticing that gradually Maggie seemed
less depressed. He thought that the therapy seemed to be helping her, she
wasn’t crying anymore when he picked her up from her appointment. He also
thought she enjoyed going out shopping or to restaurants without her children.
But most of all, Maggie seemed to enjoy playing music again. For a few weeks
she just played with him at his apartment, but then she invited Jim and Carole
to join them at her house to play. Sometimes Maggie would play guitar, and
sometimes Zak would play guitar and then she would play her mandolin which had
been successfully repaired.

One day, Maggie got a phone call from Abbie who asked
her how she was feeling. Maggie told her that she was doing much better and had
started playing again.

“I’m happy to hear that Maggie. A lot of people have
been pulling for you. In fact, the sales of your album went up a lot after the
publicity about your accident. Jerry and I were wondering if you might want to
record another album again at some point. We don’t want you to feel any
pressure about this, only if you feel up to it.”

“I don’t know Abbie, I’ll think about it.”

“O.k., no problem Maggie. Just get better.”

The next time the band practiced at her house, Maggie
mentioned that Abbie was interested in having them record another album.
Everyone seemed excited about the idea, everyone but Maggie. She told them that
she wasn’t sure if she was up to the demands of recording again. She could tell
that Jim and Carole were disappointed, so she told them that she just needed a
little more time. After they went home, she confessed to Zak and Justin that
she didn’t feel ready to take on something so challenging, she needed more time
to recover without any stress.

The next afternoon, Maggie asked Justin to take her to
his apartment so they could talk. When they got there, Maggie told him that she
wasn’t sure that she wanted to play professionally again. At the moment, she
just wanted to play for fun. Justin told her that she shouldn’t feel pressured
into doing something that she didn’t want to do. Maggie felt relieved, she had
been feeling that everyone expected her to repeat the success of her last
record. She was having enough problems trying to get by every day, let alone
having to produce a best-selling record again.

The pressure just increased when several weeks later,
Maggie got a call from Abbie letting her know that her record had been
nominated for two Grammy awards, one for best country instrumental for the fiddle
tune “Elzic’s Farewell” and also for best country duet for her song with Tucker
Travis. The Bayou Blasters had been nominated too in the best blues album
category. Abbie asked Maggie if she and Zak would consider doing a follow-up
interview with
Rolling Stone
regarding their nominations, but Maggie
told her that she wasn’t feeling up to it. Her silence had the unintended
consequence of just increasing everyone’s interest in her and her music. Word
got out that Maggie was having a difficult time recovering from her accident,
which increased sympathy for her in the music world.

The day after Maggie talked to Abbie, she got a call
from Tucker Travis.

“Hey partner,” he said. “Are you excited about our
Grammy nomination?”

“Of course, Tucker. I’m excited for Zak too. The Bayou
Blasters were also nominated for a Grammy.”

“I heard. Please congratulate him for me. How are you
feeling, darlin’?”

“I’ve started playing again, but I’m trying to keep
things low key.”

“Well, I’m working on a new album and I was wondering if
you were feeling well enough to come to Nashville to help me write a song for
it and maybe record some vocals.”

 “Give me a couple days to think about it, Tucker. I’m
not quite sure if I’m ready to go back into the recording studio yet.”

Maggie called up Justin the next day and asked him if he
would take her out to do some Christmas shopping so she could get some presents
for Zak and the children. As they were driving into Lafayette, Maggie told
Justin that Tucker wanted her to come to Nashville to do some recording with
him.

“I’m not sure how I feel about it, Justin. I don’t want
to drag Zak and the kids along with me, but I don’t think I could manage going
by myself.”

“Do you want to go, Maggie?” Justin asked her.

“Well, I do feel indebted to Tucker for helping me with
my album. I would like to return the favor.”

“I’d be happy to go with you if you want,” he said. “It
would probably only take a couple days.”

“I would appreciate it,” she said. “Tucker invited me to
stay at his place after Christmas. Hopefully it won’t take that long.”

So Maggie called Tucker back and told him that she and
Justin would fly to Nashville the week after Christmas. She had mixed feelings
about the project, but it would only be one song and maybe some vocals. Maybe
it would help her determine whether she was ready to start working on her own
music again.

Maggie was looking forward to a quiet Christmas with Zak
and her children. Justin had helped her pick out some presents while they were
shopping in Lafayette so she had some surprises for her family, books and
stuffed animals for Isabel and a little toy guitar for Gabriel. She picked out
some records for Zak and a fancy shirt that he could wear while he was
performing. She bought a shirt for Justin also to thank him for all his
kindness over the last five months.

Maggie decided on Christmas Eve that she wanted to make
the Swedish Spritz cookies that had been her grandmother’s special recipe. Her
mother had made them every Christmas and Maggie felt that Christmas wouldn’t be
the same without them. She asked Zak if he would help her, so they both went
into the kitchen and Zak helped her measure the ingredients into a bowl and
stir the dough. Zak persuaded her to add a little extra almond extract and then
he helped her put the dough into a cookie press so that she could press the
cookies out onto the aluminum sheets. The final step was to sprinkle colored
sugar on the cookies before they put them in the oven to bake. They had just
finished baking several batches of cookies, when they heard a knock on the back
door.

Zak went to answer it, and saw that it was Justin with a
cardboard box in his hands. Zak opened the door to let him in and Maggie
invited him to come in for some eggnog and cookies. Justin came in and kissed
Maggie on the cheek and told her that she should sit in the living room so that
he could give her his Christmas present. Maggie could hear a little scratching
noise coming from the cardboard box, so she went into the living room and sat
down on the couch with great anticipation. Justin told her to close her eyes,
and when she did she felt something being placed in her lap. Zak laughed and
when Maggie opened her eyes she saw that her present was a black and white
kitten.

“I thought that this would be a good present for all of
you,” Justin said. “I know that Maggie likes cats, and I’m sure Gabe and Belle
will enjoy the kitten too.”

“Just what we need, Justin,” Zak laughed. “Especially
since I think mice have been getting into the studio.”

“Well, I didn’t know that. I just thought that Maggie
would enjoy having a kitten.”

Maggie held the cat against her and enjoyed feeling its
soft fur. It mewed a little, so she let it go and it started climbing over her
and exploring the couch. Then it jumped down on the floor and ran over to the
presents under the tree and started biting on the bows. Justin laughed and
retrieved it for Maggie and placed it back in her lap.